Megan's advice (Sept 27)

Hi everybody, I talked to Megan on Monday and here is a summary of her advice:

LIAM
1) I told Megan that Liam was more interested in playing with trains/tracks/tunnels, cars, and also in dinosaurs, and that he seemed to be doing more pretend play with them. She suggested modelling simple conversations,  in which the trains talk to each ohter, or the cars talk to each other ("hi, how are you?" "I am ...").

2) I told her that Liam usually talks with a soft voice and that sometimes we cannot hear him or understand him. This is what she said:

a. IF we hear what he said, even if it is soft ---> say "I heard that, Liam! That's great! Let me get that for you (or,  that's a great idea!)" After he gets the toy, we can explain to him, "you know, I like to use a louder voice for everybody to hear me. Speaking louder is very helpful to give you what you want"

b. IF we DO NOT understand what he said ---> do a non-verbal request showing him that we did not hear or understand what he said.

3) I asked Megan if it was time to request longer sentences from Liam. Megan said she would like to give Liam 2 more weeks to practice his spontaneity in language and that after that we will apply to him the same rule that we apply to Duchis when she used to say "Elmo book" (instead of running, we could say: "I love the Elmo book", or we could just do a non-verbal request for him to lenghten his sentence). For now, even if Liam just uses one word (e.g., "train"), we celebrate that and we run to get it for him. Megan says he needs to continue finding his footing with spontaneous language before going for the next level

4) Ideas for games for Liam:
- Do a memory game for signs and letters. Photocopy the poster we have, cut the pieces, and play memory with that. He needs to match signs to letters, for example.
- Bring the puppet show and use our hands as puppets spelling words with sign language in the puppet show. We could also have cards and he chooses a card and we spell the words with sign language.

DUSYA
1) I told Megan that Duchis was sometimes whispering her long sentences. Megan asked me what was the precursor to the soft language (were we interacting?, were we asking her to do something?) I told her I was not sure there was an specific precursor and taht I was going to ask others in teh team.  I told Megan that my interpretation was more like Duchis thinking: "I am going to say your long sentences, but I am going to do it MY way, and my way is whispering". Megan thought that could be it, since control issues have always been important for Duch. Megan recommended for us to give the control to Duchis by celebrating her long sentence and whispering back to her. She told me to do this for one more week and then we could push her to the next level.

2) I told Megan about Duchis touching our face more when eating vegetables or taking supplements. Megan was not sure what that would mean, but she agreed that it will probably go away by itself.

TONY
1) I told Megan that Tony is saying to some of the team members: "I don't want to play with you," "I want you to play with Liam/Duchis," "Go home," "Go away" and that some team members felt a bit hurt with these comments. Megan said we should look at our attitude and level of comfort and really think that Tony is only saying these things to evade situations and high-jack the game. He notices he gets reactions with these comments and he feels he has succeded in not doing what he was asked to do. Megan mentioned that the attitude could be one of "No matter what happens, I love Tony anyway and I know he loves me. I don't take this personally."  One analogy is to remember when our brothers or sisters tell us something mean, but we know we love each other. The same is with Tony. "Go away" may sound mean, but you have to be sure that this guy loves you and that he is onl trying to avoide a task.

2) Something else to do about this is to explain to Tony the structure of the session.
 Either (a) we will first play this game for XX minutes, and then we will play doing these exercises,
   or    (b) we will first play doing these exercises for xx minutues, and then we will play this game.

3) Keep telling Tony that exercises are fun, so that he does not differentiate between games and exercies. Everything is fun.

Let's try these ideas for this week and I will talk to Megan again next week. Speaking about them, enjoy this picture.

We went to NASA!

This Saturday we had a huge adventure: We went to NASA! Duchis and Liam got to see their first big-screen movie: "To be an Astronaut!" They were amazing! The Space Center did not seem to overwhelm them and they had a good time! They watched two movies, went through the Starship Gallery, and played in the playground. Our hard work is paying off, ladies! My next idea? To inspire them to wear astronaut suits for Halloween! Let's see how many of them I get in our "crew"!

Dusya and Cara drawing Sesame Street

Hi! I filmed this video in July, but I did not get to post it until now! This is a video at NTS. Cara and Duchis are drawing Sesame Street and singing the Mad Man song that Duchis loves. I think this will be a wonderful drawing game for the playroom. Even most important than that, I love to see the relationship that Dusya has developed with Cara. They know each other for a long time (since Duchis was about 2.5 years old and Cara joined NTS). I love to see how close and loving the relationship is today. Enjoy this video and feel free to try this in the playroom!
http://vimeo.com/14584376 (11 minutes)

"I want Kaffie, where is Kaffie?" and "I love you, Shelby"

This week Duchis came to me several times telling me "I want Kaffie, where is Kaffie?" I confirmed to her that Kaffie would be back! And, Liam looked at Shelby's eyes in the playroom and told her "I love you". When she said: "I love you, too, Liam!", he replied: "I love you, Shelby." This is BEAUTIFUL; these are two kids discovering that building relationships with others is GREAT. What an inspiration ... , just imagine the possibilities ... , and the moments to come in the next months ...

