milestones
If your family is anything like ours, the holidays can be a stressful time of year. After the novelty of winter break wears off, my boys quickly become bored and irritable. Unfortunately, this happy time of year can be stressful for many children and adults diagnosed with autism. Whether it is caused by a change in routine or deficits in leisure skills, extended breaks from school can be anything but joyful.
Last year, our family decided to break the cycle of the winter break blues. I had a simple plan in mind: we do just ONE family activity per day. I picked a variety of fun things to do and created a picture checklist to guide each activity. Using this method, our son participated in so many activities that he would have previously tried to escape. What really blew me away was after painting a picture (an activity that typically evoked his most cunning escape tactics), he smiled and said “painting.” Then an hour later, he looked at the picture and said, “paint a picture.” He was so proud of his work! I then realized that this was a strategy we needed to use as often as possible.
For other parents who are looking for new tools to assist them this holiday season, I highly recommend activity schedules. Activity schedules are sets of pictures that show each of the steps needed to complete a task. They help ease the stress that novel activities sometime bring by showing a concrete beginning and end for each task. They are a great way to promote independence while also decreasing the stress parents can feel during family activities. Click here to see an example of a simple activity schedule for a fun, snowman craft.
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Some of my greatest memories are holiday-related. For example, the Christmas of 1982 when Santa placed under our tree a stuffed prairie dog—Prairie Pup. My new special interest quickly became prairie dogs for the next eight years. Prairie Pup and I were inseparable, until I began middle school and Prairie Pup became the first prairie dog to be expelled from the Oakland County Schools. The special education teachers informed my parents, “Your son is too old to be carrying a love-worn prairie dog, desperately needing Rogaine.”
During the holidays, I have experienced meltdowns and stress. When I was seven years old, my Christmas gift was an army outfit, equipped with a toy machine gun, walkie-talkies, and binoculars. After a few days, the trigger on the machine gun broke. My parents did not send it back to the North Pole for repairs but instead returned it to Sears for a new set. The new army set was complete except for one small detail —the binoculars were a different style, a 1940’s design compared to modern. When I saw the new binoculars in the box—the former ones missing—my emotions erupted. I began hitting my head relentlessly, smashing everything in my path. My meltdown lasted ten straight hours; it only ceased after my parents went back to Sears and found my original binoculars.
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In 2010, overwhelming devastation strained governments and humanitarian agencies following the earthquake in Haiti. Our teens and young adults saw the troubling images of toppled buildings, ravaged neighborhoods and despondent Haitians. They asked me, “What are we going to do to help?”
My first thought was Haiti is more than a thousand miles away across an ocean… and we know nothing about earthquake recovery or disaster relief. My second thought was YES! Our program is achieving its mission of encouraging our young people to accept responsibility to help the community both near and far. So, we went to work! We signed up to volunteer at MedWish International, a non-profit agency that sends medical supplies to third world countries such as Haiti. We also planned and hosted our first philanthropic event. We performed our play as a fundraiser for earthquake relief and collected $400, which the group chose to donate to Save the Children Haiti.
The Horvitz YouthAbility program of JFSA Cleveland empowers youth with disabilities and at-risk individuals by engaging them in volunteerism. As a YouthAbility coordinator, my team and I encourage our young people to help themselves by helping others. Our days, evenings and weekends are filled with a wide range of philanthropic activities. We garden, maintain a trail in the Metroparks, assist Holocaust survivors, create artwork, perform original plays with positive messages, help the homeless and more. We want our ambassadors to know that they have the responsibility and privilege of representing YouthAbility, the Jewish Family Service Association and all of the other wonderful people like themselves.
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Tabatha Devine, Milestones 2017 honoree of the Outstanding Educator Award, says that working with individuals on the autism spectrum has helped her become a more compassionate, caring and understanding person.
“To make others look past the disability and to see the person, I’ve always thought it was necessary to educate those around the person with special needs,” Tabatha says. She also strives for “more” for her students: more opportunities, more experiences, more adventure. “I always wanted my students to participate in prom, sporting events, graduation, mainstream classes and become competitively employed.”
For the past 15 years, Tabatha has served as a Transition Coordinator for the Westlake City School System, working with students with disabilities. For Tabatha, going above and beyond meant becoming a class advisor so her students could attend prom for the first time. It meant becoming a coach so her students wouldn’t feel intimidated by others and be given a fair chance. She made sure her students attended graduation ceremonies with the rest of the student body while providing all support necessary to make this happen. She approached area businesses to promote her students’ abilities and to help create positions and provide support to individuals who may never have thought to hire a person with special needs.
Prior to working at Westlake City Schools, Tabatha served extensively in the region as an Intervention Specialist, including at St. Vincent St. Mary’s High School in Akron (where she introduced inclusion and helped integrate students with special needs into traditional classrooms); at Coventry High School, also in Akron (where she founded the school’s first classroom for students with developmental disabilities), and at Lakewood High School (where she helped bring special needs students together with mainstream students in a literacy program).
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For Lucas Estafanous, 18, Milestones 2017 honoree of the Personal Achievement Award, the sky’s the limit. Though as a young child he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and later, at age 13, diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, Lucas, with the help and support of his family and the Milestones community, pushed forward to pursue his passion – mathematics.
The Orange High School senior is known by his math teachers and peers as a skilled test taker. He is admired for his ability to solve complex equations with finesse. Which is why, this fall, Lucas will attend Case Western Reserve University where he will major in mathematics.
“It felt really good when I got my acceptance letter,” he says. “College will be a really cool experience.”
In addition to this major accomplishment, Lucas has been an intern at Milestones for the past two years. During his internship, Lucas has learned hard and soft employment skills. Milestones has benefitted greatly from his ability to successfully complete a wide variety of tasks in a busy office environment.
When Lucas is not hitting the books or interning, he enjoys hobbies including tennis and a variety of activities on his computer (he says he hates when people generalize video games in conversation).
How do you feel your efforts have impacted the autism and special needs community?
I feel like I have changed the way that people view autism. They may have not been educated on how wide of a spectrum autism covers, and I hope meeting me has opened their eyes a little bit.
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