First Day of Kindergarten [DFW Autism Charity]

MAXimum Chances would love to share a story of an amazing little boy and his incredible milestone! Today our first Maximum Chances child at the Journey Learning center is headed off to school. Gorgeous Brooks is starting kindergarten! Now obviously that’s a milestone many children will begin today, but for Brooks, and many children on the spectrum, this is a big step. He was largely non-verbal until just a year ago! Diagnosed with autism around the age of 2, Brooks has worked incredibly hard to get where he is today. He has been at the wonderful Journey Learning Center for more than 18 months, attending 5 days a week and nearly 8 hours a day. He has learned to count, say and write his name, set the lunch table and interact with his little friends as well as the teachers. Imagine learning 5 years of life skills in such a condensed period of time like that!

Sending a child on the autism spectrum off to school where they will largely be integrated with a mainstreamed classroom is such a dream for many parents. Brooks is an amazing warrior and the incredible staff at Journey have worked so hard with him. No doubt this is incredibly rewarding for them to see him be so successful.

We stopped by the Journey Learning Center on his last day to congratulate him and take some pictures of him having fun with friends. He is such a joy to be around, and that smile is quite infectious. Congrats to Brooks and his family, we are so happy to be sharing in this wonderful day with you!

For more information on the Journey Learning Center, visit their site, http://www.journeylearning.org

Above is Brooks with all of his friends eating lunch! And below is one of his favorite activities, riding his bike, and playing on the playground.

One of the activities he worked on was journaling about his day. Here he is copying the sentence “I cut a hat,” talking about how he made a graduation hat earlier in the day. Look at that gorgeous handwriting!