Chronicle Of My Little STAR (EIP 2009-2011)

Prior to his diagnosis with ASD back in July 2008, we have very little knowledge about Autism.

Nevertheless, we were quick to enroll him to a special school for EIP and fortunate enough to be accepted & commence EIP in Jan 2009, that is how we all started walking with him in this special learning journey and never look back since day 1 until thus far.

We know that it is not going to be easy but what we never know is that it will be that hard and challenging as the days went by for a young parent of a child in this spectrum but also bring us a lot of joy in our adventure with him. We elevated our knowledge on various aspect of Autism through attending several workshops provided in the special school in the first year and self learn via social media, websites, reading books and connecting to others in the subsequent years that follow to share and learn from others along our journey. As we expend our effort to teach our little STAR, he has also expanded our heart and broaden our perspective in life, making us to be more courageous, more loving, more compassionate and view every little lack with empathy. We soon learn the joy of living by intruding into his world to teach him and then bring him out gradually to our shared world to get connected with us. We achieve our inner peace by doing the best support we can provide him in his academic years, accepting the norm that he learns differently and think differently and make him enjoy learning and socially engaging.

One thing predicatable I learn from my last 3 years of travelling with my little STAR in this path less travel is his unpredictability. And one consistent attribute from his autistic traits is his inconsistency. Underlying the 3 deficits in the way he relates, communicates and thinks, often are the sensory integration, modulation and processing issues which may hinder his performance instead of putting his best effort and very often will manifest into various form of learning issues and behavior challenges. 3 years on, it is still learning in progress for me & my wife as we both try to understand the different manifestation that may arise out of his autistic traits from time to time as he progresses on. Compare now to 3 years ago, we have come to understand more, vocalize & interact better with our little STAR as he develop more towards partner communicator.

Holding our faith in ourselves..And in the belief that everything that is going to be just fine as long as we do everything that we can on our end is crucial to being able to hold it together in this learning journey when things get tough...This journey in life will be full of challenges that ...seem to range from easy to back-breaking..But these challenges are presented to us for a reason...

We are indeed very grateful that despite all the challenges faced in the last 3 years, we were able to face his enemies without fear and still managed to rejoice inch stone progresses for our little STAR, kudos to the Special Education Team that we have been blessed with and crossed path over our past years of endeavours. It was through this good partnership that we have come to cherish each collaborative effort for making every moment counts. The mind mapping below helps to consolidate the 3 years of curriculum that we have accomplished with the special educators in the EIP, truely a remarkable, rewarding and memorable educational experience.

Sharing the positives and reflecting with SPED Team on what we can do better to over come any challenges face has been a great part of this learning process since day one and ending with a winner statement. This blog was born as a result of my sharing, thanks to a teacher's encouragement who see this potential in my sharing which may benefit more parents in this similar yet unique path to each child. One important aspect of true happiness is in being able to share and not expecting a response from others upon sharing, it is like the saying to Giving:- "more bless to give than to receive".

As we conclude one little race, focus already under way to ready my little STAR for his next race of his learning journey, which promises to be more challenging, exciting and adventurous, we have to sit tide and face head on with more positive attitude than before. Memories are so weird. The bad one make you laugh and the good one always make you cry! Still we urge for the good ones and more to come in our new race ahead.

Recall 3 core values useful in our daily practise wit our child before I end this blog post:-

Meaning: - provide opportunity to child to engage daily activities or age appropriate tasks & be successfully and happy about the engagement.

Independence: - Environmental cue which support independence, maintain some and add new to gradual change to avoid confusing the child and promote independence in adaptability. Create opportunity to communicate by teaching the child how to communicate more functionable or despite circumstances. Reduce verbal prompting by exploring visual support to be more successful in elevating independence.

Dignity: - Same opportunity provided for in quality of life, respectful of giving the child something of at least age appropriate, inclusion in society, reduce highly directive but promote more interactive, co-operative & facilitative learning to child. Respect for each child over their confidentiality, make the child feel value and motivated to achieve more success in their learning.

Winners Statement:-

Your passion, patience and perseverance in providing a well-rounded education for children with special needs is a dignified job, your commitment, creativity and nurturing heart to help the children maximize their learning potential have been impressive. Thank You Teachers & Therapists, Kudos To ALL!

