MANDS = 10

Today was another bad day for Tony. Marlaina also made the discovery that Tony had some tummy problems (we had 6 diaper changes before nap time). So again, not such a great day.

I started with food this morning only using cereal, chicken, chips and waffle. I used the same technique as last time and his approximations to “waffle” were noticeably stronger today. He also started tacting all the different food items on his tray (just chip and waffle). Jay, I wanted to ask you if I was supposed to be doing this for his entire breakfast, or just after he has manded for a few items? I felt bad making him work for all of his food and he also wasn’t feeling well.

Also today, I worked in some colors and I worked on some easy maintenance activities like the shapes. I didn’t push him too hard because he was getting frustrated and he just didn’t feel well. Tony also manded for “car” and I prompted “ride” and on the way to the car he said “car ride.” We sang songs in the car while we waited for Marlaina and then it was off for his favorite treat (Chick-fil-A fries). After we got back, and had another diaper change, Tony was content watching the Tubbies while grazing on his fries. We read a few books involving animals and he tacted them all very well, even making the noises when I asked. Three books later Tony was getting tired and was ready for a nap. He went down without a fuss.

So, today wasn’t the best for Tony because he was sick. This may also have explained some of his behaviors for the past week. I hope he feels better for tomorrow!

MANDS = 10

Today was another bad day for Tony. Marlaina also made the discovery that Tony had some tummy problems (we had 6 diaper changes before nap time). So again, not such a great day.

I started with food this morning only using cereal, chicken, chips and waffle. I used the same technique as last time and his approximations to “waffle” were noticeably stronger today. He also started tacting all the different food items on his tray (just chip and waffle). Jay, I wanted to ask you if I was supposed to be doing this for his entire breakfast, or just after he has manded for a few items? I felt bad making him work for all of his food and he also wasn’t feeling well.

Also today, I worked in some colors and I worked on some easy maintenance activities like the shapes. I didn’t push him too hard because he was getting frustrated and he just didn’t feel well. Tony also manded for “car” and I prompted “ride” and on the way to the car he said “car ride.” We sang songs in the car while we waited for Marlaina and then it was off for his favorite treat (Chick-fil-A fries). After we got back, and had another diaper change, Tony was content watching the Tubbies while grazing on his fries. We read a few books involving animals and he tacted them all very well, even making the noises when I asked. Three books later Tony was getting tired and was ready for a nap. He went down without a fuss.

So, today wasn’t the best for Tony because he was sick. This may also have explained some of his behaviors for the past week. I hope he feels better for tomorrow!

Today was not a great day in the land of Tony. He was very irritable all day. He worked with Parker in the morning and then with Jill later on in the afternoon. He seemed frustrated and cranky much of the time during his activities. He went down for a nap for only a short time until he was woken up by the sharp noise of the creeky front door. After a few soothing words from Mom and Dad, Tony drifted back to sleep for only a short while until he was abruptly woken again. This time he was upset and did not want to go back to sleep. After he was brought downstairs he was very whiny and laid his head down on the couch and table. It was apparent he was still tired and did not get enough sleep. He started manding for “walk” only minutes of watching some Blue’s Clues. We headed out the door and Tony darted straight to the car, desperately trying to grab onto the car door handles saying “open.” I tried my hardest at redirecting but it was obvious that he REALLY needed a car ride to soothe him. Marlaina, being the doting and understanding mother she is, grabbed her keys and directed me to put Tony in the car. After a quick drive through Ion looking at houses, Marlaina took us on a quick side trip to the nearby bike shop. Tony looked at bikes and boats upstairs and fell in love with a kayak. He was very reluctant to leave and in fact threw a terrible-two tantrum on the floor. After wrestling him into his seat we decided to end our merry car ride and head home.

Back on the ranch, I took Tony inside and worked with him a bit until bedtime came. We worked on under and over, long and short and played with Play-Dough. His approximation for this word is getting much better. Tony also picked up his giant puppet dragon and seemed very interested with it today. He really likes having the dragon pretend to eat his hand and drink out of his cup. I tried to shape a mand for “dragon” with this and he started making approximations. After playing with some more toys it began to grow very dark. We headed in for one last show with Blue and then it was off to night-night. By this time Tony was getting very out of sorts because he was so tired. Hopefully a good night rest will help!

