Unity Day 33: A Pretty Good Day

From Facebook:

"Back on track today at S.C. Ryan was a bit whiny and fussy, but we got a lot of good program work done. Amazingly, we made it till 11:30 (well, 11:45 by the time I coaxed Ryan off his butt and out the door!)."

Well, one mystery got sorted out today:  the doorbell at S.C. definitely isn't working right.  For the second time this week, no one responded to the door until there were a bunch of us shivering outside.  Dr. G. answered the door and had someone test the doorbell. It didn't sound inside.  So, now I know I'm not crazy or overly impatient!

Ryan had an okay day today.  He was whiny and tired, but there were no major meltdowns, and the pace was moving pretty quickly. We made it through several of his programs before it was time for Theory (remember, it switched this week because Dr. G. will be away tomorrow morning).

I believe our first program was Play Doh in the Blue Room.  Ryan and I sat at the table together, and I rolled up two balls of Play Doh.  Again, he responded well to it; he was grabbing at his ball and rolling it and holding it a bit.  Then, I did the same as last time, smashing one flat with my palm, then HOH'ing for him to do the same.  He got all +'s and seemed to enjoy the Play Doh.  His reinforcer of choice today wavered between a string of beads and the mini bead maze.

Then we did "pat head." I had to prompt his right hand to pat his head with a forearm/elbow prompt, and I shadowed his left hand (hovered just above, to block), so he wouldn't get confused with "more" or "clap." This worked out well. Using that, he got all +'s and one + in a circle, which means he needed less prompting than expected; on the fourth trial, he patted his head, with his right hand, independently!

Now here's where things got interesting.  I was moving to the floor to set up some programs down there, and Ryan wandered over to the toy cupboards. One door was slightly ajar; he went and peeked in. T. was very excited to see Ryan exploring on his own, so she encouraged him to keep checking out the toy cupboard. She opened the doors wider and let him look at and touch the items, asking him if he wanted to play with something.  He focused on a pop-up dinosaur toy and touched it, so we took it out of the cupboard and brought it over to the table.  I mentioned how we had been looking for a new cause-and-effect toy to replace the ball ramp.  Well, Ryan found one all by himself!

So, we played around with the toy a bit to tease out what would be the best way to start Ryan playing with this toy.  As usual, Ryan's hand strength was an issue, so we decided to start with having him push the dinosaurs back down.  He also might do the first dinosaur pop-up, which is a simple push button.  I had to HOH since it was brand new to Ryan, but he seemed to like the toy and enjoy when I made them pop back up.

After that was settled, we moved to the floor to do the chunky puzzle.  Ryan was starting to whine a bit, but he cooperated.  In fact, he took out 3 pieces with  me only asking him to (verbal prompt).  Putting them back in is more difficult for him, so we were working at a wrist prompt, but he was trying very hard to move the pieces into place on his own.  I have to give him credit for the effort. 

Next we went over to the train table to work on "push a train."  Ryan was trying very hard to do it,  but he kept knocking the train off the tracks.  T. made a few suggestions about positioning Ryan's hand before giving the command to "push the train," but that didn't really work out. Then, I tried using a train with a different shape that Ryan could get a better hold on. It helped, but still wasn't the best. T. then remembered a different kind of track under the table: plastic, smoother, with higher ridges on the sides. She dug some out and put it together. When we tried that with Ryan--voila!--several perfect pushes in a row. The plastic track has bumps on the other side that will give it more resistance when we're ready to move Ryan to the next step.  So, I put aside those pieces of track in Ryan's special bin where we can easily access them for next time.

Then we went back to the floor to work on the shape sorter. Ryan's doing really well with the new program including triangles and squares. I started out HOH, but then faded back to wrist, and he even did one independently!  The triangles are a lot harder for him to wiggle into the hole because he has to line up the edges, but he was wiggling them away, really trying hard to get those triangles in. I was really impressed by his persistence and effort this morning.