End Of Term Outing - Shopping Trip @ Compass Point

How time flies and we had come to another end of Term outing, this Term theme of "My Community" brings us through the teaching of helping our kid learn and generalize skills on how to communicate & interact with people around the community, to have better adaptability, connection and integration to the community experience and society at large. While we had attended one such similar outing in 2010 shopping at Bishan Junction 8 just within the NTUC super market, this outing brought us to Compass point shopping center and the area of coverage was wider and lot more challenging as far as environmental inputs & social factors are concern.

The main highlights of this shopping trip was doing & completing the activity sheet provided, all in all there are about 5 area of shopping experience namely Bakery shop, Supermarket, 7-11 Store, Popular before ending at KFC with a snack break and catch up with friends, parents & teachers.

We were early by an hour but still manage to kill some times by going with his flow of interest and doing activities that he likes together and maintaining interaction where ever opportunity arises. While he may feel at ease wondering on his own but as soon as his friends arrived, he seems shy or little over whelm by the social demand to meet/greet each others in the open area. His eyes may be wondering away from them but I know that he actually likes to seek social except that his mind may be trap forcing to react other wise. Once things got started, he is back to his normal self following the agenda on the activity sheet.

1) Take money at POSB ATM, self regulation average, at times wondering off from the queue but nevertheless able to redirect him back to queue until his turn. Successfully executed.

2) Bakery Shop - look around, bought a bun, queue up to paid for item, successfully managed too.

3) Next stop was the Cold Storage supermarket, he does not seems to have any intention or desire to buy but will wondering about looking at the row number & items sold within, we finally got what he likes to complete his task by buying 2 egg like Kinder Joy which he enjoys eating.

4) Then we come to 7-11 convenient store to get 2 packets of Ribena, activity sheet checked and updated.

5) Next stop is Popular shop at level 3, we took a lift up and scan through the stationary to bought marker and pen, completed and checked

Then it was time for toilet break before we proceed to KFC for our final stop over.

6) In the KFC, I over looked about giving him the opportunity to order food but was promptly alerted by my wife to let him pay and collect the food on tray after I had ordered. After eating, he was ready to leave but I pulled him back to clear the tray. My wife then bring out the sun flower seeds which he like to eat to make him stay at area. Some photos were taken with friends as well as teachers for a strong finish to Term 4. We leave the place tire but happy for another successful outing. We had to rush home and wash up before sending him for his weekly ST.

Winners Statement:-

3 cheers for the teachers, parents and friends for making this outing meaningful and another great scenic view in the journey along this path less travel.

Community - Eating Out

From my last blog post I shared a model construction of an MRT station as perceived by my little STAR, back then I was wondering why all the people had to faced inward away from us, now I know why...

The train was missing, he had constructed the platform literally as if he was there and hence the people waiting for the train arrival has to face inward away from our view in the orientation of the model. Today he constructed another model below which he says to me is Orchard Hotel, he probably got that impression after passing by during his weekly journey to Delphi Orchard.

This morning, I had attended another parent classroom participation and in working with teacher, there was this activities to read sentence, find picture & paste on the page of eating out, for the Term Theme learning of Community. This gave me an idea of sharing many of the memorable moments of eating out over the past 3 years we had with the little STAR.

He is not on diet control but still has his preferred choice of food, ranging from fried stuffs like fries/wedges/fish/chicken wing/fish cake, to noodle, sushi rice, fried carrot cake, chicken rice, satay etc. He takes fried rice but mainly with pure egg ingredient, occasionally pineapple rice and also porridge too, he is also ready to explore other new food subject to his preference.

Waiting toys, white board, smart phone or ipad are some of the items we have evolved over the years to regulate his waiting time and some time even give him little packet of seaweed which he likes to eat, when he gets a little hungry while the food takes longer than usual to prepare.

One challenge we face while eating out will be his interest in number on the table, sometimes he will walk around just to check on the number on each table especially in the coffee shop. I still remember when we first brought him to Sakura buffet, he will go around to those tables that has got the number he is interested and will remove them to indugle in his fixation routine, when we refuse he will be upset, now he is more aware & better regulated, glad it has become thing of the past.

