We feel that his natural inclination toward mimicry would not be good for him if he were in special education. He has enough difficulties without adopting the idiosyncrasies of children with other disabilities. If he’s going to mimic others, we’d rather he mimic normal kids. Education experts call that mainstreaming: putting kids with disabilities into classrooms with normal kids. But we don’t want him to mimic schoolchildren- we didn’t want our other kids to do that either. We’d prefer that he learn from watching his siblings.

Now Josh is eight, and we’ve gotten to the point that he can sit working with me one-on-one for an hour at a time. Although a psychologist we hired once told us that he relies too much on his visual strengths, we find that he learns better visually. So we do lots of puzzles and games. He likes sequencing cards and number puzzles. He can read about thirty words now, and writes several of them. He loves books; right now he’s on a "Where’s Waldo" kick. I buy curriculum for him the same way I did for his brother and sisters. If it looks like it will work well for that specific child, I buy it. If it doesn’t work, I try something else. In Josh’s case, one of my best purchases for him has been Rod and Staff’s series of preschool workbooks.

I have found the grocery to be a good learning experience for him. I let him push the cart, but he has to follow my directions or I’ll take it back, which he can’t bear. We count everything: cans, loaves of bread, bags of chips, you name it. We work on listening skills; I tell him where to turn, and ask him to get certain things within his reach ("We need three of those green cans, Josh- put them in the cart gently, please.") It takes us a while to go through, and sometimes people stare at us. But repetition is so important for him that I have gotten used to shopping that way. When I shop alone, I get done so much faster. But I try to enjoy the process when I am with him. It has taught me patience.

His teenage siblings became crackerjack baby-sitters, in much demand in our neighborhood, and I think he was part of the reason. They were used to baby-sitting their brother, who had to be watched every minute, because he would break out of the house and run away if you weren’t keeping an eye on him. After watching him, the neighbor kids were a breeze.

Josh’s big brother taught him to play Sega (a video arcade game), which has given him great pleasure. Josh and his dad also play golf on the computer together. My husband works at home, so they get to spend a lot of time together. In fact, all of my children have benefitted from having their dad at home, and Josh gets the credit for that. By the time Josh was almost 2, I was having a hard time keeping up with the kids and the house and the homeschooling. Josh was still on an apnea monitor, and the alarms during the night (mostly false alarms) left us exhausted. My husband started his own business so he could be at home and help me out. That decision has benefitted our family in countless ways since then, and it was all because of Josh.