MANDS = 18

I took over for Parker today for Tony’s ABA since she wasn’t feeling well. Tony was having kind of a rough day with things. He seemed frustrated with a lot of the activities…although he still willingly completed almost everything. However he’s in with Jill right now having speech and he seems to be enjoying himself with balloons.

Some exciting news to report on receptives. While we were working on Mr. Potato Head Tony started tacting all of his parts and then started tacting his own corresponding parts accordingly. Tony put Mr. Tato Head’s nose and mouth in the correct place and then said “nose” “mouth” very clearly and then touched his own nose and mouth immediately after. This is the first time I’ve seen him make such a clear connection with the Potato Head parts and his own. This is definitely good!

OK, other things for today we did….we did some good work with the intraverbals. I’m still getting a lot of approximations for “notebook” and “crayon.” Notebook is more like “nok-kk” and crayon is still “crayy” for the most part. I think these will get better as everyone continues to reinforce him with the full and correct echoic promt. I also heard Tony say “cup” very clearly several times (not just the “ccc”).

Another fantastic thing that Tony did today was say “PLay-Dough” for the first time with no prompt (well just the visual). I got the dough down and said “Hey, what’s this?” At first Tony said “squeeze” I paused another few seconds before giving him a prompt and then Tony turned around and said “play-dough.” I reinforced him with the play-dough and kept repeating the phrase during our playtime with it. How great is this kid?

We spent a lot of time this session going over colors and adjectives big/little and long/short. I still feel like we’re in the beginning teaching phase with these things especially with big/little and long/short simply because Tony has never said any of these words before. I give him a lot of echoic promts like “say long” and then I’ll make the slinky long. Then I’ll say, “Lets make the slinky short. Can you say short?” This is how I’ve been doing it…I’ve also been using string and those colored tubes that make noise when you make them long/short. I’ve also been using any opportunity during our playtime to incorporate teaching colors by having Tony mand for objects of a certain color. I’ll talk more about these things with you tomorrow Jay. I really think he’s doing well though.

Ok, I think that’s all for today. Tony just got done having a blast in speech so I think its time for nap!

Surprise…I made it back to the blog!! It’s great to hear and see all of the progress Tony is making. We have been working on two-word combinations pretty aggressively. I have been using a mixture of word combinations just because Tony seems to pick up on these things pretty quickly. We have been using subject+verb,verb+subject,noun+please,and phrases like “my turn”. At this point I am modeling word for word with Tony imitating one word at a time. Occasionally he will imitate both words together. Some examples…”give _____”, “roll ball”, “Tony/baby/etc. spin”. Another thing that I started addressing this week is Tony’s grabbing of objects. I have encouragaed (some hand over hand) him to extend an open hand (palm up) and let me hand the object to him vs. him snatching something from my hand. I’ve not been consistent in pairing a verbal command with this, but typically saying “be gentle”. Any thoughts? I don’t think I mentioned this to any of you this week. Anywho…hope you are having a great night/morning. I’ll see you between 12:45 and 1.

Mands: 19

This morning after ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Elmo’s World’ Tony manded for “down” and “all done.” We eplored the kitchen and living room briefly before heading straight into his room without a walk. Tony colored with the extra smooth crayons in a notebook. I attempted to introduce some dolls by making them jump into the shopping cart (currently filled with balls.) He really liked this and eventually had all the dolls in the cart and was shreiking with excitement and joy. I of course tried some motor imitation, but clapping the dolls’ hands and kicking their feet just couldn’t compete with jumping in the balls.

This afternoon’s session was somewhat productive. Tony jumped on his trampoline with the dyum de de dede dum dum song playing continually in the background. Then he got out his sit and spin and made it spin and then stop, manding “go” and “stop,” unfortunately he’d already gotten a no response for ‘go’ during our walk. He played with the magnets on the red door, tacting “Steve,” “clock,” “thinking chair,” and “blue’s clues.” Then he grabbed an orange crayon and his handy dandy notebook and sat in his thinking chair. Sometimes he likes to pretend he’s Steve or Joe. He moved from one activity to the next quickly while we were in his room. The next activity was pouring the foam letters, animals, and numbers from one measuring cup to the next, which required a mand from him for me to ‘aben’ the red container in which these objects were residing. I snuck Mr. Potatohead into the picture, saying “Hi, I’m Mr. Potatohead, put my ARMS IN the CUP!” He gave no response, so we did it hand over hand. He returned his gaze to the foam objects and I put Mr. Potatohead’s parts into the measuring cup he wasn’t using. I asked Tony to put Potatohead’s mouth on, again, we had to resort to hand over hand, but he did successfully attach the nose before becoming upset and wanting to get rid of Potatohead.

