MANDS COUNTED = 20/hr

Today was another great day with Tony. It went even better since we made some slight adjustments to Tony’s program due to yesterday’s meeting with Jay, Megan, Lane, Elizabeth, and I along with Mom and Dad. The meeting went really well and Tony had little AJ to play with while we talked. We mainly discussed the book and made some adjustments to the “match to sample” part. Since Tony is rejecting the card activities for the most part, Jay thought it was a good idea to ween the cards in by using cards with just pictures of shapes (if you didn’t already know, Tony is really into tacting different shapes right now). We also discussed how to present “shape” and “color” drills without confusion. After a long debate, we all thought it best to use the blocks for matching shapes and the the construction paper shapes to work on shapes. Separate activities will be less confusing for Tony and us! Anyway, back to today….

Tony was full of energy this morning and had a lengthy conversation about Blues Clues with me over his breakfast. His eye contact has come along so far. He looks at you right in the eye when he’s talking to you and he seems to engaged! I had no problems getting him on task after he ate. He ran into his room and started for the Mr. Potato Head that I brought today and labeled “ear” and “shoe” with no prompt and did a great job of echoing “hat,” “eyes,” “nose” and “mouth.” We moved on to tacting shapes and did a great job with “square” “heart” “star” and “circle.” We did these on the cards later too and he actually did all the shape cards. The new shapes we did today were “moon” and “diamond.” It was funny when we got to these shapes since he knew the other ones so well, he seemed like he was really concentrating on what the shape was and made an approximation to say “moon” when I said it.

After the cards we made animal noises, emphasizing the name of each animal before asking what sound it makes. He did well monkey, sheep and rooster. I also brought out the stuffed monkey and labeled it for him and made the monkey talk to him and had Tony say “Hello” to the monkey.

The activities with the “shapes” and colors” went really well. Tony still seems to get bored easily with the matching drills but he interacts much better with the blocks than just the card cut-out shapes. He also matched some with the cut-outs doing colors (purple, blue and green) and also did really well with matching “triangle” and “square” together. I had to struggle to keep his attention going, but he was MUCH better today with the blocks than I’ve ever seen.

Tony manded to go outside for a “walk” and Morgan accompanied me with him. He did really well outside labeling more than one “tree’ and touching it before I even asked him to. He also responded when I asked him to run and jump. He also manded for swing and then said all done when we wanted down after less than 30 seconds.

Inside I continued to work on motor imitation and receptives. I used the spare parts again to work on body parts and bounced Tony in my lap while we worked on receptives to keep his attention. He really likes the spare parts and today he kept trying to put the false ears on my ears and the plastic teeth in my mouth. I was kinda a pseudo Potato Head you might say. So today was another great day. I have so much data too! Aren’t you proud, Jay?

Today was probably the first day since the break that I feel really good about. Tony really made an effort today with all of his activities. It was still challenging to redirect him at first, but once we got started he was great. Tony came in and manded to go for a “walk” and “side” (for outside). On the walk, we did his usual: tacting “tree,” “leaf” and “ball,” asking “what’s this?” to various yard objects, and making sounds for bird (he was looking at the parrot flag in the front yard). We also did “do this” and run and Tony manded for swing and said “all done” after swinging for a few minutes in the hammock.

Inside we worked on animal imitation and working on the A,B,Cs and 1, 2,3s interverbals. I also did “roll” ball with Tony while he was laying on the floor and rolled the large yoga ball over him. He manded for “roll” each time before I would roll. For tacting Tony did well shapes. He labeled different block shapes and later I would draw a shape and Tony would label it. He did this with “circle” “heart” “star” “square” (triangle is a little more difficult). For objects, he only tacted “shoe” on the first time. Receptives were another challenge today, but I did hand over hand with “ball” “book” and “shoe.”

I brought a few new toys today: a sing along CD, a stuffed monkey, a toy cell phone, and a bunch of “spare parts” used for IDing body parts. He really loved the cell phone using it to say “hello” and the spare parts. The spare parts consisted of ears, fingers, teeth and noses that you can put on your own parts. Tony thought these were really funny when I put them on and became very engaged with echoing the parts and touching some of his own parts as we went along. After this, we worked on “do this” and draw and while he was on the floor I slipped in the Fun with shapes game and even managed to work in the matching colors with the shapes. Tony also did well with echoics as well with “ball” “roll” “toe” “ear” and “choochoo.” For interverbals Tony followed along with “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and “twinke, twinkle.” He didn’t respond to the sing along today, but I will definitely try it again.

Near the end of the session, I used the puppets to work on some imaginary play. We played with the little people dolls, talking about their body parts and their clothing and Tony also really enjoyed the dragon puppet. I had the dragon steal Tony’s cup and pretend to drink out of it (Tony thought this was pretty funny). He retrieved his cup and 15 minutes later when Jill came in he was playing with the dragon and feeding it his cup on his own. How cute is that! Today was awesome…he was focused and really seemed to enjoy everything we did.