There are other occasions where he will insist that you go and buy when the food has not arrived, even though I have told him clearly that an order has been placed, we have to accept that the way he thinks is different, the way we teach him must also be different unlike neuro typical kids.

Eating out in public can sometimes attracts unwanted attention when our little STAR raises his voice to speak trigger by unforseen circumstances or demand which he either becomes upset or anxious, the whole coffee shop or eating place will become noisy suddenly, other wise it will be very normal and a joy to eat out most of the time for the family.

The one thing predictable I learn through his autistic trait is his unpredictability, once it become predictable, we will then be able to teach him to manage and do better the next time round. It must be continuous work in progress taking small steps & great patience to understand & teach him.

Eating out can also hope to gave him a better exposure to community life and be able to integrate & adapt to the society environment & people around as he grows into adulthood.

Winners Statement:

September Journal

One of the main highlights in September would be the little STAR's Birthday.

A small celebration was planned at home with my sister family over the nearest weekend prior to his actual birthday. Social story was prepared to read with him in promoting this event for his awareness.

Little STAR insist from one visual support he learn that the birthday boy must wear a crown like a king, so we bought him one to manage success, glad things turned out well & all enjoy a memorable time.

Aside from the usual routine of birthday song, cake cutting & eat cake, we played snakes and ladders, balloons, pretend play on camping inside the room(was a beautiful mess) before end the celebration with a dinner nearby our place.

We also helped him prepare some goodie bags & small tokens to be given to his classmate & teachers in EIP.

Being a sibling of a brother with special need has not been easy for my little princess, it takes great effort to share and communicate with her openly & honestly on any lack. She may be feeling unfair for a start why are we spending so much time with her brother, but has transformed lately with positive feelings, more patience than before, greater understanding and is able to co-operate and attune to his brother level of understanding and skill set. Both are equally our family joy of living and I am hopeful that as both grow up, all can have greater opportunities to experience more normal family life and activities.

Objects/topics on transportations are still very much his top interest, lately he has shown much improvement in his imaginative play be it thinking or commenting, his lining up of car now is more meaningful with 2 lanes and on different directions, his works on contructive tasks like building the block design in angry bird game or fixing puzzle pieces have displayed his the other strength.

Above construction came from his perspective thinking like a MRT station, he make use of blocks to construct bench just like what he saw in MRT station and put the people sitting on the bench waiting for the train to arrive, what puzzle us was that why he placed the people all facing inward and not facing him directly, may be he is also trying to tell us his preference mode of engagement socially to be away from public interest because he is different.

Some times have to be set aside for his home programs to elevate his special learning abilities.

It is a joy to see him so engage at time like the above writing, the most I have ever seen him contributing, thanks to mummy great effort.

Eating together in public place has been a great moment we indulge & treasure within the community, the whole family visited Proffesor Brawn Cafe for a lunch over 1 weeekend, a great place to feel the love and peace in the midst of great dinning experience, will return for more in near future.

Another highlight for September would be the in take screening test for the little STAR transition after EIP in the mid month, received the great new this morning(Friday) and finally the letter on the same evening. We are so happy and very grateful for the positive outcome from the screening test and so very thankful for the opportunity given to our little STAR to further his learning journey. We promise him to even work harder with him in the next lap together. Hope is not a dream, but a way of making dreams becoming reality. Perseverence is not a long race, it is many short races one after the other. We will focus on completing his present race for a strong finish to the remaining weeks in EIP and gear up to ready for the next race starting 2012.

Take this blessing to share some messages from SPED Team who is instrumental to his little success:-

Person A; "Believe me...we are just as elated as you that Fabian has come this far and the door has opened for him in this manner..."

Person B: "Congratulations Fabian and family. Very proud of him."

Person C: "Wow! Great. Congratulations. Let's work together and help him further. I am happy for Fabian."

Person D: "Congrats!!! So happy for Fabian & family. Excellent."

Person E: " That's great!! Was gonna ask your wife later."

Person F: "Thats's really happy news! Thanks daddy & mummy for working so hard! Fabian is really doing well in OT! Gave mummy strategies on elevating him to the next level in terms of adaptability."

Winners' Statement:

What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult, we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.