Mands: 16

Today was brisk. Tony and I went for a walk in the morning. At first he was content just to play in the front yard. I had him mand for ‘jump’ when it was clear he wanted me to pick him up and carry him over the top of the fence. After doing this three times, he was ready to move on. Much to his chagrin we took a 180 when he headed for the pond. He quickly recovered from his dissapointment as I shuffled through the leaves and then started running while I was holding him. He said “all done,” and “down,” so I let him down. We went over to a bench and he climbed onto it, saying “thinking chair. Soon Tony was finished with the bench and we headed for the basketball court. Along the way he picked up some sticks and rocks and was sure to check each drain for water content. When he found that they were dry he didn’t seem upset, just uninterested.

We got to the basketball court with some rocks still in tow – he is very good with the word ‘rock,’ so good in fact that I tried to get him to echo “rock on with your bad self” no luck. There were two chairs on the basketball court and one of them was on its back. Tony walked up to the prostrate chair, put his rocks down on the court, and said “uh-oh.” I said “do you want help?” Then I put his hands on the seat and helped him pull the chair to an upright position, saying “pull” and having him say it also. He turned his attention to the rocks and first arranged them in a straight line with all the rocks parallel to eachother, next in a v-formation. Back to the chairs – Tony spent a long time pushing the standing-up chair around the court, pushing it down, saying “uh-oh”, having me help him pull it back up, and then saying “yeah!” When he returned to the rocks he wanted to put them in the basketball hoop. I decided we should just bring the rocks home when I saw that the basketball hoop was only hanging onto the backboard by a small strip of rubber! This thing is about ten pounds of metal waiting to fall on some unsuspecting child’s head! Dangerous.

Upon our return to the house we found a sparkling clean Tony’s room and the scent of peppermint in the air! Yes, apparently spring cleaning fever is in the air and both Whitney and Marlaina have quite a case. Much organizing and scrubbing has been going down. A highlight of this cleaning spree happened after Jill arrived and brought Tony into his room for some speech therapy. Whitney was outside cleaning off a set of plastic drawers. She had finished scrubbing and was ready to rinse, what she didn’t remember was that she had already asked me to screw in the new sprinkler. As you may have guessed, she turned the valve for the hose and was surprised by the sprinkler coming on! While the cars were getting watered, she shrieked and almost tried to climb through the window to escape a soaking. Marlaina, Anton and I were amused.

When Jill and Tony were finished, I took him into his room. We colored a little, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. I tried introducing some dolls, but he pushed them away. He was not interested in motor imitation at all, but I was able to go over colors with him when he decided to play with the pegs. We also went over his intraverbals and I think he is getting pretty good at them, he is just in such a rush to answer that he doen’t listen all the time and sometimes mixes them up. Soon Tony tired of all the work and was more interested in getting out the door than anything in the room.

I also wanted to ask one quick question (for Jay) about adding a mand. Tony is so responsive to music and today when I was working with him we were working with his Booh-Bah cubes. When the pictures match up on the sides, they make Booh-Bah noises. Tony was delighted when I helped him match up the sides and the music came on. I decided it was the perfect time to come up with a mand for “music.” I think this would be a great mand for Tony and something that he would pick up on quickly (like he does with most things) because he is so highly resonsive to it. Jay, let me know what you think!

Today I worked in the afternoon with Tony and worked on some things that Parker left off with. I worked a lot on colors today which went really well. I did a couple different activities with colors…grabbing different balls and grouping balls according to color. I also used the blocks to work on colors again only this time I stacked blocks according to color and had Tony tact and place blocks in the correct stack. Although I had to do some verbal and gestural promts near the end he started to pick up on it and seemed to really enjoy the activity.

I also had a lot of success with Mr. Potato Head today. I had Tony put Mr. Potato Head’s mouth, eyes, ears, nose and arms in the correct place by asking, “Where does Mr. Potato Head’s ___ go?” He did so well and really focused. He only needed a gestural prompt with the arms.

I didn’t have luck with receptives with “grab your ____.” I was thinking that since Tony loves to “shake” so much, maybe we could change the “grab” to “shake.” Although this would limit some parts like “eyes” “nose” “tongue” “mouth” I think it would be better than doing something Tony is unresponsive to (in fact I think he already knows nose and mouth). Jay, what do you think?

I also wanted to report on some slight sensory issues that Marlaina, Anton and I have been noticing. For the past few days, Tony has been seemingly more sensitive to sound. When I was working with him I started up his dog doll that he normally loves, but on this occasion he actually put his head down on the table. He also told me “no, no, no” when we were in the car when I gave him his talking Blue dog. Again, this is something he normally likes. Hopefully these sensitivity issues are a result of our recent gluten encounter and will taper off but I definitely think its worth mentioning.

I am also happy to report tha Tony is also saying “cup” much more clearly. Before it was mostly just the “c-c-cc” sound when manding for “cup.” I noticed today that Tony is pronouning “cu–p” with the “p” sound at the end which is so great to finally here. I guess those echoic promts are really working!

Morning Blog:

Today was the last day for enjoying the wonders of the pond (at least for a while.) Mixed with the thrills of pond visiting are many downfalls including a plethora of duck poop, the possibility of getting wet, and perhaps even full emersion. The worst possible case: Tony becomes so preoccupied with the ambition to play by the pond that he sneakily embarks on a solo trip! SCARY. I agree that we should avoid this problem. Perhaps there are some possible alternatives such as buckets, basins, kiddie pools . . . it is getting warmer. Marlaina, Whitney, Anton, and I will figure something wonderful out, I’m sure.

