From Facebook:
"Don't know why I'm so exhausted. We had a very productive day at S.C., tried a few new things, and Ryan was generally in a good mood. Maybe it's because the little stinker was up till 1 AM last night?"
The day started off with Papa encouraging/helping Ryan hang up his coat. It's not something I've ever made him do before, but it is a useful skill. (Why didn't I think of that?) Papa also added a new component to wagon-ride time. He put 4 balls in the wagon with Ryan. After they had gone down the hallway and back (doing the usual manding for "more"), Papa flipped over a container and helped Ryan "throw" the balls into the "basket." I was impressed that each time they came back to put the balls in the container, Papa adjusted it a bit to decrease the prompts. By the end of the wagon rides, they had gone from HOH putting the balls in the basket to Papa resting the ball on the edge of the wagon, and Ryan independently pushing it into the basket. Papa appears to be a natural at finding/setting up incidental learning opportunities!
We started off with Itsy Bitsy Spider this morning, and Ryan was actually smiling as we did the actions! I pretended to make the spider "dance" on the top of his head at the end, and he liked that. :)
Next, T. decided to re-address the issue of the peg boards. She first found one that had several chunky shapes to put in their respective holes. Ryan was somewhat interested, but he was distracted by the number and variety of shapes, and seemed to be more engaged in removing the pegs than putting them in. Then, T. thought of a different idea, that kind of focuses on the same skills. We decided to call this activity "stacking beads" (for lack of a better name). For this one, wooden dowels can be placed in a board so they stand straight up, and then you slide chunky beads down onto the dowel. Again, we noticed he loved taking the beads off the dowels more than putting them on, and T. suggested we could use this as his reinforcement. So, we did something similar to a backward chaining technique: We put several beads on the dowel, and then Ryan put on the last one. If he did this properly (with physical prompts--HOH and wrist to start--because it's so new), then he got to pull all the beads off the dowel. Once he starts putting them on independently, we can reduce the amount of beads on the dowel before starting, and increase the number of beads he must put on successfully before being allowed to pull them off. By the end of our trials, Ryan got 3/5 of the square beads on at a wrist prompt level. That's really promising!
However, he did try to keep mouthing the pieces, so Papa was doing lots of blocking. We also had to keep reminding ourselves to tell what we WANT him to do, not what we don't want! T. was chuckling a bit because I was getting frustrated with myself. I kept catching myself and scolding myself for telling him "not in your mouth!" and things like that. She was pleased that I was at least catching myself. :) Papa was doing much better by the end of the session, too.
Then we did a little "clapping" and "pat head." Ryan showed improvement today. I gave him 4/5 on the clapping, but he did regress a bit to needing a forearm prompt from Papa to get a "clap" today. His claps were a bit weak, too, just kind of tapping his hands together once or twice. On the first attempt, where he got a -, Ryan was "scrolling" through answers to find the right one. T. said to avoid letting him scroll through his repertoire. We can jump in and prompt him more quickly, or block/correct him if we see he's going for the wrong imitation. If we need to fully prompt the first few trials, we can fade back the prompts as we go through the trial. For the "pat head" imitation, Ryan did really well. He got 5/5! We were working at an elbow-prompt level, and in fact, I gave him three (+) because he patted his head with only Papa blocking his left arm. [I must add here, that on today's feedback sheet, T. wrote, "Great job prompting from behind today!" That praise all goes to Papa. :)]
We had a few extra minutes before moving to the Blue Room, so we tried an old imitation: "pat floor." For some reason, Ryan was getting frustrated and really scrolling through his imitations to find the right answer. This is where Papa had to jump in and keep Ryan's hands near the floor, and give him the wrist prompt (and even a few HOH pats) like T. had mentioned earlier. Ryan was losing interest in participating, so we "prompted perfect" (HOH so he got it just right) and ended the trial. It was a good reminder for me that we need to go back and practice old programs occasionally, to ensure the skills are maintained ("maintenance").
Next, we moved into the Blue Room. I had Papa do the "coins in the piggy bank" with Ryan, which we hadn't done in a while. Ryan remembered he needed to put them in the slot, and tried to put the coins ON the slot, but he was fumbling to get them in. He was able to do 3 coins at the old wrist prompt level, but also needed HOH for 3 coins. Maybe we should have started with the HOH and faded to the wrist, since we hadn't done it in a while. Looking back, I realize that would have made more sense.
