Tony did really well today. When he woke up from his nap he was in a great mood. He seemed a little distracted but he watched some Boobah for awhile. As soon as I started to grab his red ball for an activity he started over at Marlaina and whined a little and tried to take her hand. She didn’t get up, so Tony grabbed my hand and took me over to his high chair. He ate and then I took him outside to swing. Tony grabbed my fingers while I pushed him in the swing and I started counting to 10. When I got to 10, he laughed at clapped. I counted to ten again and then Tony signed for all done. He didn’t seem like he was all done, so I asked him again, “All done?” and he said all done very clearly and signed. He’s really done well with this over the past week since I’ve been around. So, after swinging, Tony grabbed his crayons so I grabbed his sticker book and did “do this” and modeled using the crayon on the paper. I did hand over hand and repeated the phrase. I was actually really excited because he picked up the crayon and moved it to the paper and drew a few lines. I used verbal praise and tickles. I did a few more trials with the modeling and gestural prompts with the crayons. Activity ended on a good note with Tony completing the task and verbal reinforcement was given. After crayons we rolled the ball back and forth on the forth. I sat close to Tony, although across from him and said “Roll ball” and did a gestural prompt for him to roll the ball. After, Marlaina left to go to the store so Tony immediately went into crying and tantrum. Anton told me I should use a technique with the sheepskin blanket (was this the brilliance of Jill?) and throw Tony down towards it saying “Ahh…booh!” Well, this definitely took the tears away…I also did “jump” with Tony by having him sit on my arm and jumped him up and down repeatedly saying “jump, jump. and jump.” This was cool because not only did Tony LOVE this but I would stop jumping and then look at him and he would look at me and then say “yump!” So, I would jump him more when he gave me any verbal indication using “yump.” We also practiced using his foam alphabet chart. I sang the ABCs to Tony and he started to try and sing along. I did hand over hand when I said each letter. We did 3 rounds of the alphabet song. Right before we finished the third round Marlaina came back from the store and Tony got distracted. So we ended things after that and Tony went to bed. I felt like Tony had a really good day today though…I really feel that everyone’s great work is paying off!

So, it’s a little late…but, I’ve been trying to get a copy of my home visit sheet to post onto the blog. It didn’t work (obviously!) so I’m just going to do it the old fashioned way! I had a great visit with Tony on Monday…maybe because it was Halloween, I don’t know! When I arrived, Tony and mom were outside swinging. He came in and went right to his crayons. While he was lining them up, he grabbed my finger and pointed to each one…which now I know he wanted me to name the colors (thanks Jill!). Tony did great with the sign for all done today also! After playing for a little while, he grabbed mom’s hand and took her to his high chair. Mom put chips on his tray and he signed “all done.” Not exactly appropriate, but good use of the sign anyway! Tony also said “bubble” today while I blew bubbles to him. He really enjoyed a “peek-a-boo” toy that I brought out to him. This toy asks him to either push, turn, pull, etc a button to make a toy pop out. He really did great with this and didn’t need much direction to know how to open each one. I explained to mom and dad that he is showing understanding of cause and effect by doing this! Great job! All in all, a good hour today! It was so nice to have some time to interact with Tony…since he was awake! Great day! 🙂 Talk to you all soon!

Tony has had some great sessions over the past two weeks. His verbal/vocal imitation has increased drastically. He has been so much more engaged and has really shown some appropriate play with toys given models. Last week, we were standing two crayons up on their ends and Tony was pointing to each one and then looking to me to name it. He kept going back and forth pointing to the orange and black crayons and I continued to name them. After a few seconds of this, I didn’t name the black crayon and Tony independently shouted “black”. Very cool! He has matched various shapes in puzzles on his own. His joint attention in tasks has really astounded me. Tony wants you to take part in playing with him and that is so great! Hope everyone is doing well.