Sensory Room

A maze filled with music , movement and
action

Saturday we went to universal and Island of adventures! Did you know that you can get tickets using reward points ? My mom always figures out ways to make the dollar go farther. While we were there we went to what my Mom and I call "Sensory Heaven". They have everything you could ever imagine. From bells and whistles, textures, imaginary play, shapes, tight spaces even to music and lights. Aiden calls it the Barney room because the room has characters from Barney on the walls and some times Barney and his friends come in to take pictures. Saturday he spent about an hour and a half just playing his heart out in there. At one point there were others kids in the room although Aiden didn't play with them he did follow one boy all over the room, personal space may become an issue in the future. Aiden did a great job leaving. We took lots of Pictures to give you an Idea of great sensory rooms..

This type of play..settles Aiden down

The stones light up and play music
when you step on them



echo .. cave



Music chimes.. and next to that
the water fall is a plays music when
you run your hand through it



when you push the buttons .. a rainbow
appears on the wall

water play

step on the stones to
make music and lights

weeeeeeeeeee!

Climbing around..it's a maze in
there

music and movement

Music

Puzzles

heavy play Aiden loved this

If we could have one art of this room.. it would be the punching bags.. running through them gives Aiden the Proprioceptive play that he needs.. Aiden is always banging into us .. or throwing his body down on the floor.. jumping and pushing around heavy objects helps.. mom fills laundry baskets and lets him push that around.. we also have a mini trampoline.. he jumps on that or jumps into his bean bag chair.. Most of the time these things work.. and when he starts plowing into us.. we can try to get him to do something else.. something a little safer.. and less painful lol

Thumb Arcade

So I told everyone how Aiden came in Second for the "My Underwear" contest though Thumb Arcade
http://www.facebook.com/thumbarcade... and I told you about how A wonderful giving little boy Daniel who won the first place prize... an I Pod touch.. gave up his prize to me... Well it came in the mail.. so exciting.. I now have a camera.. did not have one before....mine broke..still a mystery.


Aiden got so much nice things from Thumb Arcade.. well I will let the pictures speak for their selves.



trying to contain my excitement lol

Aiden..not trying to contain his excitement lol

The 8 eyed monster

Todd Par... lace boards.. whoo hoo... he loves them!

whoo... can't believe it.. an Ipod..no cracked screen.. and a camera.. no more asking for Mom's

Thank you daniel.. for your selfless act of kindness!!!

So as you can tell... we were pretty excited... the mail lady was to... because we have stopped watching her to see if she had our special package.. we told Aiden's teacher about it and the book that Aiden won Todd Pars The I'M NOT SCARED Book!" .. and she wants us to have a show and tell day.. complete with My underwear..( I never get tired of saying that...) we will bring in Aiden's Ipad.. our teacher does not have one yet.. hopefully when the word spreads about  http://a4cwsn.com/and all the work they are doing there will be more teachers with Ipads.. until then we will share...His teacher can not believe how far Aiden has come over the summer.. the Ipad has helped us so much.. I can't wait to see how much farther it will take Aiden.. he will be reaching the stars before you know it! If you get a chance Todd Par has a new online store.. go check it out...

http://toddparr.shop.musictoday.com/Default.aspx.. I have found so many things on there that I want for Aiden .. especially the blue back pack !

It's been a Few....