Soon it was time to transition to the Yellow Room. While I was setting up to do some "colouring" in there, Ryan's exploring mood continued!  He went to one of the shelves filled with toys and pulled out a little Backyardigans guitar and pressed a few buttons.  Then, he found a mesh bag of soft Winnie-the-Pooh blocks.  He was really engaged by the blocks; he wanted to mouth them, but I also showed him how to stack some, and did some HOH stacking with him.  He cooperated, but seemed to enjoy knocking them down and mouthing them more!  Well, following his lead, I used the blocks as his reinforcement for colouring. It worked well.  Ryan did a great job colouring today; I was barely holding my hand on his over the marker, and he was making plenty of back and forth and circular motions with the marker.  He even did one with a wrist prompt. All +'s for that trial, and he got to play with his blocks between each colouring trial.

Then we tried "clapping." We ran into a bit of confusion today.  I think it's because we introduced "pat head," and both of them involve me prompting his right arm at the forearm/elbow. T. overheard me trying to problem-solve, and said to wait a few days to see if the confusion wears off. It's normal when introducing items that are so similar to each other. Overall, he still got 3/5 trials correct, and even did one clap independently.

Next we worked on "coins in the piggy bank," at a wrist prompt level. He got all +'s. He was really on this one today;  I was holding his wrist, but he was really guiding the coins in by himself today. He only needed a little extra adjustment to the coin slot once or twice.

The last program we did today was "stomp feet." I sat behind him with his back to me, my legs stretched out, so I could model and then prompt with a touch behind his knees.  He was hesitant at first, but gave us a some really good two-footed stomps by the end. Once again, it was all +'s.

Finally it was circle time. Ryan was less enthusiastic during circle, getting tired, and so on. I had to reinforce him for sitting up nicely because he kept trying to lay down.  However, he did get very excited during "Panda Bear," and I frequently had to remind him to wait for his turn/not pick up the matching animals. T. thought this was great, that Ryan was so engaged in the activity.  He also did really well in the closing song, with an elbow prompt to wave "bye-bye" to his friends. He waved for most of the song.

Snack time was next, but that's when we left for Theory, and B. took over with Ryan. 

Theory today continued to focus on "extinction," with specific reference to how people unintentionally use extinction to decrease behaviours they would want to see.  In other words, it's often better to pay attention to/positively reinforce the behaviours we approve of, rather than focus on the behaviours we don't want. The problem is, we often jump in when the child is doing something wrong, and ignore all the times they are doing something right.  The other part of our theory today focused on "schedules of reinforcement" (when/how often we give positive reinforcement).  There are 2 main types, "continuous" and "intermittent" (called "partial" in the linked article above). Each one is useful in a different situation; furthermore, "intermittent" can be broken down into several different types.

After Theory, I found Ryan having a good time with B. They were playing with an octopus toy where you put in the ball, and then have to guess which foot the ball will appear under.  It's good for Ryan because he can practice putting the ball in the holes, and/or lifting up the shoes to look for a ball. Of course, B. had a lot of work blocking Ryan from mouthing the ball, but besides that, he seemed to be enjoying the game and understanding the basic concepts of the toy. Oh, man!  We had that toy at home, but I just threw it out after Christmas because it was missing some parts.  Oh, well.

Getting Ryan to leave was harder than I anticipated.  He had made it to 11:30 (hooray!).  But when I asked him to stand up and come to me, he ignored me. He shifted, stretched out on the floor, sat up again, then turned his back to me. LOL I tried enticing him with toys, opening the door to indicate we were leaving, walking away . . . No response.  I had B. watch Ryan while I went and got our coats and backpack and brought them back into the room. I held his coat out to him. He kept squinting at me with the cutest frown on his face.  He looked tired, but he wasn't moving.  Eventually, I put his coat on him and hauled him up.  He waved a nice "bye-bye" to B., and we came home.

What a typical kid.  He doesn't want to be at S.C. when we're making him work, but when he gets to play with the students and volunteers, he doesn't want to leave! ;)