Mands: 20

Tony’s first mand of the day was ‘all done,’ which Tony said to get out of his high chair. We went into his room and he went straight for the play dough. I put the play dough container behind my back and asked “where is the play dough,? Can you say ‘where’?” Tony started to show slight signs of frustration, so I discontinued this probe and produced the play dough, saying “here it is!” and putting the tub on the table. He was no longer upset. Now he manded ‘open,’ which he is doing a better job enunciating now than his former ‘aben.’ I asked “do you want the play dough,?” and “what do you want?” Neither of these questions produced the effect I was hoping for (a mand for play dough,) so I used echoics to build a bridge as advised by Jay. I said “say play dough” and he made an approximation, then I asked again what he wanted and finally got (an approximation of) the desired result! Yeah! Of course, now I opened the container and let Tony remove each glob of play dough one by one. As he grabbed them, I asked him to tact their colors. He took a tool out of the new play dough accessories bin. It was a roller. He handed me the roller and a glob. I knew what he wanted, but I was hoping to get a ‘roll’ mand. I guess I got a little carried away and complicated/ sophisticated with my language here and I was reminded of it by Marlaina’s laughter from the living room.

After I’d rolled each color out we put away the play dough. ‘Walk,’ and ‘open,’ were his next mands, which together got him outside. On our walk we toyed around with the concept of near and far. I waited until we were safe in the large green grassy expanse of the courtyard then ran torward the middle until I was pretty far but he could still hear me without any yelling. Then I said “FAAAAARRRRR,” then I ran all the way up to him and said “NEEEEARRR.” Not only was he tickled by my actions, but next time I ran away when I turned around he said ‘far’ with me and when I returned he said ‘near’ with me. He gets it, now we just have to get hbim to tact it. While we were out there, we also went over and under things and I got him to say ‘over’ echoically. It seems that these are not in the tact data collection sheets. Maybe I’m in the wrong phase. I’ll ask Whitney.

Once we got back Tony worked on his breakfast a little. He grabbed a waffle and walked to the step stool in the kitchen. He climbed up on it and started eating his waffle. He pointed to a ‘count on 2’ nbc magnet and tacted the two. When he’d devoured the first waffle he went down the hall to retrieve the next waffle. He repeated the entire process. Before I could get him to go back into the room he noticed that Marlaina was in the front yard. He became consumed by the desire to go for a car ride, he said ‘cuah’ and we reinforced it with a car ride to BK first for some fries, then a field trip to Lowe’s for some fencing materials. What a day!

Today was mediocre. There was some progress, but Tony was or the edge of crankiness all day. We didn’t get much of anything done as far as the book goes, but I worked on introducing the new concepts we decided on yesterday with Jay. Whitney and Marlaina worked on the data entry aspect of our learning program, updating our log sheets, creating a user-friendly weekly maintenance sheet, and setting up phase two. Whitney got a lot accomplished, but she couldn’t have done it without Marlaina’s Excel prowess.

Tony and I spent most of today outside, and I found the environment quite helpful for introducing new concepts. For example, the tape that had been hung to prevent the new grass from being trampled or mowed by the landscapers served very well for the abstract concept of over/under. It was fun for Tony to actually be able to crawl under the tape and be picked up by me as we both went over the tape. He made a pretty good approximation for over when we were finished one of the walks and he wanted to go over the gate inside the house (echoic.) In his room I got under the table and said “where is Parker? Is she UNDER the table?” Tony didn’t say under, but after I got out, he went under the table. I asked “where is Tony? Is he UNDER the table?” Then I tried your name is . . ., he finally ended up making an approximation for his name, but only after I said “can you say Tony?” Another new word approximation for today: ‘cool.’ This happened when we were over by the fan and I said that it was blowing cool air onto us, it too was an echoic.