Sorry I haven't written in awhile, it's been kind of crazy. Anyway we went to Seaworld again last week. I think you can pretty much guess if Aiden liked it or not..... But if you can't I'll just tell you he had a blast!! (like ALWAYS). Especially at the Hotels new water area, He played there for hours. It is a really  good way to get a lot of therapy in.. fine motor .. sensory etc.. sometimes you get more out of a field trip then you can at home or in a therapy session. Mom was having a good time till the floor and her had a little issue. You know how they say it takes skill to fall over flat surfaces, well my Mom must have some mad skills because she slid four feet and then fell. Security came and put Mom in a wheel chair, Aiden thought that Mom was going to jail because security was there. But he handled himself pretty good. Although I can't say the same for my school orientation the following Wednesday. Let's just say he has had better times. While my Mom and I were in line Aiden started to run across the gym. It just so happened he ran in front of the the cross country table where there was a boy holding a sign. He waved his sign at Aiden and yelled "wanna join cross country". My Mom and I found this very funny. Aiden is a fast runner when he's not being chased and laughing so hard he wets his pants. I could totally see him in something that requires a lot of running when he gets older. We went swimming a few days later and that seemed to go smooth. Swimming seems to relax Aiden.. well anything that has to do with water ... except of cource the bath... and that is a battle to get him in and another to get him out... I will try to write another blog soon.. School will be starting in a couple weeks .. which meens some shopping and possible meltdowns to come.

Can you say beach?

Yup that’s right we took Aiden to the beach today. He did really good for his first time there. Before we went, we prepared him by using the app I See-quence…. Going to the beach, by I get it apps. I think Aiden did good with it because the pictures were real instead cartoons. (I’m surprised he didn’t ask who every person was.)

We got there and Aiden was a little nervous.. For some reason he thought the water would be a pool… he was a little afraid of the waves. After a while he relaxed.. It didn’t take long before he was running around playing.. Walking and running is great heavy input for him.. Seems to have made him relax even more. We ran and played by the water and we tossed around a beach ball. He really liked that. He played in the sand with his cars and threw sand in the air. Most of the sand went on Mom… and considering she has a thing about sand she handled it pretty good. When it came time to leave it went better then expected. Aiden doesn’t transition well, even if he likes what is coming next. Sense he left pretty good we decided that we would go to our friends house and swim.. He is getting braver with that as well. When it came time to leave that he did ok getting in the car.. When he realized my friend Lexi was not coming with us he screamed all the way home. For the most part it was a pretty good day.. He got to get out of the house and have lots of movement. Mom says that movement is important for him to get the sensory he needs and he learns better after having a lot of heavy input… well he did not get that much learning in because he is sound asleep.. Guess he is worn out.

Touching Story

Yesterday a friend firmly suggested that we bring Adien to the local park, he did very good but had a minor meltdown.When we returned home we were surprised with a voicemail from none other than player 2! I was in my room with Adien and a friend when my mom came into the room and said "Kourtney listen to this" she then read the following message out loud:



IPod touching story by Thumb Arcade on Friday, July 22, 2011 at 5:37pm


                    These are the days when being a thumb is so much fun. Even funner (hee-hee) than normal.   Our 1st place winner of the Worldwide Underwear Day contest was Daniel Dillard. Gary from A4CWSN was generous enough to donate a new iPod Touch for 1st place, along with the other goodies Daniel will receive. The device arrived yesterday and we had a chance to speak with Daniel's mom today. She explained that Daniel is the recent recipient of an iPad from a very generous donor. His big sister also has an iPodTouch. In the mold of what this inspiring community is all about, the amazing Dillard family felt that they needed to do something nice for someone else. The thumbs agreed 110%.   If you've spent any time at all on Gary James' FaceBook page or website, you've heard about the heart warming blog being run by Aiden Hadley's big sister, Kourtney. She's a remarkable girl who posseses wisdom beyond her years. Her compassion and drive to work with Aiden has moved us so much, that we'd like to make sure that she has all of the tools to continue her mission of sharing Aiden's Austistic World through her eyes. We also found out today from Kourtney's mom, that she has been carrying around a used iPod with a cracked screen. So, Kourtney...
(dramatic pause)  
Daniel Dillard would like to share his good fortune with you by giving you his iPod Touch. His mommy said he loves to share. Indeed he does.   So, when Aiden (our #1 Fan) receives his gifts for coming in 2nd place for his fabulous undies, we will include the iPod Touch. Hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoy sending it to you!

