From Facebook:
"Ryan had a fussy day today but we did okay. Papa did well on his first day with us. I ran circle time. Froze up and blanked on the opening song, but pulled it together after that. LOL"
Ryan was whining/crying from the moment he woke up this morning, and just seemed a bit unsettled all day. He had slept well, and ate well, and wasn't sick, so I'm not sure what made him so moody.
Today was Papa's first day at S.C. We got there a bit earlier than usual, so we had time to give him a tour of the main rooms and take Ryan for a wagon ride. Ryan did excellent signing "more" for the wagon, but of course, he was mad when we had to stop and get to work!
There were so many things I wanted to explain to Papa as we were going along, but as Ryan was having a grouchy day, I was busy trying to keep him calm/engaged, so I'm not sure how well I did. It's kind of funny; things that we're used to doing around there probably seemed strange to Papa, such as when we shut off the lights and walked out of the Yellow Room, leaving Ryan behind. Of course, Papa's natural reaction was to turn back to grab Ryan's hand and lead him along, because he didn't know that shutting off the lights and walking away is a prompt/cue to Ryan that he needs to stand up and follow us. We would never really leave him behind!
Anyways, our day started a little later than usual. I'm not sure where everyone was! We were ready, so I had Ryan get on the Thomas ride-on and show Papa how well he could ride it across the room. Ryan still needs help getting on the toy, but he can do the rest himself. Ryan also entertained himself with the big bead maze for awhile. Then, L. came in and the daily routine started with L. singing "Mr. Sun" with us and Ryan, and that did make him laugh. Ryan is usually very cuddly with L., and she knows all his favourite tickle spots.
Then we moved over to the Blue Room. I set up the "coins in the bank" program first because we haven't done that one in a few days. Overall, Ryan did pretty well. I think he got 3/5 in at a wrist prompt. In fact, he continued to play with the toy just for fun, and he actually put one in independently!
Next we tried clapping, with two fully-prompted trials and then 3 trials with zero prompts. It went as expected; 2 +'s, then 3-'s. L. noticed my frustration and stepped in to try some problem-solving. We played around with a few different ideas, and then L. had a successful trial when she got Ryan's hands into position ahead of time, before the instruction was given. I tried a few that way and got only one successful attempt, but it's something that might work if Ryan was having a better emotional-regulation day.
I thought some Play Doh might be fun for Ryan, but he was kind of whiny throughout the program. He didn't take any ownership of squishing the Play Doh balls. I was doing all of the work, HOH. However, he did pat them independently a couple times, which is the beginning of the motion we want.
While we were at the table, I decided we could try colouring (and also because he likes it). I got out the marker with the special grip, and he did well trying to grasp it and push it around for at least a few seconds (with me holding the top). He got a + on 4/5 trials. For the last trial, he just started to swat at it and wasn't interested in trying to grip it, so I corrected him HOH and we ended on that positive.
I believe we did the pop-up toy after that. Ryan pushed three down with a wrist prompt and one down independently. He struggled a bit more on the pop-up switches today, and only got one (the pull-down switch) with the wrist prompt. The rest I had to HOH.
We moved back to the Yellow Room, and there we did the animal puzzle. Ryan took the three pieces out independently, but I faded back from HOH to a wrist prompt for him putting them back in. He actually did really well, getting 4/6 pieces in on his own with the wrist prompt. Remember, he just started this more complicated puzzle for the first time yesterday.
Then we tried matching, but in a new way: with pictures. L. had laminated pictures of pairs of shapes of the same colour, like two black squares and two red squares. She put one back square picture on the floor, and showed Ryan how to put the other black square with it, to make a match. Then she put one black square on the floor next to Ryan, and HOH'ed him putting his picture of the black square on top of the one on the floor. After that, she left the one black square beside him, and handed him the other picture, and told him to match. He did! He dropped his picture on top of its match. Next, L. put a picture of a red square on Ryan's one side and a black square on his other. She handed him a black square, and told him to match. He did it! Then, she switched it around and handed him a red square and asked him to match that, instead. I believe he was confused the first time, but after HOH'ing a correction, he got the next trial right. So, it appears that matching with pictures is going to work a lot better for Ryan. L. says she'd like to get some different pictures for him, of real objects, to match. We were matching real objects before, but the materials themselves were too distracting for him. He still tried to mouth the pictures a bit, but they were easier to block, and wipe off easily due to the lamination. He's also more used to using laminated pictures for matching, since we do that with some of our circle activities.
