TAP

TAP class has been wonderful for Tallie. She is very stubborn and has her momments, but overall I can tell she really likes it. It is a very structured class room setting were they do a lot of picture/word associations. Everyday that I bring her they meet her outside of the classroom with a picture of a backpack and then walk her to her little cubby hole so she can hang up her coat and back pack. Then they go straight to the music area where they sing the hello song and play with musical instruments. There is a house area that she loves. This is where they work on the pretend play. The school is attached to a day care facility, so everyday they take a walk over to what's called educare and they go down a slide and do other fun activities that are modeled by children in the daycare facility that have excellent communication skills. They then come back to the classroom and have a snack. Each child has their own color, Tallie's is pink. Her cubby hole is pink and so is her place mat for snack time. It helps them know where they are supposed to go. There is also a 1on1 teach area where they sit down with the kids and practice following directions and playing with toys appropriately. One of the things with Autism is that normally difficult tasks can come very easily, but the simpiler tasks can be much harder to accomplish. This helps to make sure they cover all grounds.

One of the great things about TAP for me, is that while Tallie is in the classroom I get to sit in a room along with the other moms and Lori, a speak pathologist, and talk about what we are going through and ask questions about the things we don't understand. We can also peek into the classroom at any time and see how our kids are doing.

All together there are only 5 kids in the class, Tallie being the only girl. The first day of class however, there was only Tallie and one other little boy. It was both their first day. I felt for the other mom, she was really emotional and having a hard time holding back tears. I wanted to tell her to just let it all out, I would totally understand. It was her only child and it brought back memories of how I had felt dropping Morgan off at school for the first time last year. I felt really anxious but also really excited that Tallie was getting this help and couldn't wait to hear about how the program worked.

My mom came with me with was nice to have a support system there. The three of us sat there and listened to Lori talk about the program and answer some questions we had. We occasionally peaked in to see how the two were doing. For it being their first day, they seemed to be doing really well. There were a few crys from the little boy, but Tallie mostly just whined in protest on occasion. Have I mentioned that she is very stubborn! I was holding it together just fine until the other mom asked what caused Autism and if there was something during birth that might have happened to cause this. Lori just looked at her and said, "You did not cause this." Everyone in the room started crying at the point except for Lori.

I guess I had a lot of guilt built up that I hadn't dealt with. Anyone that knows Tallie would probably say that she would be in the running for the easiest baby award. She was always so content and laid back and happy. I think because of this I felt as though a lot of my focus over the past 2 years had been on my older daughter Morgan. Morgan thrives on attention and will do just about anything to get as much as she can. I love that she has such an outgoing personality, but I guess I had been feeling guilty about not giving Tallie as much attention. I knew that I hadn't caused Tallie to have Autism, but at this point I was convinced that it was just a language delay and I thought that maybe if I had spent more time with Tallie that maybe she wouldn't be having these problems.