The Great Disney Do-Over—PTR for Aug 2010 - UPDATED 8/2 - Page 18 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Wow!!! Love your PTR. I am "mom" to two children with ASD( one is my DS almost 3, the other my niece 4 -my sister is very ill and I've taken over as caregiver for both of them)I am enjoying reading your plans as I am also staying at BC this year and our schedules are similar although we are driving down from PA.You will be in Disney about a month before me and I feel like maybe your experiences will give me a heads up as my son seems very similar to your daughter. Keep up the reports. It's nice to see someone else can relate!! Thank you. I can't wait for the next installment.
Thanks! Sounds like you have you hands full! Hope WDW will be a good escape for you!
Linny- (disclaimer: I must need to vent--not enough adult time this summer--this post got too long for the question!)
Thanks for reading my TR!
Sparky explained the IEP. It was interesting for me to read about the educational acronyms from other parts of the country. I thought IEP was the standard!
Good for you for getting intervention services for your DD early! It will make all the difference for her! My DD did not have her educational assessment until 3.5. Until 3, we just thought she was "shy", "independent", and just had more extreme temper tantrums than other toddlers. Besides, she was CRAZY smart, so that made it easy to not be concerned about the other things. She was also incredibly verbal, but once I started doing the research, I realized they were not "original speech productions" but instead parroting things. She has an amazing memory, so can learn and repeat anything. Again, this masked what was really going on. Those things also fed my "parent ego" as my 2 year old had a huge vocabulary of songs, poems, and movie lines, knew her letters and was starting to identify sight words.
At 3 is when her behavior started to stand out. I am a school counselor with an educational psychology background, so I was ot in denial once I recognized the patterns. We had the medical assessment first, and then approached the school for the educational assesment. We got her services for the 1 year of preschool prior to Kindergarten. She just finished kindergarten and has been doing great in school. The structure really fits for her. By the end of kindergarten, most of her "direct services" has been discontinued, but she continues to have classroom accommodations (like Sparky described) and she checks in weekly with her case manager and meets with the social worker for social skills training (individual and group). The big thing is that the case manager has a say in picking the classroom teacher. She can pick a teacher who is aware of the needs of ASD kids and can provide the STRUCTURE that she needs while also challenging her academically. I wish we could clone her kindergarten teacher!!! It has made a huge difference. Some skeptics in our life look at it as part of the normal development and think she would have gotten this far without the intervention. Impossible. Hannah responds to directions and instruction from "teachers" differently than us. It is not because she does not respect us, or we do not provide consequences (as I have heard from others--but if that were the whole story, all of our kids would have these issues and they certainly do not). In Hannah's world, everything is black and white. In fact, the "better" she was in school, the more challenges we have at home that night. We have seen this in particular when there was a change in structure at school (assembly, sub, afterschool activity, etc.). Its like it took all of her energy to do what she needed to do and she falls apart in her safe place (home).
I brought the IEP to WDW because I read it was good to bring papers/notes from school, Dr, psyche, etc. Of course, I did not plan to use them...But I thought I would need to "prove" something to get the GAC. I envision people trying to "scam" one...Not sure how far you got, but if you get to the last day, I describe how I approach the CM at MK Guest Relations desk...With the state I was in, I would not have needed any paper to prove that I (and my family) was having a tough time! LOL!
Wow, thanks. Sounds like Hannah is making great progress, EI has been awesome for us so far as well. I have no other children to compare to right now ( baby #2 due in Jan.) so I just go by how much she has chnaged in the past year.
I'm so excited to hear how you all make out this time around knowing what to expect. Sounds as if you needed to have those bumps in the road to lead you to this trip, which sounds like it's going to be the PERFECT "Do over". I can't wait for your trip to get here now
Just got our DME vouchers and Luggage tags...I was so excited! I kept looking through it, hoping to find some new piece of information. I showed them to some friends who were over that day--not as thrilling for them....I am so crazy!
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All caught up, Shelly! Great plans, hope you got you Disney planning alone time! My DH says I'm always on "alone time" when planning because I zone out into another world .
__________________
Read all about it in my TR, "Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!" Jill Phil. 4: 13
Ooooooo, I love Disney mail!! Lucky! Only 32 days left
I know how you feel with the craziness, I am the nut here who shows and tells everyone everything!
All caught up, Shelly! Great plans, hope you got you Disney planning alone time! My DH says I'm always on "alone time" when planning because I zone out into another world .
I hear you! heehee!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark
Ooooooo, I love Disney mail!! Lucky! Only 32 days left
I know how you feel with the craziness, I am the nut here who shows and tells everyone everything!
I doubt you are the only one here who could be described by some as "nuts"
I just got caught up on your plans! It sounds like you have planned really well and have taken a lot of time to think everything through. You will LOVE BC and it sounds like you have set up your plans (park & dining) to work well with your location. You might want to request a room close to the Epcot side of the resort. We watched Illuminations near England and were out of the park and back to the room in no time.
The only thing we didn't like about BC was transportation to/from MK, but you already have the cab in your plans, so that is great! When my parents wanted to take an afternoon break from the MK they had to wait an hour for a bus to BC. Hopefully that was a fluke!
There are a couple things I am not sure about though...
On your arrival day, you are heading over to HS to do TSMM in the afternoon...won't there be an incredibly long line there? Or, wait, does your GAC help you out with this? If your GAC works like a FP then you won't have a problem. There might still be a wait in the FP line in the afternoon though. Just keep that in mind.
The other thing is your MK day sounds LONG. Are you going in August? We were just there in June and the heat was killer. If you don't want to go all the way back to BC for a break on your MK day, you could take the monorail or the boat (this boat is open air & really nice) to the Poly and probably have fun "resting" in the lobby. You can get Dole Whips as a snack from Captain Cooks to cool off and the kids can search for hidden Mickeys. Just a thought! For us, even the air conditioned shows like Tiki Birds & Country Bear wouldn't work as a break for us--we needed to get out of the park during those peak sun hours.
As for Tokyo dining, we didn't eat here, but we ate at Teppan Edo. These two restaurants are in the same building, so I would assume the food is similar just without the "show." We thought our food was absolutely delicious! Would your son like teryaki chicken? I think most kids like this.
If you are going to do the evening EMH at MK, then I wouldn't rush to get over there...you will enjoy the park in the cooler evening temps so much more than during the afternoon sun.
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