Positive Reinforcements and a lot of Patience work!

My child was diagnosed with mild autism and speech delay when he was 2 years old.  He had limited verbal language at the time, numerous big tantrums, and sensory issues.  He received early intervention with the regional center for a year, and was transitioned at a public school district.  He is now 4-1/2 years old, and is being recommended for a general ed Kindergarten.

Through the years of therapy, positive reinforcements in school and at home has always been the KEY INGREDIENT of his every improvement.  He loved SKITTLES so much then.  And through SKITTLES, he learned to READ at age 3, WRITE and DRAW at age 4, and grossly increased his vocabularies every month.  He just kept completing his goals a month or two ahead of time.  In such a way that we had to do his IEP in less than a year for revisions.

At home, my husband and I used PATIENCE...a lot of it...to deal with our child's sensory issues.  We worked with him with prayers too.  We would talk to him a lot.   We would ask questions and would have him answer thru a variety of multiple choices.  It was like filling in the blanks so he'd learn to answer a specific question.  We would tell him everything, from "what to expect" to "consequences of his actions".  It was very tough at first, but we're reaping an excellent fruit now.

Looking at him now, no one would ever think he has disability issues.  People would look at him now as a LITTLE GENIUS in the making.  He still has some speech related issues due to his articulation, but school psychologist say that he has a better prognosis.