This was a big weekend for Tony (and everyone else really) because it was the Freeze Yer Toe Edisto camp-out. I accompanied Marlaina and Anton with Tony for a weekend of VW bus fun. Tony did really well on the way up in the truck on Friday, he actually slept most of the way. After we got to the beach, Tony was very stimulated by the new change in environment. He was running, jumping and laughing all around the camp site. He was very social, running up to new people and saying “Hi!” Since everyone was trying to set up, I took Tony over to the playground to slide. I had to walk him up to get on the slide (up the stairs and over a chained wooden bridge) and then I would slide down with him saying “slide” everytime we went down. After only 2 times Tony was manding very clearly for “slide.”

Aside from playing around the camp site (splashing in puddles, throwing pebbles, and occasionally distributing hugs) Tony and I played in the camper with crayons, singing songs and watching Blue’s Clues. I did a lot of songs with Tony that we put in maintenance like “Wheels on the Bus,” “Head, shoulders, knees, toes”, and “If you’re happy and you know it.” Tony also learned the word “rain” when we were on a walk with Dad. While Anton was carrying him, it started raining and Anton said “that’s rain, Tony” and Tony echoed “rain” and later was raising his hands up feeling the drops saying “rain.”

As far a sleeping was concerned Tony was so wound up the first day he didn’t want to go to bed. When he finally did around 9:30, he only slept in 3-hour increments which left it a very sleepless night for Marlaina and myself. On Saturday Tony was much more calm (probably just exhausted from the day before). After another exciting day of walking, sliding, running and watching Blue’s Clues, Tony finally slept soundly through the night on Saturday and slept most of the way home.

This weekend went really well. Although Tony was noticeably over stimulated by the new environment, he seemed very happy throughout the trip.

Today was a group effort w/Parker, Whitney, and myself. Even though Tony was a tad distracted he did some receptives, motor imitation, and intraverbals (such as “you cut w/scissors” and “you drink from a cup”). He also manded many things such as “color”, “ride”, and “crayon”. He was also making verbal approxs for some things that we couldn’t figure out. He was extremely talkative. Tony has mastered matching his numbers and letters with his puzzles. Maybe we could now do puzzle matching with animals (saying “where does the sheep go?”). I didn’t have luck with touching body parts w/out gestural or physical prompt although Tony completely did this to the “Head, Shoulders,…”song with his musical dog. Sometimes he got slightly upset when asked to touch his body parts. We didn’t push too hard on this one today but did go back to it many times. We did do some attributes with different sized ducks and balls but we have some questions for you (Whitney will blog them later). Although I had my wisdom teeth pulled I was happy to work with him a little just to maintain exposure. He did well considering his long weekend! I look forward to Wed.

MANDS = 30

Today went really well with Tony. We had a lot of manding for things today which was great. He manded for “roll” as I would roll the ball to him and then he would roll it back. He really likes doing this and is also good for his gross motor skills by having to roll it back to me. Tony also manded for “spin” “bubbles” and for “ride.” This last mand was sort of created on Monday when Elizabeth was pulling him on his wagon and he wanted to be pulled in it. Tony also manded for “squeeze” a lot when we were playing with his squish balls. He likes to push down the bubbles the ball makes when you add pressure. I also worked with him on saying “push” as he was pushing the bubbles down.

As far as tacts go, we didn’t get to pictures of animals today, but we did go over some magnetic cards that had pictures of chips, shoes, a shirt and a crayon. I went through these with Tony because they were in the same box as his post-it notes. I presented each one with “What’s this?” Tony tacted each one of those cards on the first try, unprompted. I’ve never done these cards with him before, but I was very impressed (especially with “shirt”). On tacting sounds, Tony got a “yes” with cat and pig today. The rest of the sounds were echoics.

When we worked on body parts, Tony again didn’t want to focus on Mr. Potato Head too much, nor the spare parts. He did echo an approximation to “finger” and “nose” today and tacted Mr. Potato Head’s hat and touched it when I asked. Again, I had to do hand over hand with “touch your ___” with Tony.

