Josh

Josh, out standing in his field, Fall 2005. (Well, okay, it's someone else's field, but he's still out standing in it.)

Josh (born 1992-12-12) is the oldest of Sandy's non-adult children. He is autistic, and currently does not use verbal communication (except apparently at school, where he is usually able to write and speak mostly-rote responses on request).

Josh is unusually interactive for an autistic person; he smiles, gives eye contact, laughs, and plays possum sometimes when he knows he has to do something but doesn't want to; his main issue seems to be with communication. On a good day, he will hover outside the office door if he wants something; on a bad day, he will whack Benjy so Benjy will start crying and alert us that something needs attention (at which point we notice that Josh is out of juice, hasn't been fed, or whatever it may be). (We are, of course, trying to discourage this pattern.)

• Josh information for care providers (sitters)
• Josh and The System: the ongoing story of our attempts to get supportive services for Josh
• Josh category with a few things in it

Notes

Needs

The most important life-skill Josh could use at this point would be some way to indicate what he wants. His current methods of indicating that he wants something include:

• "hovering" around the office (to get our attention)
• whacking one or both of his brothers (so someone will get up and notice that his juice is empty, or other things; sometimes we can't figure it out)
• random vocalizations (we encourage this one over the others, as it is more communicative in nature)

There are a variety of methods Josh could use to indicate what he needs without having to use verbalizations (e.g. pointing, or taking someone by the shoulder and leading them); he seems unable to do any of them, though perhaps training could help with this. At school and other places, he often is given picture-cards as a way of informing him of the day's schedule; I don't know if anyone has made a serious effort to get Josh to indicate choices using similar cards. (2006-06-25 Update: Yes. Read this.)

Completing his toilet-training would also be very helpful. All that remains to be taught is wiping, which (unfortunately) is a fairly complicated process and requires some communication in order to be taught successfully.

Links of Convenience

• After School program
• The Arc of Durham: respite care
• The Arc of North Carolina
• The Durham Center
• local Special Olympics schedule
• Benefits For Children With Disabilities (Social Security Administration): can't get anything if you've got over $2000 of liquifiable assets (e.g. savings, stocks); real-estate ownership doesn't count towards this total, but debt (e.g. credit cards) doesn't take away from it either. Josh will qualify when he turns 18, but Sandy doesn't qualify (too much in emergency savings) so Josh can't get benefits since he is in her care. (It's not clear what happens if he's declared incompetent as an adult, which I would think would have to happen; does he still fall under Sandy's financial "wing", then?)