Videos of Dusya and Liam being brushed

Here are two videos I took at NTS of the kids being brushed. They are just 2-3 minutes long. Laura is brushing Liam and Cara is brushing Dusya. Let's brush the kids at the start of each of your sessions, ladies.

Megan's Outreach - FINAL SCHEDULE

August 3, Tuesday

9:00-9:20am Observe Dusya with Duchis
9:20-10:00am Feedback to Dusya
10:00-10:20am Observe Dusya with Duchis and Tony
10:20-11:00am Feedback to Dusya
11:00-12:00am Megan and Duchis in the playroom
12:00-1:00pm LUNCH
1:00-1:20pm Observe Dusya with Liam
1:20-2:00pm Feedback to Dusya
2:00-2:20pm Observe Dusya with Liam and Tony
2:20-3:00pm Feedback to Dusya
3:00-4:00pm Megan and Liam in the playroom

August 4, Wednesday

9:00-11:30am Megan and Liam in the playroom
11:30-12:00pm Q&A - Liam
12:00-1:00pm LUNCH
1:00pm-3:30pm Megan and Duchis in the playroom
3:30-4:00pm Q&A - Duchis
August 5, Thursday

9:00-9:20am Observe Ashley with Liam
9:20-10:00am Feedback to Ashley
10:00-11:00am Megan and Tony play
11:00-12:00pm Q&A - Tony
12:00-1:00pm LUNCH
1:00-4:00pm Group Meeting: Program Goals and Discussion - Dusya, Liam and Tony

"It is NOT about the toy"

Hi all, I was reading this great article from a SonRise teacher (Aaron DeLand -- he is one of Megan's friends) about toys for SonRise kids. I thought these ideas were very important in our cases. Below is only a little part of the article. If you want to see the whole story, follow this link:
http://www.examiner.com/x-10067-LA-Special-Education-Examiner~y2010m7d18-For-children-on-the-autism-spectrumIt-is-NOT-about-the-toy

"Choose toys for your child that will support your person to person, face to face play. You want to think of toys as props and tools for you, rather than the driving motivation for your child. Remember the driving motivation should be YOU.

Here are some good examples of toys and activities that stimulate rather than detract from social interaction: dress up clothes, masks, paper and markers, blocks, blanket and pillows, puppets, balloons, plastic food, songs, and make believe.

One little girl I work with, Sam, loves Sesame street, especially Elmo and Cookie Monster. If I gave her a figurine of Cookie Monster or Elmo she would probably play exclusively and repetitively with it.

One day I drew two pictures—one of Elmo's head and one of Cookie Monster’s head and started to feed each of them pretend cookies. After each cookie I pretended to feed them, I sang their signature song. Sam laughed and giggled at the sight of this. Before I knew it, she was playing with me and wanting to feed cookies to the cut outs herself. Her use of eye contact increased as well as her spontaneous language.

More importantly she was aware of wanting this interaction from me. I was the one making interaction worth her time. That is a key aspect of a relationship based approach to interaction: be aware of your child’s motivations, and use them to make yourself more inviting and intriguing to your child.

When I say “It's not about the toy,” I mean that people are far more dynamic, fun, interesting and useful than anything a toy company could ever produce. Besides, no toy can teach a child to be a social being—only people possess that magic!"

News - July 26 to August 1

Hi everybody,
This week is full of exciting events:
- Daddy will come back on Wednesday night.
- Tony and I will be in Dallas on Thursday and Friday for his evaluation. He had his first evaluation this week at NTS with Cara, Liam and Duchis' OT therapist. He performed well at the tasks Cara asked him to do. I was told that his vestibular system is not working very well and that is why he moves a lot and that could interfere with his attention. The vestibular system is the one that handles the input the body receives from movement. Cara said that is easy to fix and we will be working on that. Otherwise, she tells me: "I think this is a case of GT". I said: "What is GT?" And she says: "gifted and talented". I tell her, "but his schools say that he is behind," and she says: "I think he may be bored by their circle time and activities." Plus, the teachers do not understand why he moves because they do not know about the vestibular system. So, we will have another evaluation in Dallas at a place called Brain Balance. Until now, we know we need to work on his vestibular system and we know our boy is precious and talented :) Cara said he have "a little engineer" in our hands.
- Wednesday is Tony's last day in Montessori. He is happy he will be having "school at home." He enjoyed all his playroom hours this week. Thanks to Erin, Kaffie, Shelby and Ashley for playing with him. I had great conversations this week about Tony's program with several therapist and SonRise teachers and we are learning a lot about how to implement his program.
- We are happy to have Erin back in our team and to see Kelsey and Mercedes again.
Enjoy my kids, and as Megan always says, focus on PLAYING AND HAVING FUN, everything else comes with it.

