He wants to talk so bad, so why is no one helping him? He is 16 and nonverbal. His name is Parker and he is awesome. He is so smart and he is trying to talk. It is because of us and our constant participation in teaching him how to tell us what he wants while pairing it sometimes with his device.
In school, Parker gets 15 minutes of individual speech a week and 15 minutes of group speech a week and I don’t understand how that would get anyone to say a word.
The school’s therapists had me investigated for neglect and that is so far from the truth. The only way he is being neglected is from his school.
They took away occupational therapy in school and he regressed at home and is doing some really dumb thing that I can’t get him to stop. It has calmed down a lot because we figured out what it was but without his occupational therapy in school, I doubt it ever will.
They won’t listen to me and tell me to get in home services. I got a script from a doctor and they still denied him. He really needs that squeeze machine in school. I don’t have one here at home.
I do like his teacher this year. She is very nice to him and I don’t think she really believes what everyone at school is saying about us. I feel really bad that this year I missed his parent-teacher conference but it was around the time that I was away from home for my mother’s breast cancer treatments and when Parker got home from school he would empty his book bag and I would not see the papers that were in there. One day I found it under the bed. I had never missed a conference ever in any of the years Parker has been in school since the age of 3. So that may have made me look bad to her.
Parker used to have a vestibular III in our living room and a merry go round and a big barrel and a small trampoline. When we moved we brought the Bolster with us and put it in his bedroom. It was huge. But he had a very big room. When we moved again we couldn’t put it up. But that didn’t seem to bother him because we replaced it with the park. As he got older he could enjoy the park more.
I was told one day by a speech teacher in the Philadelphia school district that if my son didn’t talk by ten he never would. He already knows how but can’t seem to put it all together but is getting better at it daily.
Here are some fun videos we did.
Hope you enjoyed a look into Parkers world. Come back again soon and see some more of Parker’s progress.
Dawn Meyers
Author of raisingautism.me
Raising Autism 