Oliver's Year in a Nutshell

OK, much to cover since I have been busy for the past year. I'll try to be brief... We stopped all special therapies for Oliver. We tried different ones over the past year and none showed enough improvement to make it worth his time and screaming. We no longer know if Oliver has Aspergers or just Autism. Either way he seems to be higher functioning. If it was Aspergers he should be talking pretty well by now and that's not quite the situation. He attended a special preschool and had some ups and downs, but overall seemed to enjoy it. It was 2 1/2 hrs 4 times/week.

 Oliver has improved a lot academically. He's in his 2nd year of school and I guess you could consider him the Valedictorian of his class. It's even to the point that they've reevaluated him and decided he should move to a higher functioning class in January. There they will work on his social skills. He knows his numbers and letters really well and completes all the tasks his teachers give him. So they feel he's not being challenged enough anymore. We're so proud of our little professor. He's even reading books. Check it out here http://youtu.be/dDbixxIulZU Whether he's memorizing the words or really reading with understanding, I'm not sure, but it's impressive nonetheless. We have noticed his memory is pretty amazing. He gives me turn by turn directions through the neighborhood to our house. He remembers which tv episode is next in line on netflix hours after having watched an episode. There are many examples of his vast memory.

His speech is still lacking a bit, but he has started mimicking much more and even has some phrases he uses often (What do you want to watch?, Come back!). And very recently when prompted, you can get him to say a complete sentence on his own. It's usually something like, 'Daddy, can I have a cookie, please?' And he's great at saying thank you.

 FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! Oliver and Liam rarely get along. They fight a lot and often aim for the face. Ciara and I have been working hard on having them show a little more love. So when they're both crying after smacking each other we have them hug and kiss. Just the other day Liam hit Oliver for no reason and Oliver, on his own free will, went to Liam and said 'Hug' and hugged him, then said 'kiss' and kissed him. No fight or sucker punch for revenge. It was great and we hope to see more of that.

Here Oliver is making a snow angel. We never showed him how to do this. We think he learned from Mickey Mouse. He just laid down and started making one. There is too much to tell in just a single post. I hope to be more diligent in posting Oliver's amazing journey.