World of Autism

Lucas is working at LucasWorks in the mornings, as part of his Vocational Training program through school.  After all, the whole reason we started this company was to ensure that he would have a place to work when he gets out of school!

He works here from 9:00 until 10:30, Monday through Thursday.  It’s a little different from when he worked here last year.  Then he had a teacher here with him to reinforce behavior, etc.  Now it’s just me here with him, and he’s been able to maintain his “school behavior”, which is great.

So this week, I decided to have him inventory all of the Autism Awareness Bracelet supplies that we use to make our bracelets.  I know he can count, so I figured this would be a good excercise.

I showed him how to take each charm or bead in our supplies, and count them out into piles of ten each.  Then I gave him a calculator, which he learned to use at school, to add the piles of 10 together.

Imagine my surprise when he counted by tens out loud, to come up with his totals!  He had a little trouble with one item, because it took him above 200 in his count. But he went slowly and after only 2 tries, got that charm counted correctly.

I would never have known Lucas could count by tens if I hadn’t asked him to take inventory.  It makes me wonder what other skills he’s mastered that we haven’t discovered yet!

Tags: Daily life //