Love- The Dillards, Gary James and The Thumbs Xoxoxoxo



I was filled with emotions when I heard the message. I am so grateful to the Dillards, Thumb Arcade, and Gary James aka A4cwsn. I am thrilled to be apart of such a caring community. It is going to be awesome to have an IPod that doesn't have a big crack in it. Thank you so much for your generosity and compassion Dillard Family. Thumbs up to the players and Gary James thank you for changing lives! Daniel you are awesome at sharing!




Thumb Arecade facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/thumbarcade
A4cwsn Face book and webpage
http://www.facebook.com/a4cwsn
http://a4cwsn.com/ipads-in-50-states/

Aidens art project for the A4cwsn Art show...

Yes you read right A4cwsn is having a art show for special needs kids. The winner will win an I pod touch... but the children who participate get a whole lot more.. we got O.T. out of this .. we worked on fine motor skills and it was just plain fun.

We started out letting Aiden pick out an app that he wanted to recreate on his paper I pad. Not wasting anytime he quickly picked his favorite app “My Underwear” by Thumb Arcade. He then chose a pair of underwear he wanted to create. He chose his favorite.. The stripe boxer briefs. He took a black piece of construction paper .. The I pad . Then he clued a white piece of paper to it for the back ground. He then took a pair of cut out underwear and glued it to the background. He used felt cut out circles to represent the paint colors. Then he clued different shapes to his underwear and wa-lah he had some new under wear.
If you would like to participate in the contest .. Just let your child create a piece of art that represents either the A4cwsn logo or an I pad . Like the A4cwsnhttp://www.facebook.com/a4cwsn face book page and then join at http://www.facebook.com/a4cwsn#!/event.php?eid=104178203013043
 This has been so much fun for Aiden as you can tell by the pictures..

Life With Aiden

Aiden hasn’t allowed me to write lately. That said I think you can pretty much predict how its been. Aiden has been having anxiety attacks. He has not slept well , and he has been aggressive.  Monday I had gone to a friends house in the afternoon and didn’t return till about the same time the following day…so for that period of time I’m not sure how things went. One thing that I am sure of is that Aiden missed me, because when I got home Aiden ran up to me and gave me a hug. It only took a few minutes before he asked if I could play with him and his big yellow bus. Oh My Goodness that bus is starting to get annoy me . We have this laundry sorter that has wheels and well my Mom put Aiden’s bus tent on top of it. He can get in and walk around. Aiden has been playing with it for days. He wants us to play with it. My mom or me obviously can't stand up inside like he does, and its not really big enough for Aiden and another person. I think he finally gets it now. Bad thing is Aiden gets really upset if you will not play with him.

Today we worked on one of his apps that we found through A4cwsn. It is called Alpha Tots. He tries to sing his Abc’s with the app, you cant understand him but he is trying. His favorite letter to open is R, he tries to say Reduce Reuse and Recycle like the app. He also likes the P, because of the instruments. He likes any type of music or anything that has to do with music. He also likes well every other letter of the alphabet, lol. He has been doing so well since receiving his I-pad. We have gotten so many apps through A4cwsn that we cant have them all on the I-pad at the same time. We are learning that just because an app is free, doesn’t mean its right for us. They can waste space and time. We now check out the reviews first, then make sure it is what will work for us. Always keep that in mind before purchasing or downloading a free app. A good place to find a review is   http://a4cwsn.com/. There are several video reviews so you can watch it and see if it is an app that would work for your child or student. If you check out the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/a4cwsn leave a question on an app.. and there will be someone to answer it .. wither Gary James .. the owner of the site or a parent , teacher or developer.


As we are making our way through this chapter of this crazy thing we call life, we never know what the future holds. Tomorrow could be one of Aiden’s worst days or it could be one of his best. You never know because everyday is a new day, and no matter what, I’m still glad I have my marvelous brother Aiden to share it with.