I hear a wide variety of things on kids with PWS and social skills. Some fall into the autism category so that sort of takes the for front in the social skill area. Some are huggers, some have very poor communication skills so that hampers their abilities, food issues keeping them from attending social events, cognitive delay and a whole host of other little things that add up to having trouble making and hanging onto true friendships.
That is why I am so excited to say, the biggest jump this summer has been social skills, particularly with her peers. She has been talking the ears off of adults for quite some time now, but lately she has done a much better job of truly conversing and playing with her peers. One example is that last year when she went out to the playground at school, she usually chose to chat with the teachers over playing with the kids. When she played it was mostly next to friends not really with them. I stopped by school and she was swinging with a friend and challenging her to see who could go higher. Then she ran off to the slides and joined in follow the leader and finally jumped into a big car thing with a new girl and the two of them were talking and laughing together.
That is why I am so excited to say, the biggest jump this summer has been social skills, particularly with her peers. She has been talking the ears off of adults for quite some time now, but lately she has done a much better job of truly conversing and playing with her peers. One example is that last year when she went out to the playground at school, she usually chose to chat with the teachers over playing with the kids. When she played it was mostly next to friends not really with them. I stopped by school and she was swinging with a friend and challenging her to see who could go higher. Then she ran off to the slides and joined in follow the leader and finally jumped into a big car thing with a new girl and the two of them were talking and laughing together.
I was amazed as AJ was watching some show, that she started naming letters. She pretty much nailed them all and I had not touched the topic all summer. Tonight as we were riding bikes she sang songs. She used to sing the first line or two and then sing that over and over. She sang several songs all the way through remembering quite a bit of each song.
I heard the comment, "she is really smart" from a lot of different people lately. Some know of her PWS some do not.
She made up a game when she was playing with Mckenna. It was complex and fun and the ideas were all hers. Mckenna was very impressed.
She loves numbers and is constantly counting and comparing.
She played at a bouncy place with lots of inflatable toys today. She made 2 friends and they all ran around in a little pack. She kept up physically, verbally and was truly one of the pack... We were there for 2 hours and the girls were part of a birthday party we must have crashed so there were lots of other kids there they knew. They wanted to play with Ayden Jane.
So great!!!!! :)
ReplyDeleteDean relates better to adults than to other kids, although he does *like* other kids. I think a lot of it is his difficulties with speech. I'm hoping preschool will help with this!
Preschool has been great for Ayden Jane. She loves the activity and other kids. She is easily understood now (if you have patience) that she can communicate. Before that, though, the other kids were amazing with how they just found ways to communicate with her. I think they somehow knew that she was able to understand them so they were patient with her 'responses'.
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