Rhonda Brunett's blog

When my child turned three years old, he was accepted into a Special Education Pre-school Program in District 93.

The results of this assessment showed that at three years of age my child was 18 months developmentally.

The IEP team included a Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist and a Special Education Teacher.

They distributed informational packets for the parents to take home and read.

The team suggested working on these exercise’s at home everyday.

David's recent blog entry inspired me to post this excerpt a letter that my husband wrote for my son's journal, From Autism To All-Star.

I hope it encourages Fathers who read this to become more involved with their children's lives.

2004 From Dad to Jordan

I knew long before you were born that you’d be special. It took mom and me so long to conceive you that when you finally arrived I .thought I would be ready for anything. Little did I know.

Autism One Social Network is a group of individuals from all walks of life that are available to assist especially in times of crisis situations.
Since we cannot physically be with you in times of a crisis, in collaborating with others, we have put together a few ideas to implement when and if times arise when you need HELP and have nobody to turn to!
Autism can absolutely push a parent to the brink of insanity we have seen that on the news and most of us parents have been there more often than we care to admit!
I received a telephone call from a distraught parent who lives out of state.

Establishing a communication protocol between family members, educators and therapists into the beginning of the child’s school year and thought-out his or her education is vital.
Immediate communication will assist in bridging the gap between the parents at home and teachers in the classroom.
Implementing this communication system will help to avoid any panic or crisis situations, it will help take the guess work out of getting to know the child through trail and error.

Every parent who has a child with the diagnosis of autism endures hair raising temper tantrums and long sleepless night’s these are daily occurrences for most of us. Feelings of isolation and depression are the norm, and stress is 24/7. I want to share with you what saved my sanity.
Yoga, yes you heard me right the practice of yoga.
I know what you’re thinking, I have no time or you cannot get a babysitter because I said that too! However, there came one point where I knew from the pit of my soul that I must make the time to save my own sanity.

Article By: Rhonda Brunett
Written For: The Autism Perspective Magazine.
From Autism To All-star, From A Parents Perspective

This past Christmas while we were visiting some close friends, their oldest son Ben was in the process of researching colleges and had narrowed his search down to three choices. Ben is brilliant and one of his three choices was Yale but that is beside the point. He had done his homework and was so informed on each school, it was very impressive.
Driving home that evening, I started to think about Ben’s conversation. I would love see Jordan attain that social skill. I would love to see Jordan talk amongst his peers about his college choices.

In Jordan's freshman year of high school due to extreme frustration with his math teacher, I ended up writing a letter to the Principle and copied the Superintendent! High school has been a challenge that's for sure, it's way different than dealing with middle school teachers. I find I have to scream to be heard at the high school level in middle school I only had to whisper. Jordan's Sophomore year wasn't much better, I won't back down, and you shouldn't back down either what's that slogan? Just bring it!

Dear Mr. Principle,
Dear Mr. Superintendant,

Rhonda's 16 year old son who has Autism.

“I Am”
By: Jordan Brunett

I am smart and athletic
I wonder if I will accomplish my dreams
I can hear a baseball scream into the bleachers
I see a baseball smiling at me
I want to go to college
I am smart and athletic

I pretend to be a world famous announcer
I feel excited about baseball
I touch a baseball bat

Challenging areas for my child Jordan:
In sharing this IEP information, my hope is to help out mom's andvery educator's.
Regular Education Teachers don't have very much information provided to them on autism,they really need more in-service in this area! I teach teachers how to instruct my child...
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Information provided by: Speech teacher Kacey Newman.
1. Higher level language tasks including how and why questions, explaining reasons why and inferring.
2. Rote memory is a skill Jordan excels at, he greatly struggled with recalling sentences that are presented to him verbally.