Sharing Ways Of Collaborating With School For Special Needs

Collaboration is a process where by two or more parties(which may or may not have any previous relationship) work joinly towards a common goal. Common goal essentially refers to the child progress.


Collaboration is already important in our normal day to day work and even more so in the field of SPED, as doing it right, right for the first time will lead to successful outcome in on going positive relationship with the SpEd Team & helps maximizing strength of each individual within the Team, ensure on going problem solving, efficient use of time and most importantly to maximize progress of our child.


Apparently, collaboration with school does not normally come easy as there remain some potential challenges such as sacrifice of personal time, school staff time, resistance and defensiveness from others such as in the way things are done and that they have tried but invain etc..Mistrust due to lack of mutual understanding or effective communication skill.

All these potential challenges can be manage and reduce if we can practise collaboration through the following ways which I have experience and will continue to explore them in the future where possible:-

1) Provide information

Overview of the child, montage or video clip in his daily life, home practises and on going updates or changes in therapies etc. I am glad that I have played this part right from the beginning until now and sure is a blessing to share, build trust and understanding without any expectation in return from teacher as this walk is about relationship with the child, any effort to enhance or elevate this speed of development will go a long way to the child progress within ther SpEd Team.

2) Seek information about class activities and child's day, establish relationship with teachers with regular positive communication/feedback, empower ourselves to offer assistant and also ask for one when we need one.

3) Share data, verified, evaluate and feedback regularly to establish mutual goals in maximizing the learning potential of the child.


4) Compromise without sacrifice the quality of intervention by being open and clear about expectations and prioritize them accordingly to the importance of the child learning needs agree upon.


5) Be proactive and take steps not to let concerns build up, request feedback or seek opportunity to meet up.


Our collaborative effort can be made easy if school is able to exploit the use of modern technology in communication, which can help print less paper & save more trees. We may have e-Lesson plan send to parents via email notification the moment teacher submit through the system in school. Parents can be authorized through login/password protection to input/retreive individual child's e-Lesson plan or shared data via school website or even post improvement suggestion/thank you message for any spontaneous recognition to teachers who have gone extra miles in making positive impact to any child's progress/development. This may also improve the parents-teachers interaction.

Winners Statement:-

It isn't easy enough to talk about peace, one must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it, one must work for it.

Random Happines Aug '11

The pursuit of Happiness is an inward journey, if we regularly desposit positive, encouraging and uplifting thoughts, if we continue to bite our lip just before we begin to grumble and complaint, if we shoot down what seemingly harmless negative thoughts as it germinates, we will find that there is much to rejoice about.

This is also the spirit that has keep me moving forward in my special walk with my little STAR, and what better way than to share once again some memorable moments we captured in August for a strong finish as we cross over to another new exciting and adventurous month of September.

We had taken opportunity to eat out at Joan Bowen cafe to feel the Love, Compassion and Hope, great dinning experience. Empowering & practising him to pay for item he buy is another way to promote his confidence and position in the community in term of interaction. functional communication & thinking.

The school term ended with a mini sport day where by the children form teams according to their colour assigned to participate in relay games, another opportunities to generalize his various skills learn from EIP(listen, look, follow, stay at area, co-operative play). At the end of the day, every child is a winner. Kudos to the teachers for outting up another successful and meaningful outing.

The family was back in Malaysia's Po Po's(grandma's) house at Tanjung Sepat near South-western coast of Malaysia, another truely and wonderful experience in life within greenery environment, the kampong spirit, their local food are all that we miss back in our progressing Singapore.

Taken just within the gate and compound of po po's house

Having his hair cut at his 4th autie's Final Cut Studio Salon at Puchong, first time visit since openning more than a year ago, great atmosphere and place of interaction & networking on top of just having the hair do. Happy that she has come this far and really proud of her achievement.

To my little STAR, this is also a holiday camp, little STAR taking opportunity to do his worksheets on numeric, writing and drawing and polishing his literacy skill in English.

And also some leisure and play as well! We took opportunity to setup a small little tent which he called his Tree House at a corner of the room and that he indulge in his comfort at po po's house during the stay there whenever we call it a day.

A visit to Ganofarm

A visit to youngest autie new nest in Nilai, awesome 2 floor apartment, had BBQ for the night, before we head back to Singapore next morning.