For motor imitation Tony did really well today too. He clapped his hands and put his hands to his cheeks on the first time with the “do this” prompt. I also did jumping with Tony outside and running. Also when we were outside, Tony manded to see the ducks since we did this with Parker last time. He grabbed my hand and started grabbing me and saying “ducks.” Tony echoed “duck” when we saw one and also made the sound for duck.

Tony also completed both puzzles today (numbers and letters). I dumped all the pieces out and Tony went through and picked out all the numbers and put them in their correct place. After, Tony worked on the letters and did most of them correctly (I had to do a gestural prompt with “E” and “Q”).

So, all in all Tony had a great day today. He really is making great progress.

MANDS = 11 (I forgot during the beginning though..oops! Sorry!)

Today was a great day with Tony. He was very engaged in most of the activities we did. Still didn’t have time to get on to the tacts of adjectives but I need to gather all the different exemplars for it. I started to do the color drill again with 3 different exemplars, but Tony didn’t want to focus on it. I did work with him on colors with his magnetic coloring book that he loves (I had to pull it away from him while he was getting a diaper change and he wouldn’t let it go!).

We got through a lot of mands today and Tony especially loved having the “big” ball rolled to him across the floor. He requested “roll” multiple time and then I would ask him to roll it back to me, which he did while he laughed. Tony also made requests for Play-Dough. He didn’t verbalize but walked up to me and said “up” so that I would pick him up so he could reach the Play-Dough. I gave him the Play-Dough (3 cans) and before I gave it to him I said “say Play-Dough.” By the third can, Tony made an approximation to the echoic of “Play-Dough.”

Tony also wanted to play with his Sit-‘N-Spin and we worked on manding spin. He was manding for it, but it was barely close to spin. He manded to have the Sit-‘N-Spin spun in front of him and Elizabeth and I worked on Tony making the “SS” sound in spin. Other mands today also included bubbles.

I introduced teaching the names of the animals today which went well. He echoed “dog” and that was about it. However, being the first day, Tony paid attention to the pictures and did really well making the sounds of the animals, especially with cat and cow today.

Tony completely rejected Mr. Potato head today so I didn’t get a lot done with receptives (I did try several times during the session). I did do hand-over hand with touching his “head” “knees” and “toes” and “hair.” And when playing with his dolls he echoed “hair” when he was playing with the dolls hair. He also had some interest in the spare parts today and made verbalized approximations to “finger” and “nose.”

All the motor imitation things Jay came up with on Friday have been great during our past two sessions. Tony really likes being able to try to stand on one foot. I also tried the “open mouth” M.I. and he did it on the first time (such a smart boy).

The new intraverbals that have been introduced are going well too. We did almost all the intraverbals on the list. The new ones we haven’t done before, so no luck with them but he does do “row, row, row your boat” very well.

Last, I just wanted to comment on the puzzle drills with the alphabet and the numbers. He was able to fill in all the numbers in the puzzle and then because he had no trouble with it, I gave him the numbers puzzle and the alphabet puzzle together and mixed random pieces together. Tony had no trouble matching the mixed numbers and letters in the correct puzzle slot.

Also, I wanted to ask Jay about the “hot/cold” adjective tact drill. Elizabeth made a good point at how that would be hard to find 3 diff. exemplars that Tony is familiar with (and without burning him). Like if we used ice as being “cold” do you think he would learn that the ice is called “cold”? Anyway, just thought we could use Jay’s help with this. Thanks!

Today was a pretty good day with Tony, although because he had just had speech I think he got tired earlier than usual. We worked on “roll” with roll ball and bubbles and also manded go on the first try when we played with the toy cars. Still haven’t gotten a mand for the PLay-Dough or open door but as Jay said, it will come in time. We also worked on the beginning of teaching the tacts for the animal identification. He echoed “dog” along with some of the sounds when we did this.

We started to work on body parts with Mr. Potato Head and the spare parts and he successfuly tacted “ear” very clearly with the first prompt. I tried working on the receptives “touch your___” along with the tacting as Jay sugggested. I only got to eyes, nose and mouth before Tony started whining and wanted to continue drawing with his crayons. I gave him a break with the crayons for a couple minutes while I got out his Alphabet puzzle to work on which he really concentrated on. I only had to do a gestural prompt with letter “Z” “Q” which resemble “N” and “O.”