We worked on ‘where’ by hiding on opposite sides of a tree outside. I didn’t actually get him to say where, but he did say ‘right here’ and ‘right there.’ It was there also that I introduced in/out while we were working on ‘where’ by climbing into the tree and saying “where’s Parker . . .here I am, I’m IN the tree! [waving, jumping down] now I’m OUT of the tree! [waving again.] Also while we were outside I tried to do big/little by asking him whether some huge branches on the ground were big sticks or little sticks. All he wanted to say was ‘sticks’ oh well, we’ll keep trying . . . maybe next time!

Just a quick request! I’m trying to fill in “Phase 2” for Tony’s program and I wanted to touch base with you on what mands you were targeting during speech time. About 4 would be good, but I’ll use whatever. Thanks for the help!

Just wanted to comment on the feeding activity that I did with Tony for the first time today. Marlaina had prepared 4 different food items before I arrived. These were hot dogs, pea chips, mini waffle, and chicken nuggets. The idea was to present only a bite-size amount to Tony so that he would mand for more of the desired food. Unfortunately, Tony won’t eat anything that is cut up into tiny pieces so I had to give him one mini waffle, one piece of a hot dog, a pea chip and a nugget. Tony chose the waffle first. I tacted the waffle for him while he was enjoying it and then I let him move on. He then chose the hot dog next and popped it in his mouth before I could get an echoic. I tacted “hot dog” again while he was chewing. He didn’t seem too interested in the chicken or the pea chip so he started scanning around the room saying “eat, eat.” He saw the food plate in my lap with the rest of the hot dog and waffles and reached for it. I held up a single piece of hot dog and a mini waffle in each hand. As he reached for the waffle I held it just out of reach and asked, “What do you want?” After a pause, Tony didn’t respond and I prompted with “you want waffle? Waffle?” Tony echoed “waffle” and I reinforced him with the waffle. After finishing yet another delicious mini waffle, Tony wanted some hot dog. I used the same procedure as before and Tony echoed “hot dog” and then actually answered correctly with no prompt later on.

I think today was very successful with the food. He’s already getting “hot dog” and “waffle” today so I’m really excited about trying it again on Thursday.

Today was another scheduled meeting that we had with our favorite ABA man, Jay. It was also a very special day because Jay brought his son AJ to play with Tony. As soon Jay and AJ got out of the car, Tony had spotted them from the bus (where we were playing at the time) and started shouting with excitement. Tony was pointing at AJ saying “baby.” Up to this point, we have not seen Tony pointing while manding or through tacting. It’s so wonderful to see these expressive behaviors taking shape! But back to the greeting….

We all headed inside to the playroom. It was really great to see Tony so excited about his playmate. While we talked about the different activities in Tony’s program, AJ and Tony played with different toys. With all the excitement going on Tony was screeching and showing AJ his turtle (also throwing things over his head). AJ had just gotten up from a nap and wasn’t quite as awake as Tony but still played very nicely, handing him toys and bouncing balls with him. After about 20 minutes Tony was overstimulated with all the new people in his room so he manded for “walk” and I took him outside. Shortly after, I asked Tony if he would like to go “night night” and Tony echoed “night night” so it was off for a nap.

While Tony was napping, we continued to talk about the program and how to effectively alter its structure. We discussed how Tony responds much better to novel stimuli. We’ve noticed he has seemed a little “burned out” on some of the motor imitation and Potato Head activities. Our data also supports this idea. Marlaina thought it would a better idea to alter phases in Tony’s program: Phase 1 and Phase 2. Each phase will have the same program design (motor imitation, mands, receptives etc) but will have different activities. In this way, we will have two altering program sets that will guard against Tony’s satiation with the activities.

During the meeting, we also began to calculate the percentages for each activity to see Tony’s progress thus far. We’re hitting around 50% success rate for most of the activities and some range up to 70%. We’d all like to see these percentages a little higher so we didn’t remove any single activity from the program. We did however add a few new things to the program in addition to Phase 2. Jay added some new mands for “What” “Where” “Who” Which.” We also added a new section for tacting prepositions such as “On/Off” “In/Out” “Over/Under” and “Above/Below.” Also added some new adjectives to tact “loud/quiet” and “hot/cold” to Phase 2. Motor imitation was another focus of discussion as we decided to start doing motor imitation with objects (ie throwing ball, kicking ball, making a basket with a ball).

