Familiar Place

Familiar Place

26-08-12

A while back, on a Sunday, my mum, Dong and I went to see a show at Melbourne Festival Hall. We received tickets from Early Intervention to see Circus Quirkus. I think the event was free and was hosted by Rotary Club of Preston.

The show was entertaining for ALL of us! It was full of laughter, gasps and clapping. It was a great day for all of us I'd say. It was one of those memories that I think I'll remember for a while.

The thing that stood out for me, was that the audience were all special in different ways. The environment in there was amazing. I'll give you an example.

While I was queuing up for the candy bar, there was a father and he's two kids (daughter and son). The daughter left to go back to her seat or something along those lines and the father and son were left to buy the food. When they went up to order, I found it strange that the son started ordering instead of the father. I realised that the father was partially deaf after he tapped his son on the shoulder and did what I recognised was sign language. I think he was disagreeing about something the son had ordered. The awesome lady that was serving them must have understood what he was signing because she signed something back and he nodded. And for some odd reason, that stayed with me for a while and will probably stay with me for a life time.

I think it was because I was in a place where there was no judgement. Everyone came from different situations. Everyone was unique. It was nice to be in that environment where I could meet people that were in a familiar situation like me. And to the two little kids that had to learn sign language just to communicate with their father, I wish you the very best of luck with your bright future ♥

I am internally grateful that I have the family and love and support that I have.

Toilet Training

TOILET TRAINING

Dong's Achievements

So recently, Dong has started to use the toilet and receive his 'toilet training'. After weeks and months or urging, he finally used the toilet for the first time.I think this is a great achievement for my brother especially now that he is 4 years old. Before then, we had regular visits from Catherine from Early Intervention Childhood who would always be giving advice and tips on what we as a family could do to help Dong improve.

This:

was given to us by her to help Dong to use the toilet. He now, in fact can go to the toilet himself without assistance from my parents which is a massive step forward. Though, he still has to be reminded to go, so for that, he still is reliant on nappie pants.

Research: Although no statistics have shown yet, but Autistic children tend to learn visually and therefore visual support would help them. Like the picture above, the pictures clearly support the instructions. Autistic children tend to struggle with knowing when it is time to go to the bathroom.

Anyway, I'm glad that Dong is starting to use the toilet. This means, more practice at his childcare as well. My mum have this phrase: "mim mim" which somehow translates into going to the toilet.