We also worked on a couple new motor imitations like “standing on one foot” which was pretty funny. Tony thought it was great that Parker and I looked so ridiculous standing all wobbly on one foot. Tony made several attempts to do this, but couldn’t keep his balance. After a little thought, Tony walked over to his chair and put one hand on for balance and stood on one foot. (Jay, should I mark this as a “yes”?).

After this, I though I would give him a break to play with Play-Dough and then work on colors. I used green and blue colors for the drill and my 3 exemplars included play-dough, ball and blocks of these two colors. I know that Tony knows the color blue, but as I was presenting them I think he knew what was going on and started throwing the balls (he was definitely getting tired).

We took him on a walk to see if we could get anything else out of him. He did respond to running (motor imitation run that is) with “run” but then tired out of only a few seconds. He made no request for swinging today, but was echoing up a storm when we took him near the lake to see the “water” and the “ducks.” He was exhausted by the time we got to the door and immediately grabbed MOm’s hand to be taken upstairs. So, although he was pretty tired throughout the session, Tony made a great effort with almost everything;.

MANDS for today =16

Today was our IFSP meeting with Jay, Megan, Lane, Jill, and ABATs. I worked with Tony in the morning and we got a lot done with animal sounds (even though he did mostly echoics to the sounds), motor imitation including roll car, drawing, pencil in cup and he also manded for bubbles, drawing, and cup. Although cup sounds like “c-c-c” but I gave him a “yes” for it. He also did well with intraverbals “1, 2, 3s” and “A,B,Cs.”

During the IFSP meeting we went over Megan’s (EI) forms looking at Tony’s strengths and weaknesses and things that need to be targeted. It was a good meeting because Megan talked with Jay and we added some of Tony’s “weaknesses” to the ABA program (one example was “standing on one foot”). Jay also took out some things like the echoics as well as the matching drills but replaced them with some additional tacting drills. These mainly focused on tacting different .animals, adjectives and colors. We are teaching the colors and the adjectives over 3 different exemplars, using 3 different items that are identical except in color and with adjectives in one salient opposite (i.e. big, little; short, long; loud, quiet). Basically we added some harder drills because Tony has been doing so well with everything in the program. Tony is just learning so quickly! So, that’s all for today.

Mands=40

As soon as we entered the therapy room Tony tripped over his feet and fell into his rocking chair, thereby piercing the corner of his left eye. We sped so fast to the hospital that instead of cars I saw flashes of color until there we were in the emergency room. Needless to say Tony was not a happy camper. In fact, while the nurse was trying to take Tony’s stats he was saying “all done”, “no”, and “clean up”. The nurse understood him and said, “we’ll be done soon”. Well, except for a minor wound and a black eye Tony is okay, which is great news since the doc said that he was only half an inch away from losing an eye! During the car ride home Tony requested verbally and w/sign “cup”. At home Tony requested his cup and “eat”, along w/”color”, “crayon”, “walk”, and “open”. Tony said “color thinking chair”, too so I drew a chair in his notebook. He tacted and said independently “thinking chair”, “Blue’s Clues”, “mailbox”, “letter”, and “flag”. These are approximations from his favorite show and some are really clear. Really all done and I did today was draw and tact pictures of clothing, body parts, and random objects. I used “what’s this”, “what sound does a dog make” and just a few other SDs as we played in the room. Tony was so frazzled though that I wasn’t doing too much as to not upset him. Eventually the poor guy was just ready to go down for a nap. The poor guy just doesn’t get a break!

