Busy Busy Busy

I have seriously been feeling so unsettled for not having updated this blog in quite a while. There has just been so many other things floating around that has caught more of my attention and just sorting through and prioritising all of these affairs took up so much of my time that I just lost focus on what to blog here!

Well let me first start on some updates on Raiyan:

1. We’ve shifted his bi-weekly sessions with Kerri from Tuesdays to Fridays now which means I can sit and watch! This is really valuable for me to have on top of being able to watch Jo every Friday afternoons because I can see more clearly how they carry out the programme and how they converse with Raiyan to elicit the appropriate responses from him. Plus it gives an added extra 15 minutes of Raiyan’s time with Kerri since before this, the last 15 minutes was the time when Kerri and I sat down to go through the bi-weekly programme together and obviously that’s not necessary anymore now that I watch the programme being carried out myself;

2. Because of the recent floodings and power cuts, Raiyan was away from school for almost a week (counting Chinese New Year on Monday). Needless to say, he was BORED, restless and was extra whiney last week. I felt really sorry for him but at the same time, he was really beginning to push our buttons with his persistent demands. After the number of times this has specifically happened in the past, I’ve grown to dread school holidays unless we use the time to take Raiyan somewhere to alleviate his boredom. But that’s just him! Other children I can imagine would probably love school holidays ( I know I did!) but with Raiyan, he becomes this cranky, stroppy brat instead! Not long after starting school last Tuesday, he’s back to his cheeky and lovable self again! Alhamdulillah!

3. Raiyan actually sat for his first ever test on Tuesday morning. It was a literacy test where he had to recount and write down a story consisting of about 6-7 sentences that was told to him beforehand and he would be tested on spelling, punctuation and the correct uses of capital (or as Raiyan calls it “catipal letters”) and small letters. I was pretty nervous about the idea of him doing an actual test and we all thought it would be useful if Ayesha (who has been up until last week shadowing him for 2 hours a day at school) be present as back up. She did prove to be handy as Raiyan at first refused to do it. As I’ve explained before, Raiyan finds trouble in following through his work not because he can’t do it but simply because he can’t be bothered to. I guess you could argue it being similar to simple laziness but as Jo explained it, if its an activity that he has already done before and does not see the point behind doing it again, he just won’t. That is quite understandable as one can imagine getting annoyed with having to do mundane things that one already knows how to do and at the same time see no purpose in doing it again. But unfortunately, that’s what the journey of learning in school is about isn’t it? He did in the end finish the paper upon some gentle coaxing from Ayesha. I was already so pleased to hear that and would be thankful to find out if he just passed but Jo actually said after scheming through the papers that she’s confident he can be in the top 3 of the class! Haha! Will confirm his “results” soon!”

4. Outside the therapy programme and apart from that 5 day no school period, Raiyan has really been a pure blessing at home these days. He obediently watches only 3*30 minutes of TV a day (which is a reward for eating his meals) and will switch the TV off everytime his 30 minute alarm on the timer rings. Now he actually needs reminders to watch his promised TV especially now that I don’t go back for lunch and without me there, it just doesn’t occur to him that he can ask the maids to switch it on (well I guess the routine is to ask me only- sigh, bless the need for routine sometimes huh!). He has easily been finishing his meals with minimum cajoling (well the TV reward was a lot of help!) . He’s been actively engaged with Alisha and Addin and looks to be genuinely in complete love with the both of them. Sure they still fight when not wanting to share things but which siblings don’t right?

But what’s best is his natural language getting better and better by the day. He still gets stuck when I ask him a specific and unfamiliar question as he finds it very difficult to answer as either he doesn’t understand my question completely OR he has this extreme fear of giving a wrong answer. Hopefully within time, he will learn that when talking about his feelings or stating an opinion, there never is a right or wrong answer right?

Anyway, to share some his adorable quips, just this morning in the car on the way to school he adorably exclaimed “Look! (Pointing to outside the car) I saw 2 dogs between the trees. Yes, I did, I did saw 2 dogs and they are between the trees” (he has this thing where he repeats everything he says at least twice. Not unlike his bibiran mana I think). Then Babah asked “Are they wet Raiyan, because of the rain?” And Raiyan replied “Yes they are. But it’s okaaayy. They just shake their faces and they will become dry again!”

Now moving on to the main reason as to why everything just seems to be all over the place at the moment. Learning Ladders Society has been closely working with the Special Education Unit of the Ministry of Education in organising a National Seminar on Behavioural Interventionand Autism to be held at the ICC NEXT WEEK on 2nd- 5th February 2009. To be honest my role hasn’t exactly been that monumental but yet I’m finding it so hard to catch a break! It’s probably due to the exasperated feel I have of not having my husband around as he is LITERALLY running all around town getting all sorts of things done. As to my role specifically, well I did appear briefly with Ms Jennie Ong of SEU, MOE on Rampai Pagi last Friday morning to promote word on the seminar (I was a last minute stand-in Linda was unable to make it due to problems related to powercuts. You can just imagine the distress of her kids right?). And for this Saturday and hopefully next Wednesday too, I will be contributing some articles on autism to Borneo Bulletin. Doesn’t seem much BUT it’s still something if you think of how I had to practise my script for the interview whilst having the cold AND how tricky and different writing a whole newspaper article is from blogging! With the blog sometimes I just allow myself to blab and ramble on but of course it doesn’t feel right to do the same in the case of the newspaper right? On that note, one of the articles is basically a summary of our family’s journey since Raiyan’s diagnosis and whilst writing it, I realised how much I’ve blocked out all of those troubling early years because it’s really just so heartbreaking. And then when I had to dig them all out for this article, I just did not expect how crushed I would feel right after. Looking back, those times were seriously a really rough period and remembering them just makes me appreciate where we are now so much more.

Oh, I digress. I was talking about the seminar and somehow it still went back to me! (hah! Maybe that’s why I’m not playing a bigger role in the whole organisation of the seminar!). Anyway, this National Seminar is going to be HUGE as we are expected to have almost 600 invited special needs teachers, teachers with autistic children and parents attending but what’s absolutely exhilarating for our society is that it’s ALL going to be about Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).

FINALLY, we hope others can start educating themselves on this amazing type of therapy that we do. FINALLY, we hope others can start seeing the amazing progress children on ABA can make. FINALLY, we hope others see and understand what I and the society have been yapping about all this time.

The expert consultant that will be speaking during this 4 day seminar is Dr Douglas Lee of Behavioural Solutions Inc who has a vast experience in the field of autism and behavioural intervention. He is also affiliated with British Columbia University which according to our Education Ministry is actually a very respectable university. Hence we are completely honoured and humbled that he is actually coming to Brunei to deliver various presentations during the 4 days.

During his stay, Learning Ladders parents are also each given the golden opportunity to have a 15 minute private consultation with him to ask him any question under the sun about our children and autism in general.

I will try to update as much as I can next week (I’d LOVE to do some kind of “live blogging” haha) but I can’t promise how “unbusy” I’ll be as I am manning the registration desk for the whole 4 days. But because I am absolutely excited for this golden chance of a learning experience, I hope I’d be as enthusiastic to share it here.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

PS.: Look out for the newspaper article! Hopefully it’ll be out tomorrow entitled “Our Life With Autism”