MANDS = 35

Today was an excelent day with Tony. There were several things that Tony did today that need mentioning. We started out drawing as usual with crayons and Tony started manding for me to draw “thinking chair” and “paw” by handing me the notebook and crayon. After, he said “baby.” I tried drawing a baby, but I don’t think it really looked like one. Tony said “no” after I gave it back to him! Tony really says “baby” very clearly.

Tony manded to go for a walk, so we went out and he manded for “duck” as he dragged me in the direction of the lake. Here, Tony sat himself up on the bank and started handing me things. Last time we were at the lake, I threw a stick into the water and Tony thought it was the funniest thing. So today, I think he was trying to mand for me to throw it. I prompted him with “Do you want me to THROW it?” “Say THROW.” Tony echoed throw and I quickly threw the stick into the water. He laughed and picked up a leaf nearby and handed it to me and I asked again, “What do you want?” and Tony responded with “THROW!” This went on for at least 10 times (probably why I have an inflated number of mands for today). We’ve also worked on throw in the room with balls, but I never had him consistantly manding for it like today.

Back inside, we worked on all the activities. I still had no luck with the colors today. He tacted “green” correctly when we were playing with blocks, but later also tacted a yellow shape sorter piece as green. I continued working on the colors with Tony by trying to get him to mand for certain block colors. He did want to just tact objects I was presenting him, so I decided that while he was into stacking his blocks, I gathered them up and got him to mand for certain blocks to use in his stacking. I thought it was a good idea, but he only manded for green again.

I tried bringing out Mr. Potato Head to work on the receptives, but Tony again had no interest and finally signed for “all done” before I could get any response. So, instead of Potato Head, I used the dog doll again that sings when you touch his parts. I still had to do hand over hand with everything, but at least he was paying attention. I also did hand over hand with all of his body parts.

For motor imitation Tony only got a “yes” for opening his mouth. But I tried using his dolls to play and do motor imitation. I made my doll jump and said “do this.” Tony did the same with his doll and then I also got him to raise their hands and kick their legs. After we finished this Tony did a really interesting thing. He took the Miss Piggy doll and put her in the thinking chair, gave her a notebook (he was really trying to put it into her hand) and then he put Miss Piggy’s hand up to her face (trying to make her think). This kind of imaginitive play is great! Its so amazing to see how appropriately Tony was playing with his dolls.

All in all, today was a really good day. Lots of imaginative play and manding today.