Tony was quite happy and excited today. As soon as I walked into the door Tony manded with an approx “walk”. Outside he said “walk” again (a little more clearly) and was hitting objects and asking with approx “what’s this?” He is echoing a lot with approxs and words. He even made an approx for “notebook”. I was able to ask “what’s this” and Tony responded half the time with “tree”, “car”, “light”, or colors and shapes (inside house). In the playroom Tony matched his pics but with reluctance. I had to really work to keep his attention and ended up setting him in my lap to get Tony to do it. I agree with Whitney that the verbal praise with this isn’t enough. I tried using his car as a reward but he just wanted to play with it instead of matching to “put w/same”. So, when I finally got Tony to do it he was throwing the cards into the correct baskets bc he wasn’t too happy and just wanted to get it done. He requested “all done” and the “clean up” song. We played with his car, opening the doors and Tony rolled it when I said “roll car” and “do this”. He rolled the car and made car sounds. Tony also played with his toy keys. With “put here” I held up a basket and pointed to it. Tony took the ball I gave him and put it in the basket. When at the table Tony did this with drawing, too. Tony made many requests and often. I counted over 60 mands between 10am-12pm, including the time that his OT, Lane, was here. Tony stacked different shaped blocks and tacted colors and shapes, sometimes when I asked “what’s this”, sometimes independently. When the OT was here Tony tacted “star”, “heart”, and all the other shapes, sometimes w/approx. When Tony and I were working he also completed intraverbals with “Twinkle, Twinkle”, and “Wheels on the Bus” (which he continued to sing later), and “Row, Row Your Boat”, but he said nothing to this song. He also did this with his numbers. With Lane Tony bounced on his ball while counting to ten and he drew lines with her, too. He also matched colors (putting colored shapes on pegs) when Lane said the colors. If the colors weren’t said then Tony tried to match the shapes. Tony also played with an Elmo version of Mr. Potato Head, which talked and made sounds. Tony loved this and made an approx for “elephant”. I know that I am leaving out a lot but he really did a lot with both of us today!

Hey everyone! I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in so long, but I have lots to say now! I just wanted to let everyone who doesn’t already know where we stand with the MR/RD Waiver. For any of you that don’t know what the Waiver is, it’s a program designed to help children get all of the services that they need at home, rather than in an institution. That is NOT to say that Tony will ever be institutionalized, but he does need certain services that are not normally provided in the home. So, Tony’s name did come to the top of the waiting list (FINALLY!) and now I’m trying to gather as much information as possible to send to Columbia, where they will make the final determination as to whether or not he may receive Waiver services. Long story short, if this comes through, Tony will be able to get a lot more respite, personal care services, and any assistive technology types of things he may need. This is a VERY good thing! I hope that all made sense! If you have any questions about what this will mean for you, or anything like that, please let me know!

Other than that, things on my end are going pretty well. I continue to be amazed with Tony’s progress. Everyone is doing a fabulous job. I assessed Tony on 1/13 and once I have the scores recorded, I will try to post them up here so that everyone can see (if that’s ok with mom and dad!). Hope everyone is doing well and I will see you all soon!
Megan

Today was an OK day with Tony. He was full of energy and requested “walk” and going “outside” as soon as I came inside. We went for a walk and before I could even ask him he was picking up leaves saying “leaf” and running to the tree and saying “tree.” He did well with motor imitation outside with “run” and manding for “swing.” I was having some difficulty redirecting him when we got inside. I did spinning and then bouncing with him which worked well and I held him up to the window to work on interverbals (ABCs and 1,2,3). He was still manding to open the door so Marlaina and I took him outside to the tennis courts with his matching cards (since I was having no luck with them inside) and his ball. He really had no interest in the cards outside because he was too busy trying to find his way out of the gated court. We did do a few motor activities with the ball outside (roll, bounce, manding for the ball, making baskets with the ball). Back inside Tony did well with drawing and “roll car.” We also worked on tacting animal sounds and echoics. I found it hard to keep Tony’s attention today, especially with echoics and matching. I really feel like I need more powerful reinforcers for him in the room to get him to do the activities….maybe verbal praise isn’t enough at this point. We can talk more about this on Friday with Jay. So today was good, I would just like to have gotten through with matching and more echoics.

