Autumn
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Autumn
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Autumn was born November 30,1994. We met her when she was just about 1year old. She was the Foster Child of a family in Orange County California. Autumn has Cerebral Palsy, she is about the sweetest child in the world. When Christy saw Autumn for the first time it was love at first sight. At the time Autumn's status was up in the air and she told her Foster Mom that if she ever is made eligible for adoption to let us know. Apparently her Foster Mom wasn't sure Christy was serious but she did stay in touch. We found out that there was trouble with a proposed adoption for Autumn by a family in Michigan. Christy flew into action and we managed to get our selves considered as prospective parents too. We succeeded primarily because the other family was out of state. We found out that the Department of Children's Services had just presumed that because of her medical condition no one would want to adopt her so they didn't even try. We brought her home on her birthday last year, it was a pretty neat day. She is in Special Ed. preschool which is a Head Start program in Palmdale, about 11 miles north of here. Her bus driver, Dan, comes to pick her up every day. She has her own personal aide, Jan, and her teacher is "Miss Ida", they put a lot of time and energy into her therapy. Autumn has been progressing slowly, she is unable to speak more than three words Ma, Da, and Ki for Calie, but she makes distinctive sounds for yes she can make her needs and wants known. she is very persistent. She is very small, about 25 pounds, which is a good thing because I carry her a lot. She is a lot stronger than you would think by looking at her, I attribute it to the fact that every movement for her is an isometric exercise. She is learning sign language and so are we. The prognosis for her speech is up in the air, her equilibrium is out of kilter but she appears to want to walk, she can stand by herself for a few seconds and that is encouraging. She crawls and sort of hops on her knees we call it ‘tiggering’. She can really scoot with her walker but it is a little cramped in the house for that so she does most of her walker walking at school. Autumn is in first grade at Meadowlark School... She is in Mrs. Raineri's Afternoon Kindergarten class. Autumn appears to be thriving there, she rarely uses her walker any more, only for going long distances like the cafeteria for lunch. She still has a hard time communicating and it is becoming a nuisance to her... which is a good thing. She participates as best she can in all class activities. Autumn has 2 half hour sessions of Physical Therapy with Janie and 2 half hour sessions of Ocupational Therapy with Myra each week at CCS (California Children's Services) in Lancaster on Wednesday and Friday...
Vocabulary: Bouzzy, Bouzy Boo=? Duckle, Duckle Daah=? DaDee=Me MahMee=Mom KK (Calie) Mouk = Mike Moouk=Milk Moka = Monica Poo= Cindy No Yethhh=Yes Bus=Bus Tank Youuu
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Written in November 1988
Autumn has delayed speech, her gross motor is coming along but her movements are spastic and give the impression that she is just barely in control. Her fine motor skills are also delayed, she can feed herself but can't dress herself yet. Her vocabulary is a little larger with about 25 understandable words and another 25 or so that are
not so easily understood. She is pretty good at communicating with sounds and gestures and improving every day, we are looking into a "Communication board" to assist her with some of the communication chores, ultimately we will go to a computer based "Augmentative Communication Device" if her speech doesn't improve... Her speech therapist is very encouraged by her cognitive awareness but suspects that fluent speech will elude her... she has not progressed very much in that area.
