Unity Day 39: T.G.I.F.

From Facebook:

"Today was good at Summit Centre because it was Friday, and Fridays are shorter due to research and theory. That was about it. :p "

No, Ryan did not have a good day today, and I was going on about 4 hours of sleep, so T.G.I.F. 

He started crying as soon as we pulled into the parking spot at S.C. I turned around and said, "Seriously, Ryan? It's Friday, the easiest day of the week.  You only have to work for like, an hour, and then you get to play with the student-volunteers!"  He continued to whine as we got out of the car and walked up to the door, and then he plopped himself down on the floor and bawled as soon as we settled in the Yellow Room.

One positive is Ryan's progress on going up the stairs inside the main entrance each morning.  It's a pretty big flight of stairs.  He used to lean back on me as he tried to climb, or I would even have to lift his pant-leg up to encourage him to step up each step.  The last few days, he has been holding my one hand, and putting his other hand on the railing or wall, and going up the stairs nicely.  Hey, improvement in an incidental gross motor skill: I'll take it!

Ryan did not want to get to work today. After opening song, he wandered off to play with the Pooh piano, the bead maze, the ball, etc.  Exploring is usually a good thing, but he was totally turning his back to me and wouldn't let me participate in his play.  He did not want to acknowledge me because he knew I was going to make him work!  Eventually, after moving all the toys towards me (and thus making him mad), he turned and I pulled him over to do some programs.

We started out with "coins in the piggy bank" at a wrist prompt level, and he was struggling today. He only got 2 out of 5 coins in correctly. It felt like he was being lazy; he didn't have body control issues today, and his attitude just felt apathetic, like he didn't care. 

Then we tried "clapping, " and I noticed that he kept putting his hands behind him to prop himself up.  Well, this obviously interferes with any of our programs where I need him to use his hands to do imitations.   Since we do these face-to-face, he can't lean on me, so he leans back on his hands for support.  I noticed this yesterday, too, so today I brought this to the attention of D. He thought of something right away. He went and found a foam wedge for Ryan to sit on. I've seen these before in physiotherapy; they help the child sit up straighter and give them some support, so they don't need to lean back on their hands.  We had to take some time out to get Ryan used to sitting on the wedge, and give him reinforcement for sitting on it nicely.  While it did nothing to improve his clapping (1/5 correct--ugh), it was great for his posture, and did free up his hands for the program.

On the other hand, we had another excellent run with the chunky puzzle. He did two runs of the program (so six pieces) successfully and independently. Yay! We will move on to a more complex puzzle next week. :)

Next we moved into the Blue Room. To my surprise, Ryan did his room-to-room transitions well today. I think he was in the mood to have some freedom, so he was glad for an excuse to move from room to room. It took hardly any prompting to get him up and out today.

First I tried "stomp feet," thinking we'd better get the more difficult programs out of the way, with the mood Ryan was in. Um, yeah. We put the piano under his feet, and it looked promising; he stepped on a few keys before we even asked (although he's really supposed to wait for the verbal instruction first).  On our first attempt, he did kick his feet a bit on the keys, so we called it a +.  However, every trial after that, he either tried to kick it or wiggled his feet. D. decided that Ryan might be getting it confused with "kick ball," which he used to sit for (until yesterday).  So, the "stomp feet" program will be dropped until Ryan is consistently kicking a ball from standing. I don't know if it will make a difference; today was the first day Ryan tried to push the piano with his feet; usually, he doesn't move his feet at all for "stomp feet" unless we prompt behind the knee.  But I bow to D.'s superior knowledge in the hopes that he's right.

I tried the matching program next, and matching was a disaster today.  We didn't even get to Step 2.  He got the very first trial right on Step 1 (match the elephant with the other elephant vs. the empty bowl). However, as soon as I switched the position of the bowls, he lost his focus.  We tried it four more times, and he kept putting the elephant in the empty bowl. I would show him the correct answer and immediately follow it by the same request, but like I said, he got it wrong four times in a row.  What happened?! 

Ryan and I were both getting irritated by this point, so I decided to pull out the Play Doh program for something more fun.  He did better with this one, getting 6/8 attempts correct with HOH prompting to squish the Play Doh balls.  I, however, forgot to make up his play ball of a different colour, so he got a little impatient while I was re-rolling the balls (my bad). Despite this, he still tried to mush the Play Doh a bit with his fingers (squeeze it) and enjoyed rolling the balls off the table, so Mommy had to crawl on the floor and find them!

