MANDS = 28

Today when I walked in, Tony was in his chair munching on a bagel watching Blue’s Clues. After a few minutes, Tony manded “all done” and he immediately manded for “walk.” I took him out the door and prompted him to say “open door”. I still have to prompt with a bridge to get him to say both words. I’ll say, “What should we do?” and Tony says “open” (then I pause to see if he’ll say door without a prompt) If he doesn’t say it, I’ll ask, “What should we open?” Tony then makes an approximation to saying “door.” I then reinforce by saying, “Yes, OPEN DOOR!” In the book I have been counting this as an approximation.

Outside Tony was very energetic and running around as usual. His speed is really amazing! After chasing him around the back for a while and letting him explore the rocks near a yard, I started in on the motor imitations. I feel like he is more receptive to the motor imitations outside.

After running around for a little bit longer, we headed inside to get down to business. It seems that Parker’s art projects have really had an effect on on Tony! He was manding for “OPEN” and then I waited and said, “What do you want?” Then Tony said “UP!” as he was reaching for me to lift him. After I picked him up, Tony started to reach for his crayons and said, “crayy”. He then wanted to reach for his watercolor paint set. I then prompted him to mand for “paint” which he did after the second time I asked him with an echoic prompt. Parker, have you been using this or did he just pick up on it? Either way, he loves all the arts and crafts activities!

After about 10 minutes of painting using our fingers (and sometimes brushes) Jill arrived for speech. Tony had what sounded like a great session, giggling the whole way through. When he was finished he decided it was time to have a break and a show before going back to work. After a few chips, Tony manded for walk again. I took him out for a quick one and he headed straight for the car giving the “car” mand. I tried to explain to him that we couldn’t go. He seemed to understand because he turned around to the bus and asked me to “open” the door (I guess he thought trying another vehicle might work). Instead of leaving, Tony and I played peek-a-boo in the bus and I even slipped in some of the new intraverbals while we were playing.

When we came back inside Tony was reluctant to get back to work and instead manded again for “walk”. At this point, Marlaina was on to him and grabbed her keys for a quick run to Chick-Fil-A for some reinforcers (the waffle fries of course). He was elated that we were taking him when I was putting him in his car seat…giggling and singing in fact. He was clearly excited that we had understood his request for “car.”

After a few fries, I took him into his room again to work more. Even though it was 2:00 by this time, Tony still seemed engaged with what we were working on. We sang a few songs, played with play-dough (which by the way he is really getting good at manding for) and we also did a lot of tacting different food items. Tony was actually saying “sushi” this afternoon!

After so much hard work and focusing, Tony started getting tired close to 3:00. Tony manded for “walk” which I reinforced again. We played in the bus again, singing the wheels on the bus until Tony put his head down. I asked him “Tony, is it time for night-night?” and Tony responded by making the snoring sound.

So after a long day of school, Tony retired. I haven’t posted as ABA since last week so I felt like I had a good sense of the degree of change with Tony. He seems much more calm and his mands seem to have stepped up significantly in the past week. I’m really excited to see how specific Tony gets with asking for what he wants now. Today he went from “open” to “up” and then said,”crayon”. It’s absolutely phenomenal!