Unity Day 11: It's SO Monday . . .

From Facebook:

"Monday, Monday . . . Why are you so rough? Ryan was totally unmotivated today, and honestly, I couldn't seem to get my head into it either. Ugh."

Weekend Homework Results

I said I'd mention how the weekend homework went with Daddy away, so no back-up.  Well, it went as expected.  The bubbles still got lots of great mands: upwards of 15 or 16.  However, the distractions of curious and demanding older siblings definitely impacted our homework time.  When I was trying to do the shape sorter with Ryan, Kevin jumped in and kept handing him pieces, trying to build things, and then jingling the reinforcer toy to get Ryan's attention while Ryan was in the midst of his trials.  Andrea wanted to play when we were doing the car chasers, she kept asking a million questions while I was trying to work, and she kept praising Ryan while he was in the midst of a task, which just distracted him. Ugh.  

On Saturday morning, when the kids were at gymnastics, I got the best results.  Ryan was much more focused.  For the car chasers, he even pulled the handle down by himself when I showed him the gesture! I didn't have to use any physical prompts. That was great.

However, the shape sorter was a big minus all weekend.  I'm not sure if it is too hard for him or he is just not interested in it.   

Light bulb Moment for Daddy?

When Rod got home from his trip, and saw all my books, data sheets, and tally counter on the dining room table, he said, "What's all this?"

I said, "That's just some of the things I need for Ryan's home programming." 

Later, I sat on the floor and faced us toward Daddy, who was resting on the couch, as we completed our shape-sorter homework for Sunday. I could see him watching the process.  I explained my frustration with Ryan's lack of engagement with the toy.  Suddenly, Daddy was chiming in with verbal reinforcement when I HOH'ed Ryan placing a piece in the shape sorter.  Hmm . . .

I think (I hope) he gained a little more appreciation for the complexity of what we're doing here.

 

This Week's Homework

This week's homework is basically building on/tweaking what we worked on last week:

1. We are still doing a 5-minute session of manding each day. However, since he's manding for bubbles so well, we're going to mix it up a bit by presenting some bubbles, and some of something else he might want.  Today I alternated bubbles and Hot Wheels cars. I got 9 mands.  I am also focusing on getting the "more" sign, instead of pointing, this week. The trouble with the bubbles is that in between blowing the bubbles for his last mand, setting them down, and helping him form the "more" sign, I spilled the bubble solution. Twice. Ugh. This process needs some tweaking.
2. For cause and effect play, we are continuing the car chasers toy, and getting Ryan to pull the handle to "make it go."  We were pretty successful at this over the weekend, so we've moved from wrist prompt to elbow prompt already, and even starting a few gestural/verbal prompts with success. The goal here is fading back the prompt.
3. The shape sorter was a fail this weekend, but it's a good basic skill, so we're not giving up on it. We're just scaling it back a bit. Instead of having him hold and place the shapes in the proper holes, even HOH, we've decided to practice picking them up and putting them in the container. Last night, he enjoyed picking pieces out of the bucket, and he did let me HOH and wrist prompt putting a few back in the bucket.  I'm starting out with a wrist prompt of him picking it up and dropping it in the container. It seemed to go a little better today, except he wanted to mouth all the pieces instead of/before putting them in the container. At least he was way more engaged in the activity.

Weekly Parent Evaluation

Monday is typically the day we will receive our parent evaluation. Here are some general observations from last week:

Positives:

• I'm good at "reading" Ryan (following his lead).
• Following through with instructions.
• Delivering reinforcers.
• Reinforcers readily available.
• Great start recording data.

Needs Work:

• I still forget to deliver an instruction only once, then prompt!
• Making sure I pair my social reinforcement with words.
• Throwing in a little more interactive play with Ryan during his breaks.
• Recording mands at S.C. (but we are just starting that there).

Parent Points!
I had over 70 points saved up from this week and last, so I requested some reinforcer toys for Ryan to use at home. I noticed we don't have much in the way of strong reinforcers around here. They are going to pick up a couple for me based on the ones Ryan likes at S.C. They also gave me a new chewy toy for Ryan to try.  It's shaped like a "P" and has some texture (bumps) to it. If he likes it, I can use some of my points to keep it. :)

 

Back to Mommy and Ryan's Monday . . .

