Tue 6 Jun 2006
Mands: 15
Alright, fun day with the little Tony. It’s a good thing he hasn’t been in the mood for “The Wiggles” this week because they are now showing at 7:00 am. Hopefully this change in programming will not throw things off too severely, maybe we can tape that crazy singing and dancing foursome. This morning Tony watched “Sesame Street” and then Marlaina volunteered to take him for a car ride. This was an offer he couldn’t refuse. We went to the bank, Wholly Cow, and CVS. At CVS there was a mix up because there is an Anton imposter with the same name and a birthdate only a decade off from his also living in Mt. P-funk! How wierd.
When we got back Tony and I played in the room for awhile. He climbed into his house and said “on”so I put the roof up ‘on’ top of the house. Then I opened the doors and said “hi.” He said “hi” back and waved, then he said “dye-dye” and pulled the doors shut. Then he wanted to get out and he said “up, up, ahnt up.” WAY TO COMMUNICATE!!!! I picked him up and said “Tony’s OUT of the house.”
We did some coloring on the house and in the coloring book. Then Tony wanted to go for a walk. He manded for “walk,” then “over,” but before he could say his usual ‘open door,’ something caught his eye. “Chalk! Chalk!,” he shrieked. So we brought the chalk outside and drew on the sidewalk. We were having fun drawing shapes and just scribbling. Tony was tacting colors left and right. He said “cup” and I drew a cup, then he said “clock” and made tick tock noises so I drew him a big clock with all the numbers. Just then someone arrived. I said “Tony, someone’s here . . .” He jumped right in and said “JILL, JILL, IT’S JILL!!!! and sarted running for the sidewalk. I had to go go gadget jump and run to catch him. Once we were holding hands we briskly walked over to Jill. The whole time Tony was displaying his extreme excitement and greeting his Jill.
When Jill was finished with Tony and she brought him into the living room, Tony showed his new mailbox toy to her. There is an inkpad in the mailbox and Tony took the lid off of it and turned it upside down. He became angry when Jill and I flipped the inkpad over so as not to stain the red fabric of the coffee table. Tony was very vocal about his disapproval and it was stressing Anton out immensely. I decided to take Tony and the mailbox into his room and Tony liked this idea. We played for a little while and did some motor imitation and receptives which Tony did a good job with. When I tried to do intraverbals he once again phased me out, even with the microphone. Instead of trying to complete my statements he would say a word related to what he wanted to pay attention to. I could usually get responses from him echoically.
We started coloring the house and tony was in search of a particular red crayon. each red crayon I came up with was unsatisfying, so I decided it was time for a walk. There were a few obstacles on our walk. First there were some barking dogs, one of them off the leash, which Tony wanted to play with. I decided to pick him up. I let him look but not touch. When the owner got the dogs out of the courtyard we saw Tony’s friend Chara. We played ball with her and I had to explain to her why ‘monkey in the middle’ might hurt feelings and be frustrating for the monkey. Wisely she decided that Tony could get the ball just as often as everyone else. The next obstacle was a boy with a bebe gun, need I say more?
I quickly asked Tony if he wanted turtle and cup, I knew this would be a surefire way out of this sticky situation. Of course he did want turtle and cup and we were quickly gone home again home again jiggity jog.
June 8th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Just checking out the latest on our little learning sponge Tony. I talked to Marlaina last week about working through the update of the ABLLS to assess where he currently is. I picked up a complete ABLLS kit at ABA in Atlanta, and we can further assess some areas during the program evaluation tommorrow. So if you are unsure about some things, make a star by them and we can look at them a little closer tommorrow.
It sounds like Tony is manding for reinforcers that tap different sources of motivation. For example, manding actions of others, such as “open door”, “house”, “go”, “up”, manding food items, and manding information such as “who”, “what”, etc. Mands are central to further language development because they teach the child that language can result in cool things (reinforcers!). Also, he is manding for negative reinforcers, “no”, “all done”. Can you tell I just got back from ABA? I’ll fill you guys in on new info. I learned at the conference tommorrow……..
Keep up the great work therapists and Mom/Dad…….
Jay