I only worked with Tony for a short while today (speech came earlier to play catch up since poor Tony was so sick last week), but he did some pretty cool things. For one, Tony tacted “light”, “snail” (made an approximation), “hole”, and “flag” (also an approximation), all new words. He first echoed these objects while outside but later went back to each one, put his hands on the objects and said the words. Tony also saw a duck and said “duck”, then he made a turkey sound while running up to the animal, thereby scaring the poor creature. With “do this”, Tony clapped, stomped, and drummed his hands. We did very little matching but what we did (matched pictures of cars, boys, and mice) Tony completed correctly. Outside Tony requested “jump”, “swing”, “open”, “walk”, “aah choo”, and “all done”. Tony tacted to “what’s this” outside and he also independently tacted many things, such as alphabet letters, “ball”, and colors. He also said “bye Jill”, and and “hi”. Tony said “cool” a lot, too. We didn’t do a real ABA session today but Tony is really coming along with his speech.

Today was actually a pretty good day with Tony given the fact that there was construction going on outside. With all the hammering it was hard to do much in the new room so we spent most of our time outside which was good. Tony did great with manding for swing today when we were outside. He also did well with all the “do this” activities with jumping, running and clapping. He did well with tacting leaf, tree and also some shapes (square and circle). I even had an activity with echoics that was neat. Tony wanted to get into the bus again but since it was locked, I held him up to look inside and pointed out the different things. I held him up to the side mirror and said “say Hi Tony!” He thought that was really funny so after a couple times he was echoing an approximation to “hi Tony.” We also worked with his animal magnets on his door and he made various animal noises unprompted (cow, monkey, lion). Although he was still wandering around sniffling with a runny nose, Tony did really well today with a lot of his activities.

Last night Tony did not sleep and Megan came today to perform an evaluation. Needless to say, I was unable to get any work done. Poor Tony was soo tired that he actually tried to sleep outside when we went on a walk. But, in the beginning of the day Tony was independently saying the colors green, blue, purple (an approximation), hi, bye, open, all done, circle, the letters G and R, and the word ball. He also approximated the words wow and choo choo. Once Tony was crashing Anton took him to bed and he fell fast asleep.

Today Tony was still recovering from being sick so we still didn’t get too much done since he was tired. He requested to go outside for a walk. As soon as we got outside, instead of going the normal route, Tony wanted to explore the men next door that were working on the house next door. He said “Hi” to the guys working and then we went out back. Tony requested “swing” several times on the hammock. He also did a good job of tacting “tree” when he ran up to it. I also did “do this” and run, which he did, but not as much today. As we were walking back around to go inside, Tony stopped at the bus, walked around to the door and said “open.” It was locked of course, but Tony didn’t understand and started to get upset until Anton came outside to unlock it. Tony wanted to hang out in the van so I tried a few “do this” activities with him (stomping and clapping). He did the stomping but I think he was too excited about being in the bus to do the clapping. After being in the bus for 10 min., I took him inside to work. We did “do this” and draw and then some echoics but was only successful with “ball.” He was getting tired and kept asking me to open the gate. I thought he wanted to go outside again but instead, he shot upstairs. I guess he wanted a little time of his own to rest. So, not a whole lot to report on today given the fact that Tony was still recovering.

MANDS COUNTED = 19

Although Tony didn’t seem too hot today (fresh cold) he actually did really well. Tony kept whining and going over to the gate and finally when we got near the door he made a request for walk. We went out back and did “do this” with running and stomping. Tony grabbed the hammock and so I put him up and asked “Do you want to swing?” And then I would swing him and then stopped and asked “Do you want more swing?” and Tony made an approximation to swing! So of course we did swing and stop, request for swing, then more swing like 10 times. Obviously the swinging was highly reinforcing for him. Its really cool when you know he understands that his language gets him something. When Tony was trying to say “swing” he seemed like he was really concentrating on moving his mouth to make the “S” sound. After swinging for a long time, Tony said “all done” and then we started off in the direction of home. Back inside we worked drawing “do this” and draw. We worked on marker colors and Tony went though the makers and tacted “black” and “blue.” We did “roll” with the ball as Tony was requesting to be “rolled” and he repeated it as I was rolling him.

He started to wind down and became tired but instead of going upstairs, Tony went straight for the door. I took him outside and we walked over on the sidewalk and echoed out “tree” and “leaf.” Then Tony became somewhat agitated and walked over to the bus, put his hand on it and said “car.” Then he walked over to Marlaina’s car and said “car” and then “open.” It was locked, so I couldn’t exactly open the door, but it was clear that Tony wanted to go for a ride. I told Marlaina and she said we should just go to Chick-Fil-A. Tony was completely happy once he was strapped in and ready to go for a ride. After he had his fries in the car and came home, Tony still wanted to play outside. I took him outside and he “manded” for ball. Marlaina suggested I take him over to the gated tennis court to play. He was getting tired but he still made an effort at rolling and even trying to dribble. I took him a few times to make baskets at the little basketball net which he really liked. After that he ran over to me, grabbed my hand and took me over to the gate door and manded “open.” Tony was walking really slowly back to the house so I ended up carrying him most of the way. By the time I got to the door Tony was half asleep.

So today was good even though he had a cold. I was getting used to the mand clicker too..I felt oh so professional using it.