Mands = 7

Today was a short day with Tony because Mom and Dad were planning a trip up to Myrtle Beach. I know Tony was excited about Tony Land!

I started out the day with our feeding ritual. Today I had cookies, chips, and waffle to present. He hasn’t had cookies in awhile (they are animal cookies by the way) and he seemed very excited about them. He manded for them several times during his meal, more than the chips and waffle. That brings me to a question I have for Jay. I know we are working in 2-word combos for mands and speech in general. We have “Eat ___” as a target mand for all food items for Phase 2, but today Tony was very reluctant to say “eat” before asking for the desired food (he didn’t even want to do it as an echoic). He is picking up fast on all the tacts for foods and Marlaina has reported to me that he is manding for food items throughout the day using the correct mand. So, my question is, is it acceptable to give him a “yes” for manding for the food if he doesn’t say “Eat” to begin with?

We had a fun day and Parker and I were able to get through most of the drills for the day. Not a lot of “yeses” for the intraverbals for this phase, but I am convinced they will come soon (we have been working longer on Phase 1 longer than 2 anyway). For motor imitation Tony did really well. I feel like he is very responsive to our SD of “do this.” He got almost all of them right on the first time!

Receptives have also been going well. Parker and I have been creative using Mt. Potato Head’s parts. Today we asked Tony to put the parts on Turtle (his favorite part was putting the glasses on him!). He did so well with this and really seemed to enjoy the activity. Learning is so much better if it’s fun. OK, that’s all for today. I’ll be back for tomorrow.