MANDS = 17

Today was a pretty good day with Tony. He was really excited about his new Blue’s Clues coloring sheets (in fact it was at sometimes difficult to get him to do other things than draw). We were tacting the items on his coloring sheets (i.e. “Who’s that, Tony?” …Tony’s response- “Blu Clues!”) and I removed one of the sheets to reveal “mail box” and Tony busted out with “MAIL BOX!” before I could even give him the prompt. He did great with independently tacting “crayon” and consistently manded for “open” everytime he wanted to use the markers. Because Tony was so excited about the coloring pages that we ended up working on shapes and colors while we were drawing. I had Tony choosing which color of crayon he would like to see if he would mand for a certain color (he only manded for red, but later tacted green and orange). Tony also played a lot with the tunnel and requested “tickle” several times (which he hasn’t done in awhile). I couldn’t get to MTS before speech came in but we still worked on body parts (tacts and receptive drills) as well as some motor imitation. Tony also was making some approximations to clothing items from the dress-up game we played with (shirt and then echoing glasses).

On top of blogging about today, I wanted to ask a couple questions about the book. I know that we have been recording a separate list of prompted and unprompted tacts but I noticed that some of them are listed twice and then recorded as “yes” for prompted and unprompted on the same day. So my question is, are these 2 “yeses” recorded as two independent events where one was prompted and the other was unprompted? Sorry, I’ve just been getting confused. Today, I put a star next to the ones that Tony did prompted as well as unprompted.

My other question was about the body part receptive drills. My understanding is that we are only giving a “yes” to unprompted command (i.e. “Touch your….[body part tact here]”). Based on what I know of Tony’s abilities, I don’t think at this point he could do these drills unpromtped…this is why I have been putting “No” to these because with a visual prompt he can do the task, but without he probably couldn’t. Anyway, I thought I could use some input from Jay and Elizabeth with these matters. If you have time and want to post to the blog that would be good,..or we can just talk on Thursday. Thanks!

MANDS=60

Tony worked extremely well w/speech today but needed a lot of redirecting w/ABA. Even so, Tony independently tacted many objects and also made many requests. He is also doing really well w/intraverbals and echoics. In fact, after saying “no” to the therapists (Parker was also here today) he independently made an approx for “I don’t think so”. He said this twice and sounded just like mommy. Tony is constantly picking up new ways to tell us when he doesn’t want to do something (“all done”, “no”, “clean up”, “bye bye”, “go”) or he just tries pushing us out the door. He requested to “draw”, “go”, “walk”, and “crayon” and tacted “sun”, “face”, and many of his usual words. Tony did well w/ “do this”, “what’s this”, and “what sound does an animal make”. Tony tacted body parts “arm”, “mouth”, “eyes”, etc…, with his Mr. Potato Head and w/therapist’s face. We went outside a couple of times and Tony played “peek a boo” and put objects in a basketball hoop. Inside he did well w/receptives, stomping, turning around, clapping, throwing, rolling, and drawing. The biggest new about today is that Tony was constantly speaking and saying a few new words (some echoed and some independent). Okay day!

First off, don’t kill me Jay but I forgot to count mands! I can say it was A LOT. Also, Lane, I forgot to try the weighted vest. Uh, I just got so carried away that I went brain dead. OT would like ABA to try the vest on Tony during his sessions for as long as he’ll wear it to see if it will help him. It shouldn’t exceed more than 10min (not that he’ll wear it even close to that time). Something else, many things from the ‘acquisition’ section of Tony’s book need to be moved to ‘maintenance’.

Okay, Today Tony repeated many words from his show as they were being said: Blue’s Clues, ear, mouth, heart, a clue, sounds from the show, and the theme music. Speaking of music, Tony completed intraverbals for all his songs except “Row, Row…” bc we didn’ t get to it. He also did a made up “Up, Down” game (I lifted him up and down and he said the words).Also, Tony performed really well today w/receptives, touching his toes, eyes, spinning around, putting a pencil in a cup, drawing shapes, and touching objects. He also repeated many words w/”say_” such as: notebook, chair, shirt, and teeth. Tony responded well to “what’s this” w/cat, dog, shapes, colors, shoes, and body parts. With “what sound does a monkey make” while holding a pic of a monkey, Tony went “ooh, ooh, ooh”. We also listened to a CD and Tony was stomping and patting his head to “If You’re Happy…”. He also held his finger up to his mouth and made the “shh” sound to a song. Tony tacted many objects and pics independently throughout the session. Matching also went well because Tony completed the shapes and the colors activities w/no problem today. Another excellent day!!