[blindkid] new parents with some questions

[Jason Fayre]

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Hello everyone,
I am posting this to both the blind parents list and the parents of
blind children list, so I apologize for the cross-post.

I am blind.  My wife and I just returned from India with our adopted
son.  He is 5 years old and was born without eyes.  Unfortunately, he
was abandoned and lived in an orphanage for at least 3 years, maybe
more.  So, we are looking at some fairly significant delays.  For
example, he is currently not speaking at all.  He will mimic language,
which is a good start though.  He is also still in diapers.  He will not
indicate when he is wet.
  In observing and interacting with him over the past 5-6 days, I do
have some questions.  This is our first child, so some of these
questions may be obvious to experienced parents:

1.  self-stimulation:  He is in motion almost constantly.  If he is
standing up, he rocks side to side and back and forth.  If he is sitting
down, he also rocks almost constantly.  Due to the lack of attention he
received in the orphanage, he needs to rock himself to sleep at night.
Does anyone have any ideas to help him overcome this?

2.  somewhat frantic or manic behavior at nap or bed times:  He has
quite a bit of trouble getting to sleep during nap time or at bed time.
 He will attempt to fall asleep, and then begin laughing, rocking very
vigerously and sometimes mouthing various objects.  This is all of the
same self stimulation, but he seems to get much more agitated at sleep
time.  The sad part is, due to neglect in the orphanage, he doesn't seem
to respond at all to one of us holding him, or trying to comfort him.  I
am honestly not sure how to handle this.  I don't want to just leave him
in his room.  He will get up out of bed and start walking around.  Do I
pick him up and put him back in his bed, or just let him work it out on
his own.


3.  playing:  He does not seem to have much of a concept of toys.  He
had one toy that he liked at the orphanage, which was a baby rattle.  We
have lots of toys here for him, but I am not sure how to introduce the
concept of playing to him.  Most of the time, he seems content to sit
down and rock.  If you give him something to play with, he will most
often throw it down.

4.  School:   I am not sure how to handle getting him into school.  As I
mentioned earlier, he is 5, but acts more like a 1-2 year old.  I know
he could benefit from the services in the public schools such as
ocupational therapy and speech/language therapy.  I'm not sure weather
to try and start some of that now, or wait until the fall.  I am not a
huge fan of home schooling.



I know I will have more questions, but thats it for now.  Any help would
be greatly apreciated.  We're feeling a bit like a fish out of water at
this point.


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