As of now Connors preschool is at stalling point. We have an IFSP meeting coming up with his care team at Early On. Since his last evaluation, he fell into the Michigan Special Education guidelines because of his severe speech delay. They want to do one more evaluation to determine if he should be put into a special education classroom this fall or if he can be successful in a mainstream class room with possible assistance with a speech teacher or some other sort of assistance.

His ABA is going awesome, I think he is making huge leaps and I don’t think he would talking as well as he is now without it. He has a long way to go, to be where he should be but is making great progress and he wouldn’t be this far without it. Hard to believe this boy was non verbal about 4.5 months ago and didn’t even try or want to talk.

Also he is 100% day time potty trained 😏😏😏😏

When Connor was born Zach was so excited to be a big brother, he was over the moon! He went to my doctors appointment with me and would listen to the heart beat, one day he even asked if it was a puppy in my belly. He would even try to feed Connor in my belly by putting cherrios in my belly button. I knew when he was born they were gonna have a great bond.

Zach is so protective of Connor, don’t get me wrong, they do fight like all brothers do. When someone has something the other wants etc. Zach loves Connor more than anything and Connor looks up to him as well. Connor always wants to do what Zach is doing and as he’s getting older I see his interests changing to Zach’s interests. He doesn’t want to watch Daniel Tiger anymore he wants to watch Pokémon like his big brother does, though land before time or as Connor calls it “ducky or little foot” is still his number one favorite.

My favorite thing is watching them play and seeing connors eyes light up when he’s watching his brother. Zach goes to school in the morning and when Connor wakes up the first thing he says is “Zachy?” He’ll ask for Zach through out the day. Finally comes the time Zach comes home from school, Zach walks through the door and Connor sees him and runs up to him screaming “Zachy” as loud as he can and running him over with the biggest hug he gives.

Zach loves his so much too, the first thing he says when he seems him is “Connor how was your day.” One thing I won’t ever forget is when Zach was starting to notice his appointments and his lack of talking, he tells me “mom Connor needs me as his big brother, I’m gonna help him talk and say the things he can’t. I love him and I love him just the way he is. It makes him special”

A picture of Connor on his way to his Early On play group where he has a speech therapist and an occupational therapist 

Being a mom of 3 is hard work, especially when you are a mom of a very special little boy who happens to have Autism.

As of now Connor is almost 3 years old. It doesn’t seem very long ago when we were at his 18 month well child. My world turned upside down as his MCHAT scored him high risk for Autism. I don’t typically cry and part of me is really embarrassed that I cried, especially since I had a feeling anyway. He showed all of the signs, walking a tip toes, loss of speech/speech delay, hand flapping, spinning, lining things up, he did it all. I  think part of the reason was my lack of sleep, we just had a new baby so we had many sleepless nights.

The next step was his referral for more in depth autism testing and referred to early on for speech therapy, which wasn’t new to me, his older brother Zach who is 5 now just went through the same thing because of similar behaviors that can look like autism (sensory issues) but turns out Zach just had sensory processing disorder and ADHD. After the testing Connor was scored non verbal at the time with moderate to severe Autism. While we were doing the testing I put Connor in preschool as well as his speeches therapy in hopes of starting Connor with the best head start he could get.

Right before the testing and when he finally started his therapy I could slowly feel him slipping away, I felt like I was losing him. He was unhappy, he couldn’t talk or get his needs met. He zoned out and seemed to be in his own world. I felt like I lost my son, the baby who smiled, laughed said mama and dada all the time, was now a boy who didn’t speak, spun in circles over and over and preferred to line up his food instead of eat it.

So flash forward to now Connor has started ABA therapy (Applied Behaviorial Analysis), which has proven to give children with Autism so much improvement with their everyday struggles. He still has a significant speech delay for a boy his age but it is getting better everyday, at his last check to see where he is compared to children his age, his speech level is at about a 1 and 1/2 year old which before with his initial screen with his speech therapist at 18-2 years he had the speech language of a 6 month old baby.
We aren’t giving up and we are gonna keep working hard
Stay tuned for more updates on Connor.  ☺️