That’s pretty much the summary for today’s meeting. Needless to say a lot of new material to get started on!

Mands: 18

Alright, first thing’s first: I have an amendment for yesterday’s blog. . . I forgot to tell everyone that Tony is now comfortable using his new toy that Whitney and Marlaina found at K-Mart. A battery powered Blue’s Clues game. When this game was first brought into the house Tony was more than apprehensive about it. Actually, it seemed as if he was scared of it, or at least the noises it makes. He would walk over that to it, but if it was on and started singing “red, orange, green and blue . . .” he would put his head down on a chair or on the floor like he sometimes does with the vaccuum cleaner and the weed whackers/ mowers. Yesterday he took it out and I turned it on. It didn’t start making the scary noises right away, so I was able to show him that there was a useable micriphone. He liked the microphone. He touched the screen and the wretched (to him) song commenced. He put his head down. I said into the microphone “it’s okay, you don’t have to listen to that part, we can make our own noises.” Then I started singing the alphabet song so he didn’t have to hear the disturbing noise. I also showed him that he could control it and make it make other noises.

Today, tony made approximations for two new words: ‘higher’ and ‘left.’ He said higher when I picked him up to retrieve something from the giraffe; but not high enough to get to the top compartment. I said “what do you want, do you want up higher?” He said “up,” so I said “up higher, can you say highr?” and he then made an approximation for higher. He made the approximation for ‘left’ while we were putting his shoes on for the first walk of the day. I was simply telling him which foot/ shoe was which, and he echoed it!

On his walk he met two dogs. He very clearly said ‘dog’ without me asking him to say it. He even got to pet one of the dogs (I was careful to make sure it was okay with the dog and owner, and helped Tony be very gentle.) That was fun!

Mands: 26

Tony had a good day! It was beautiful outside and we took advantage of it. We went outside after a short time in his room coloring and fingerpainting with the messless colorwonder paints. Once we went outside Tony went directly for the bus and said ‘aben.’ I opened the door and he climbed in, being sure to avoid hitting his head on the steering wheel. I climbed in and took a seat in the driver’s seat, he was in the passenger seat. I gave the wheel a few spins and made some car noises and horn noises. Tony was enjoying it and we started in on a few rounds of “Wheels on the Bus” Then we climbed in the back. We pretended to sleep and made snoring noises, until Tony said “wak aap!” Then we popped up. Tony said “all done,” so I went to the door and said “What do you want me to do?” He said “aben.” I said “open what?,” and he made an approximation for door. He’s making progress.

We went back inside to do some work. As soon as we entered his room it was clear that he had something in mind to play with. I picked him up and had him point to what he wanted. He wasn’t quite high enough to reach the play-dough, which was what he’d pointed to, so I took advantage of this and tried to get him to mand for it by asking “what do you want?” He wasn’t in the mood to say it, even when I had it in my hand. He didn’t even want to say it when I said “say play-dough.” Oh well, I didn’t press the issue. We played with the green and pink play-dough, then we got the red and blue down too. He handed me the entire glob of each color one after another, manding for me to “wooll” them. I rolled them each into somewhat uniform cylinder shapes. He was pleased with this and set them all side by side on the table. He then started using the magnets to print shapes in the dough. One of the magnets he grabbed from the door was a purple triangle. If he can say ‘triangle,’ I have yet to hear it. It seems like he just says something close to circle and leaves it at that. I repeatedly asked him to “say triangle” until I got a pretty good approximation out of him! Yeah! I think it helped that I broke it down into lllooonnnnggg syllables and overexaggerated the enunciation. He decided it was time to use some different materials for his play-dough printing. He walked over to his blocks container, grabbed a blue cylinder block, and said “bwoo cwuk-kle.” I said, “yes, it’s a blue circle! Yeah Tony!” Then he got a red triangle, and I asked him what color it was. It took a few tries to get a response, but finally, he said “wed.” We were just cleaning up the play dough when Lane arrived.