Oh, it was a floppy day today.  Ryan just wanted to lay around and do nothing. It wasn't his strongest performance.

We started by working on some High 5's.  For Ryan, a successful High 5 is if I wrist prompt his hand to go near the offered hand, and then he taps/touches the other person's hand independently.  He was making a half-hearted effort today. I think he got a + on about half the trials. 

Next, we tried some holding with the stacking rings. We've decided that if he's having a floppy day, we'll work on holding to improve/encourage his muscle strength before trying a more difficult task including holding. His holding was really blah today; he needed lots of HOH and kept dropping things.  I don't think he held any of the rings for over 4 seconds.  Still, the goal is to end on a positive and I learned something interesting about that today: ending positive doesn't necessarily mean happy or independent. It may mean I have to HOH it, but we end on my terms.

When it came to actually playing with the stacking rings (placing them on the stacker), Ryan was quick to grab the rings, but wanted to mouth them. Mom had to do lots of blocking today (anticipating and stopping him from putting things in his mouth).  T. decided that success in this task would include any intentional attempt Ryan made to get a ring on the stacker while holding it, even if it didn't quite make it on to the stacker. We saw several good tries, and we wanted to encourage that.

Now, in terms of my recording, T. gave me another important reminder:  Reinforce first. Then record data! Reinforcement must immediately be paired with Ryan's success so that it is effective. T. said I was, however, doing a great job with descriptive praise today (i.e., Don't just say, "Good job!"; say, "Good holding the ring!")

We tried working on playing with the Winnie the Pooh piano again today. (Unfortunately, the iPads were not available.) We noticed Ryan really enjoys the spinning part of the toy, which he has learned to turn to make the figures in the middle spin and play a song.  T. decided that is great built-in reinforcement, since he immediately wants to do that activity on the toy.  So, we set up an "If... then ..." scenario for Ryan.  If he attempts to press the piano keys the way we've shown him (even with prompting), then he gets to do the spinney-toy part as his reinforcement.  It seemed to work. He was happy he got to spin it sometimes, and we got to work on pushing the piano keys in between. I think we got one good little pat of the keys out of him.

We did some pushing a car just because he'd done well with it on Friday. Today, not so much.  We got one or two good pushes out of him, but mostly he wanted to mouth the car or lay down and rest.

We tried a little bit of uncovering the ball again.  He was totally not into it, and I had to HOH the first 3 trials.  Suddenly, for the last 2 trials, he whisked the towel off the ball all by himself, with only verbal prompting! I guess something clicked after the first few tries.  T. mentioned another important point here:  he gets more reinforcement and a longer time to play with the ball when he does it independently. It just makes sense: bigger effort = bigger reward!

Next it was circle time. Ryan did surprisingly well considering how tired he was! There was almost no fussing, and he was pretty engaged in the activities.  A couple of times he did some good holding of objects and even tried to grasp them a bit himself.  He also rolled the ball to L. with no prompt (!) and was moving my hands up and down for "the windows on the bus." For the farm animals book, he was picking them up independently (nice), but then trying to mouth them (this is where Mommy's ninja-like blocking skills came into play), but then he was putting them nicely on the book with a little wrist prompt.  Circle time was a positive today.

Finally, I set Ryan up for snack and went off to have my meeting with H. about homework and last week's evaluation.  T. was pleased that I brought in an old shirt of Daddy's as a smock for Ryan while he ate! From what T. told me when I returned, Ryan was definitely not into independent eating today.  The shirt/smock was a yogurt-splattered mess: he didn't even want to hold the spoon. He just kept letting it drop into his lap. Plus, he was so tired he didn't even want to hold his bottle; he was resting it on the table while he drank! LOL Oh, well. We made it to almost 11:00, and overall, it was an okay day.

A New Reinforcer to Consider

I was playing with Ryan before our program started today, and checking to see which reinforcers he preferred best today. When I put on the magic light wand, he started rubbing it up and down his arm. I laughed, but he really liked it!  Throughout the day, I started turning it on and running it lightly over his arms, head, and face. He loved it!  I would never have thought to use it that way, but it does have  a slight vibration to it. T. and I were thinking we might try one of those little hand-held massagers and see if Ryan likes it as a reinforcer.  I thought we had one here, but I haven't been able to find it. Hmm. It might be worth trying to find one at the store. I know they're not expensive.