Then we did a kid-switch.  L.A. worked with Ryan on the latest pop-up toy, and I worked with J. on a "patterning" program. L.A. said Ryan did really well; he pushed four of the pop-ups down independently; he opened two with a forearm prompt, and two HOH. That's pretty good, considering that new pop-up toy was introduced yesterday.

I had a little more of a challenge with J. today, because I think he was feeling Ryan's Friday apathy, too.  He did his first pattern perfectly, but he got stuck on the second one, and it took up our last 4 trials.  It was also a bit different for me because J. is working on a token system for reinforcement, and this was the first time I'd used it with him.  I had to keep reminding him what he was working for, how many more tokens he needed to get, etc. I also learned about the concept of "tokening out": if by the end of a trial the child hasn't gotten enough correct to fill the token board, you can ask them to follow basic commands in order to fill up the rest of their token board quickly.  So, I asked J. to do a few things like touch his nose, point to a picture, etc.  Then his token board was filled up, and he could go play with his dinosaurs.  T. had come in to observe, and she also reminded me to keep the trials and corrections going quickly, so J. wouldn't get too frustrated or have time to lose focus. These are good things for me to learn for future reference, for when Ryan's ready to work at that level.

Next we did circle time, and both boys were kind of antsy. I was trying to get Ryan to sit on his foam wedge, but he kept trying to lean back on me; therefore, he got reinforcement for sitting nicely.

Speaking of circle time, I cashed in a bunch of Parent Points today, and H. started making up 3 new circle activities for me: one with alphabet, one with shapes, and one with colours.  I also got a copy of the "Panda Bear" book, and she's making up the matching pictures for me. 

Then we set the kids up for snack, while we went off to do research and theory. The poor new students got stuck with helping Ryan eat his yogurt. His smock, when I returned, was evidence of messy fun.  Ha-ha!  They said he did well with them, though.

Our Theory section today focused on using Differential Reinforcement to decrease (or increase) behaviour. It gets kind of confusing because there are 5 kinds of differential reinforcement called DR0, DRI, DRA, DRH and DRL.  Many people refer to them in general as DRO (Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviours). They are all similar, but have their own slight variations which make them useful in specific situations. Here's a chart, that I found online, to summarize them.

(The DRI, DRA, and DRH samples above should all be about "Dana": author's typo.)

Source: http://www.cdd.unm.edu/autism/autism_course/modules/behavior/dr/lecture05.html

Unity Month 3

Today ends Month 2 of Unity. In Month 3, there are going to be a lot of changes. They start next week.

• Our "support people" will start coming to Unity with us each day. Gram and/or Papa will be starting with us on Wednesday. I will be training them in everything I've learned about ABA so far, so they can work with Ryan, too.
• The moms will be leading circle time at least once a week.
• Thursdays will be home days. Each week, one of the therapists will be at our home from 9 AM till about 11:30 AM to help us get ready for doing programs at home, once Unity is done.
• We'll have to create a craft for the kids to do.

Update re: Kevin in Grade 1 

In yesterday's post, I talked about my concerns regarding Kevin's transition to Grade 1, and how I wrote a letter to Kevin's teachers. I have to give them credit; they responded immediately. When I got home from Unity, there was a message on the answering machine from Kevin's principal to call her, so we could have a chat.

When I called, she was very considerate. At this time, she didn't have a lot of answers for me yet, but she said the timing of my letter was perfect. They are just in the very early stages of discussing the needs and transitions facing their special needs students for next year.  In fact, the school board's special education consultant was at their school today!  He saw my letter and was made aware of my concerns for Kevin.  The principal assured me Kevin is on their radar.  However, it won't be until closer to summer time that they will start discussing which students will be in which class, and how they will be allocating the EA's.  She suggested I call her in May/June to get more information, and perhaps set up a meeting. 

When I picked up Kevin from school, his helper Mrs. L. was at the door, and she made sure I'd heard from the principal. Then she said, "If I could stay with Kevin all the way through school, I would!" That warmed my heart. I know they have a great bond, and she'll continue to be an in-school advocate for Kevin as he moves into Grade 1  :)