Sat 21 Jan 2006
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?
January 22nd, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Data is great Whitney! This will allow us to accurately see what he is learning and areas that are more difficult.
A few things I thought about after the program adustment/play session yesterday. With respect to reinforcers, you guys should utilize mand trials as reinforcers for good responding to other trials (e.g., MTS, tacting, interverbals, receptives). For example, given a red block and asked, “What shape is this?” Tony says “Red” and therapist should say “way to go”, tickle, etc. then immediately present mand trial “what do you want?” and don’t ask anymore questions about the block until the mand is over…….then go back to another “non-mand” trial. Try to structure the ABA session in this manner (e.g., mand, non-mand, mand, non-mand, etc.). Remember that mands by their definition are motivated by specific reinforcers.
Since TOny’s verbal behavior is coming under echoic control and he enjoys learning now, I thought we might want to put on a tact “blitz” and see how many everyday object tacts we can teach him. I know we have a list of tacts for objects that we are targeting, but this would be in addition to that. Create two lists in the ABA book of tacts for everyday objects that Tony is tacting with and without prompts. SO for example, if a comb was held up and Tony was asked “What’s this” and he says comb without prompting this would go in the unprompted column. If he needs an echoic prompt, put comb down in the prompted column. You guys pick everyday items in the environment and pick them up ask him the question and prompt if neccessary……….then, later, go back and see if he responds without prompting………….keep data so that we can see what he is learning (and what is has already learned via natural contingencies)…..folllow correct tacts with social reinforcer and mand trial…………..email or post if questions………
Jay