Look at our boy!

Ladies, look at our Liam. This is the boy, who has hated the camera for almost two years because of his sensitivity to light (to the flash, in this case). I have been seeing signs that the sensitivity to light was going away, and I think these pictures show we are moving in the right direction! He did not complain; he did not cover his eyes!!! His sensitivity to sound, in contrast, is very high right now, but that's ok; we know that if the sensitivity to light came and went away, the sensitivity to sound will go away, too. It is just a matter of time. Look at this beautiful boy, girls, AHHHHHHHH

Look at our girl!

Ok, I HAVE to add this picture to the blog. I LOVE this picture. Look at our girl. Look at her smile. Look at her eyes. Look at her awareness. Look at her happiness. Look at how long she looked at the camera, considering this is the third picture I have with her, T-Rex and Shelby. Look at this picture and remember where we were a year ago. This is our new Duch. Celebrate, ladies, and take nothing for granted. I am going to drink some wine right now :)

Meet our UH and school counseling certification volunteers!

Hi everybody,
If you have not met them in person, yet, here are pictures of our volunteers from the University of Houston and the school district counseling certification program.
Desiree and Meredith are students in the school of psychology at UH. They want to specialize in speech therapy. J'eanna is a Professor in the school of Hotel and Restaurant Management. Catherine is a special education teacher and is currently a student in her school counseling certification program. We are excited about them joining our team because Liam and Dusya get to know more people and see how fun and helpful people are. My friend Christy, who is also in Catherine's counseling certification program (and is a friend from Ecuador!), will also join us soon. Thanks ladies!!!

Meredith and Desiree

Mom, Catherine and J'eanna

Save the dates - Megan is coming!!!! - August 3rd, 4rd, 5th! (Tue, Wed, Thu)

Hi everybody,
We will have our 3rd outreach with Megan in August. We will cover goals for the 3 kids. Megan will help us to develop Tony's program, too! Very exciting. Please save the dates!!! I will let you know when I have the schedule of each day.

Potpurri of Pictures

Our team keeps experimenting changes this summer. We will have new members soon. I will start training this week for our new members. Until then, I wanted to show you some pictures of what is happening lately in this house. I have SOOO many great pictures. These are just a few. ENJOY! These are the fruits of our work! Thanks to J'eanna for the GREAT "baker" (according to Duchis) outfit! Thanks to Kaffie for launching the grocery store and inventing the Ghost themes! Thanks to Shelby and Ashley for being such great troopers in the heat of the zoo! And, thanks to Cari for the PRICELESS picture of Duch as a CD player!

News of the week - July 12 to July 18

Hi ladies,
I have not had a lot of time to update the blog with news and pictures, so let me tell you a summary of what we are doing:
- Antonio was at the Option Institute (home of SonRise) from Thursday to Sunday of last week and LOVED the course. It was called the Happiness Weekend. I think he had a great time, and got a chance to rest and get new energy.
- As some of you know, we have decided to run a short-term program for Tony at home. It will be a different program from the one Duch and Liam have,  but it will based on him being in a playroom working on the areas he needs to work to be better prepared to go to school. I already talked with his school and told them he will be back after our "boot camp" with him at home. We hope to start in August with him, so we are working hard on designing his program. Megan is helping me with this. Once we decided on his program, we need to train the people who will work with Tony.
- I will have another consultation with Megan this week. She always gives me great ideas! I am implementing a "circle time" with the kids at night, around 6pm, that is working very nicely.
- Antonio will leave to Spain this Sunday, but my dad is coming on Saturday to help me with the logistics of the house :)
Ok, more details and pictures to come! Have fun with my kids! Please remember to be consistent in the use of the techniques we have discussed for Dusya's and Liam's language. If you have any doubt, let me know.