Speaking of circle, it was soon time for that. It was my turn to lead for the first time today. I was ready, but got thrown a bit by Ryan's reaction to me sitting at the front as the leader, and not behind him. Papa and L. were there to support Ryan, but he did not react well to this major change in circle routine. He cried quite a bit, and it took some work to get him focused and sitting nicely. I asked if I should just go ahead with circle and let them deal with Ryan, and L. said yes. But as I went to get started, the opening song completely left my brain. It went totally blank. I think L. could see I had stage fright, so she prompted me with, "Which one did yo want?" and she started singing "Look who came to school today . . ." After that, my brain fart dissipated; I sang and led the rest, and I did fine. Here was my circle-time line-up after that: "5 Boys in the Bed" (sing, and pull each boy off Velcro/bed and count down as they roll over and one falls out); "Roll the Ball" (sing and roll the ball back and forth);"Twinkle Twinkle" (sing and hand actions); "Brown Bear" (kids match the laminated pictures to the ones in the story as I read); "Wheels on the Bus" (the usual song/actions, with a choice of pictures the kids can Velcro to the bus as we sing each part); "Sticky Bubble Gum" (song and actions); and the "Good-Bye Song" (song and actions). I had also planned on doing "Bear Went Over the Mountain" (song with accompanying choice of pictures for kids to choose and hold up), but my circle was running a bit long (not a bad thing; it just happens sometimes). Plus, during "Wheels on the Bus," J. had to depart for an urgent washroom break, so we cut the other songs/activities down to one step and finished up. Overall, L. carried the singing (she's got a stronger voice than me), and J. did great with his parts in the activities. Like I said, Ryan had a bit of a tough time because he wasn't used to Mommy being in front of him and leading circle, instead of behind him, supporting/prompting/reinforcing.
Snack time came, and Ryan ate/drank very slowly and dragged it out. He was clearly getting exhausted.
After snack I set up the "push train" trial, and he did pretty good. He got 4/5 trials correct with the train on the bumpy track. He only shoved it off the track once (I'm not sure if it was due to motor control or attitude). I put the larger toy train on the train table as his reinforcer, and it helped distract him from breaking up our 4-piece track. It also helped that Papa was there to focus Ryan's attention on other things!
We moved to the floor to do "pat head", and Ryan got mad because I made him sit on the foam wedge. That makes him work a little harder to sit p on his own, and he was getting really tired. Plus, we weren't having success with "pat head." I had gone back to the two trials with full prompt/3 trials with zero prompt, but I forgot to set up his hands ahead of time until L. reminded me. Still, the result was 2 +'s and 3 -'s. I really think that setting up his hand position before giving the instruction might work, but Ryan just wasn't in the mood for it today. He was more sensitive and getting frustrated easily.
It's tough for me to see Ryan getting confused and frustrated. I can see that he wants to be successful! This is one of the many subtle changes that we've seen in Ryan since he started Unity. He truly gets a look a happiness/pride/smugness on his face when he knows he's accomplished something. We love it when we see that look! On the other hand, it's heartbreaking to see when he's trying so hard to give us what we want, or to communicate, and he just can't get it out to us.
It was only 11:00, but Ryan was getting really worn out. L. suggested I test this out by getting a toy he had mastered and seeing what he does. I got out the ball ramp. It's a toy he has mastered and one really enjoys. However, he started out totally apathetic with it. He was swatting the balls with his hands, not even trying to pick them up, and fussing a bit. I did a few HOH's to get him going, and then he slowly perked up a bit, and did a few on his own, but he was still sloppy (fumbling the balls). L. agreed that showed Ryan had enough for today. So, I waited till he was calm and did the toy independently a few times in a row, then we packed up and left. It was good timing because J. had spotted the ball ramp, and he wanted to play with it, so he got it all to himself. :)
So, tomorrow is our first in-home day with S.C. staff. It should be interesting. I'm sure I'll have plenty of new things to post about tomorrow.
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