Then, we pulled out the shape sorter, another program we haven't done in a few days. He was a bit stronger on this one (but then he had been at a higher level with this one), with 4/6 trials correct. He got two in independently, and two at the wrist prompt level. The other two he was fumbling a bit too much, and needed some HOH assistance from Papa. As usual, though, Ryan was quite persistent in trying to wiggle them in on his own. He also enjoyed ripping off the lid and getting into the shapes!
[Sorry, I may get the order of events mixed up from here. I can't exactly remember if "Play Doh" and "colouring" were before or after circle time and snack. (?) Tired brain!]
"Colouring" went great today. Ryan got 5/5. For 4/5 trials, he had a solid grip and made nice, continuous marks on the paper; only one was a little weaker. What I found amusing was that when I offered Ryan his reinforcement, he wasn't even interested. He wanted to keep colouring! So really, he did a lot more than just the 5 trials. I think Ryan is fascinated by the cause and effect of moving the marker and seeing the colour/shape that results.
"Play Doh" was the usual today. No really independent squishing, but Ryan was rolling the balls around and patting them when prompted. Papa did note, however, that consistent use of terms is important with Ryan. Papa was saying "push it" (meaning to push down on it), and Ryan kept rolling it away like he does with a ball. Papa caught this confusion, and I reminded him that I usually say to "smoosh" it. T. agreed that we need to be careful to choose terms that don't sound too much alike, so we can prevent confusion for Ryan.
Circle time went well today. Ryan was a bit floppy and silly, but he did particularly well with matching to the book at circle time. T. referred to this as, "Great discriminating to match."
I thought Ryan was going to fall asleep at snack. With Papa cuddling him as he drank his bottle (a bit of a no-no at SC, where Ryan's trying to learn to sit properly at the table, but I don't have the heart to say no!), Ryan's eyes were considerably droopy.
However, in typical Ryan fashion, he got a second wind after snack and pushed through. I set up "push train" on the train table, and Papa guided Ryan through. Ryan got 3/5 trials correct, but the last one was the best. Ryan pushed it from one end to the other, down all 5 tracks. Not only that, but it started to derail at one point, and Ryan actually repositioned the train and pushed it the rest of the way down the track! We have never seen him fix the situation and continue like that. It was pretty awesome!
After that, I looked for our pop-up toy, but couldn't find the one we usually use. It mysteriously disappeared. (?) So, I got out the bobble-head one we used for a bit before to see what Ryan would make of it. Well, he remembered the cheats, that's for sure! He instantly started popping up the lids with his fingers and flicking the bobble heads. Papa was trying to get him to use the switches and pulls and so on, but Ryan was having none of that. T. said, "Okay, let's at least give him some resistance on opening them so we're increasing his hand strength." So, Papa was pushing down on them as Ryan tried to flip them up, so Ryan had to work a little harder to get what he wanted.
I suggested we move to the Rainbow Room because I wanted to work on Ryan's tracking the soccer ball again. Since the focus is on the "tracking" aspect of it now, he got 3/5 trials correct. I was giving him verbal reminders to "follow the ball" and "keep kicking the ball," and he responded pretty well to that. Most times, he was following the ball and kicking it, two or three times in a row. We did have a little trouble keeping him on track a few times, where he would start to wander in a different direction from the ball. T. said to shadow him from behind (stick close behind him) in case he gets off course, so we can quickly guide him back on track. Papa and I also made a little oopsy in the consistency of our reinforcement. Sometimes Ryan got it after one kick, or two kicks, or three. In the "acquisition" (learning it) phase of a skill, it's really important to have consistent reinforcement. So, I decided he'd have to track the soccer ball for 2 kicks to get reinforcement.
Finally, we ended with the Thomas ride-on toy, and holy smokes, once Papa got Ryan on that toy, Ryan took off! He went up and down the long, central hallway at least twice, with only an occasional pause to catch his breath. T. was amazed; she hadn't seen him on it since his first few tries. One funny thing happened: L. was in the hallway with us on the way back, and seeing how Ryan was cruising along, she gave him a push with her foot from behind and said, "Whee!" Poor Ryan was caught totally off guard; he startled, arms and legs flew out, and he came to an abrupt stop. He didn't cry or anything. He just looked shocked! L. was immediately apologetic, but we were all laughing and joking about how Ryan would be terrified of this toy and never ride it again. However, Ryan's a resilient little guy; after taking a moment to recollect himself, he soberly continued his journey back to the Rainbow Room, like nothing had happened. ;)
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