September kicks start another opportunity to express our heart felt gratitude to the teacher that have taken Fabian and make a difference in his learning journey.

Little STAR watching his beautiful montage in his learning journey with teacher Eileen.

Beside the three EIP teachers, there are also several heroines out there who have being working with Fabian to whom we also will like to extend our heart felt gratitude to them namely:-

OT Adeline, at Ozworks Therapy

SLP, Zunaida at Aidan Rush Therapy

Special Educator, Hassina at Aidan Rush(covering his literacy/Numeric/Writing & Drawing)

Special Educator, Angeline at Aidan Rush(who is taking Fabian now from Hassina)

Speech Therapist, YiTian Liang at SpeechInc Therapy for speech social group

Little did I know that I would be summoned for great patience, faith and courage in this life. My little STAR has made my humble journey in this world an extra-ordinary one. he has tranformed my ordinary days into an experience in depth of compassion and love I did not know I was capable of, he will always be my Joy Of Living.

Winner's Statement:-

It is Love that builds the bridge over anything and it is Love that helps us to find a way.

Sharing Ways Of Building Self Esteem To Increase Social Competence

Having a healthy self esteem is one of the fundamental emotional needs for all children.

Below are some pathways for improving self esteem:-

1) Provide emotional support

- reduce negative statements and critical comments

- correct child mistake by focusing on the effort rather than the result

- empathize with your child's feeling, be an active listener, acknowledge and validate his feeling

- talk to teacher to understand how he is doing in class

- let your child know that it is OK to make mistake, may also show him purposely without his notice that you as parents/adults can mistake too, but it is OK, we can learn together to correct it.

2) Increase social competency

- watch favourite TV or video program with your child and talk about character feelings & behaviors

- work on a task together, whether prepare sandwich/tidy bed or keep toys and talk about sharing the task and co-operation

- take time to talk to child on his journal of the day at school from social perspective

- provide increase opportunities for child to interact with his peers and observe how he fits in as part of the group

3) Provide Opportunities for Developing Skills in Mastering Tasks

- increase the child's ability to master the tasks to improve his self-confidence

- know when to allow the child the opportunity to stumble and learn how to success on future attempts

- asking child to perform appropriate chores whether in class or at home can help to develop the child's sense of responsibility & independence in completing tasks

- break task into small steps to ensure & managed success for the child and then build on successes

4) Provide Opportunities for Developing Skills In Emotional Regulation

- help you child to step back and cool down when fustrated

- teach child to recognize and label the emotional like angry, fustration that can lead to lack of self-control

- create an atmosphere of structure, predictability and natural consequences of mis-behavior

- explore his strength in choice making for his consequence of misbehaving from a range of possibilities you provide with him.

5) Celebrate Success

- post your child's work in a prominent place(wall/white board/refrigerator etc)

- reward the child's positive accomplishment with a treat/reward/happiness certificate

- draw attention to at least 1 positive thing about the child and share his success stories

- catch the child being good, make a big deal of his accomplishment, make him feel proud and empower to do more to promote success.

It has been really a great week for me, having attended & observed 2 EIP sessions with my little STAR & ended with a caregiver forum sharing on The Different Perspectives On The Successful Employment of Adult in the Spectrum. There are great work in progress but must also recognize that it will not be as fast as we parents want them to be, need patience, faith & hope.

I am also please to see & appreciate the beautiful work put up by the EIP teachers, the immeasurable joy of seeing my little STAR working in group, staying together, working on tasks and activities as part of the group and follow teacher. Though at times, he may still saps into his fixation/repetitive interest or distracted by external envrionment, but the critical support from teachers have been great to manage success, I am just grateful to the heroines at work not only in EIP but also to other external professional from various therapy group as well.

Most importantly, at the end of any learning process, it must be what my little STAR enjoys and be motivated to learn that leads to his next outcome. We can only be hopeful that best opportunities we provided for or expended, things are in the right direction thus far.

I am looking forward to next week End of Term Mini Sport day in school and strong finish to Term 3.

Winner's Statement:-

When we take the road less travelled, sometimes it is a lonely journey. But remember that your sense of joy is heightened, simple things mean so much more and ray of sunshine can reach your heart. Then the road isn't so bad and we are in together for this joy of living for as long as it takes.