On the Road to One's Fullest Potential

With every diagnosis comes lots of question mark.  Will he be able to ...?  What will —— diagnosis do to me wanting her to go to college; drive a car; get married; have children; ....? There are always a lot of unknowns.  To be honest, there are always unknowns even for a child without a diagnosis as as these charming little critters don't come with an instruction manual and they, heaven forbid, have free will!  Anyway, it became my mission after James received his diagnosis of Autism on 12/20/06, that I would give him the tools to help reach his fullest potential.

Fast forward 3161 days and here we are, in the present, well yesterday to be exact.  James has progressed amazingly well through ABA and is currently in the 6th grade so he is certainly moving in the right direction.  Now, independence in daily living is a completely different thing.  If you missed it, here is James's view of perfect independence Independence perfected, James style For those of you who missed the updates on Facebook, James forgot his morning medicine so needed to be reminded and only ate a small bowl of pretzels for breakfast, forgot to pee all day and at supper (Hometown Buffet) ate enough for 3 hungry adults.  The independence I am talking about is independent living skills; cleaning, so when his future friends come to visit his apartment they won't need to use the bathroom in the restaurant down the street. 
Just a little back information, I work as a case manager for adults with disabilities.  I have lost count on the number of them who are capable of completing many cleaning tasks independently or with verbal reminders of steps, who still have their parents or support workers do all of it.  Oh No. This was not going to happen for MY kid!  So, about a year ago, I started small with James wiping down the counter in his bathroom.  It doesn't matter "high or low functioning" (I really hate these labels but let's go with it); all kids with Autism can do something every week to contribute to keeping the house clean.  We all know that kids with Autism love repetition!  How many time have you had to suffer through (fill in the blank) movie or commercial just to keep you child from losing control?  We all have stories about this.  Well from the little seed of wiping down his bathroom counter a mighty tree of independence has grown!  Currently this is his list:

1. wipe down the bathroom counter
2. wipe the two sink basins in his bathroom and around the faucets 
3. cleaning the toilet inside and out
4. vacuum and wash his bedroom and bathroom floors (for those of you who might have missed this blog, here it is: vacuuming fun)
5. filling and starting washing machine
6. switching over the wash to the dryer (don't forget to do the lint trap in the dryer)
7. fold and put away clothes, hanging school shirts on hangers for the closet and matching socks (still working on the matching and rolling socks)
8. and this week, we added folding towels!

                                     Next week... helping to load and unload the dishwasher!!!