While Tony was still eating and watching a morning program I introduced him to some new toys: plastic renditions of a zebra, an elephant, a whale and a shark. He seemed to like them, especially the zebra. As usual, when he’d had enough of the high chair and the eating, he manded for ‘all done.’ Almost immediately he manded for ‘walk.’

We granted his wish after a short delay for shoe donning. I took Tony to the courtyard first, where I tried the stop/ go game unsuccessfully. The next place on Tony’s agenda: the pond. As I stated previously, this was his last pond indulgence for a long time to come. Hopefully he got his fill of stick, leaf, and rock throwing. Maybe when he’s older and it has been determined a safe pastime we can try skipping rocks or mussels.

Upon our return from the walk we were greeted with the arrival of the lovely Jill
(speech therapist.) Tony was thrilled to see her. They went into Tony’s room for a session and it sounded like they were having fun and getting lots accomplished. After they were done I tried working with Tony in his room. We played a little, but he was preoccupied with the fact that Jill was still here. He wanted to soak up every second he could get (which is good!)

Tony manded for ‘walk’ again, and since he had just worked so hard we gave him a break and some fresh air. – That’s all for the morning.

Mands: 22 Alright, Tony and I had some fun today. We went for three walks, one of them with Morgan! We also got some things accomplished. On the first walk we went to the courtyard and ran, while running, sometimes I was carrying him, sometimes he was running on his own, I got him to mand for ‘stop’ and ‘go.’ And Tony liked swinging in the swing. Tony found a rather large rock in the grass, and I bet you can guess what he wanted to do with it. That’s right! He immediately headed straight for the pond. On the way I asked him what he was going to do with the rock, and he actually answered. He said ‘thwow.’ I tried to get him to tell me where he wanted to throw the rock, but he preferred showing me. He loved it when I imitated the noise the rock made when it went in the water. Tony was very interested in some brochures and advertisements that were in a drawer in his room. While he was looking at them, I was able to sneak in some animals and animal sounds. We went over the adjectives, but I think we are still in the introductory phase with them. Tony did well with the intraverbals and then he wanted to color. Gee, maybe it was the idea planted in his head (“You color with a . . .crayon.”) that made him walk over to the giraffe and say ‘cra’ an approximation for crayon and ‘aben.’ As he has been doing lately, he pulled out almost every book on the shelves one at a time, looking at most of them quickly. He showed absolutely no interest in the dolls although I tries to introduce them numerous times. He only became interested in Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead when I brought the shopping cart into the picture. He responded very well to ‘put Mr. Potatohead’s arms (and so on) in the cart!’

MANDS =22

Today was another fair day with Tony. He did really well with the intraverbals got a “yes” for “you sit in a thinking chair” and approximations to handy dandy “notebook” and you cut with “scissors.”

Tony is still making lots of requests to go on walks so I have done most of the motor imitation activities outside. He’s doing really well with these, especially “clap hands” and “open mouth.” He still is reluctant to do touch belly and touch head.

We had a short day today so we didn’t get much done with receptives, we did spend some time with the mirror and Tony did really well tacting parts (eyes, mouth, nose) on his Tinkie Winkie doll.

Alright, that’s all for now!

MANDS = 13

Today was fairly good, considering we were still dealing with the after-effects of the glutens. Tony didn’t mand as much today, but seemed to be less irritable when we were doing each activity. I got the usual “open” and a couple times echoed “help” when we were outside.

As soon as I came in the door, Tony was requesting “walk.” We went to his usual spot by the lake to see the ducks and to throw a few rocks in the water. Outside we worked on motor imitation. Tony got a “yes” for “arms in front” and “open mouth.” Inside we worked on motor imitation with the dolls. I didnt’ get very far with the drills in the book, but Tony did kiss Miss Piggy when I asked him to and also gave her a hug with no prompting. Also outside we played a “stop”/ “go” game where I held Tony’s hand and said “go” and we would run until he would say “stop” and we continued this for several rounds. I think he really understands the concept of “stop” “go” as well as “up” and “down.”

For the receptive activities we worked on the Potato Heads (we now have a Ms. Potato Head for anyone who doesn’t know). Tony worked well with both of them, putting Ms. Potato Head’s hat, arm, nose and mouth in the correct places without gestural prompting.

For tacts I worked a lot on colors with the crayons asking Tony to identify red, blue, green, orange, purple and black. I also used colors on the paper as well as blocks to serve as my exemplars. Tony got a “yes” for green and black. I also had some luck with the adjective activity with short/long. Tony did really well and started echoing “short” and “long” when we were playing with his slinky. For tacting animals, I think Tony is making great progress. He knows “monkey” and “duck” very well at this point. He didn’t do any sounds today (he was making the same sound for all the animals when I asked him what sound does “…. make” ). Alright, I think that’s about all I have to report on for today.