His first story

We had Michael's IEP meeting earlier this month. It was great to sit down with the therapists from the school district, look back at where he was a year ago and celebrate how far he has come. Really, it was amazing. I think we all teared up a bit.

One of the goals we put on his IEP for the upcoming year is story telling. Michael still does not convey information well. If I ever ask him about school I get silence. If the kids are playing together in a room and one (or both) of them suddenly start screaming, I can't get him to tell me what happened. It's frustrating.

The SLP with the school district recommended a way to teach him how to tell a story. She suggested taking a somewhat significant event (like getting the Christmas tree), breaking it down into small parts, photographing each part, and making a PECS sequence out of it. Then, over the next month, talk about each picture using statements like, "First we drove to the tree farm (picture of car), then we found our tree and cut it down (picture of us sawing the tree), then we took it home (picture of tree on car roof), then we put in the living room (picture), and then we decorated it (picture)."

This seemed like a brilliant idea, and I made a mental note to make up a sequence once the insanity of the holidays was over. But then, all on his own, Michael came up with his own Important Event worthy of sharing and has, over the past week or so, told it to several people without any prompting. I believe the story goes like this:

"Michael poop in bath tub."

"Throw poop on floor."

"Poop yucky."

I don't think we need pictures to illustrate this one.