Minutes of September Group Meeting

We had a great group meeting on Saturday. We all agreed that we could see progress in all the kids. Liam is talking more and more, Duchis is saying longer sentences and is so interested in people, and Tony is improving his strength, his fine motor skills, and his playing skills. Here is a summary of what we decided to do until our next meeting in October:

I. LOGISTICS

a. After you play with play-doh with Dusya, please take the play-doh out of the room because she is getting access to it and eating it.
b. At the start of your sessions, please do these two things: Brushing and Squeezing the balls with the hands. Brushing helps with sensory issues and squeezing the balls helps get rid of primitive reflexes. If you don't remember or don't know how to brush, please look at his previous posting:
http://dusyaandliamsonrise.blogspot.com/2010/07/videos-of-dusya-and-liam-being-brushed.html
c. Every playroom will now have a toothpaste and a toothbrush, so the first person in teh day gets to start with brushing teeth, too.
d. When you start your session, please check the music chart to see if Dusya and Liam have done their 2 therapeutic music sessions of the day. If not, please put the headphones on them and mark the chart. The sessions are at least 3 hours apart of each other. The new headphone wires should arrive in a few days.
e. Please remember to write in teh music, potty, and balls chart.
f. Also, please remember to write in the notebooks downstairs and tell us a summary of your sessions with the kids. Tony's exercise notebook is in his room.
g. Please remember to eat and drink your snacks outside of the playroom because the kids are on a special diet.
h. Please remember to keep cellphones, iPods, etc, away from the kids. It is very important to be present in teh playroom; please tell your family you are not available during the time you are playing with teh kids.
i. Our potty goal is to emphasize wiping (after both peepee and poopoo) and washing hands. Make it fun, show them, help them, and they will get it very soon.

II. IDEAS FOR LIAM

1. We will continue with Megan's goals of getting him to play longer with us and to celebrate all his spontaneous language.  We brainstormed games based on his currrent interests, which are:
- the solar system
- letters and numbers
- sign language
- phonics books and math books
- to be surprised
- dinosaurs
- music and instruments
- to be carried in the air
- physical activities, like jumping
- animals

2. Specifically about language, we noticed he is answering YES to many of our questions. Let's celebrate those YESes!!!! He still has some difficulty with NO. If you offer him something that he does not want, but instead of NO he is telling you any other sound or word, pretend first that you do not understand and offer him teh thing again. He may become more frustrated, but he needs to see that sounds or other words don't work. So, maybe try two more times and them model for him by just saying "NO." If we are consistent, he will get used to NO.

3. Also for language, celebrate any spontaneous words that he says, and also run to the wall and point to the phrase that could help him in that request. Just point it to him, and after a while model it to him, but don't push him to repeat it. The spontaneity is the most important thing at this point, so just show to him the sentence that he could use to make the request even more exact.

4. Games we came out with for Liam were:
- any type of hopscotch. He loves jumping, so you could jump from pillow to pillow, jump from teh bed, jump on air mattresses, etc. I will check the circular trampolines that Academy has. Also, Erin will bring a jumping house thing she has in her garage, and Cari brought a inflatable wheel for the kids to run inside it.
- learn some sign language (youtube has videos, for example, the "Signing Times" videos) and show him all the new signs you know. Write your signs on cards and play games in which he has to choose a card for you to do the signs.
- play circus with him and make him to acrobatic stuff starting with "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the circus! Here is Liam Rodriguez, he will ....."
- I will prepare a dinosaur matching game with the pictures from the zoo, which he loves, and the dinosaur toys he has and the names of the dinosaurs.
- Erin will bring her jumping rope toy to try it with the two kids.
- Scavenger hunts. Cari has done it with teh ABC books. Hide stuff and make it so exciting for him to go find things.
- Write animals signs: Ocean, Jungle, Desert, North Pole and put them around the room and tell him you will help the animals go to their homes.
- Halloween theme! Anything related to halloween :) I will get the garbage bags you suggested.
- I will meet with Shelby and Kaffie for handwritting related activities. But for sure you can play with the wooden letter pieces and the playdoh letter activity.
- Please check the recent feedback by Gerd, where he suggest many games for Liam based on his interest in symbols:
http://dusyaandliamsonrise.blogspot.com/2010/09/gerds-comments-about-my-video-with-liam.html

II. IDEAS FOR DUSYA

1. We will continue with Megan's goals of getting her to play longer with us and participate more actively in games, and to inspire her engagement in conversations. We brainstormed games based on her currrent interests, which are:
-Sesame street
-Puppets
-Silly sounds, silly faces, loud sounds
-To be scared
-Physical humor
2. To continue encouraging her longer sentences, please celebrate anything she says and then run to the wall and point to the phrase that could help her in that request. Just point it to her. She usually says it in a whisper. Tell her: "I heard that"!, celebrate and fullfill her request.  Remember to respond literally to her language. Don't read her mind in those cases in which she wants to communicate with one or two words.

3. We talked about Gerd's comment about not allowing the puppets to become more important than us in teh playroom. She loves puppets and Sesame Street, but she is SO interested in people now. Let's continue showing her that people are SO much more fun than toys and that the puppets are funny because we are funny.4. Games we came out with for Dusya were:
- Paper dolls. Kaffie is currently laminating them. They come in themes (e.g., beach, school, store, farm, etc), so they will be an opportunity for further conversations and pretend play.
- Create games based on BLAHs: you do this, I do a huge blah.
- Drawing Sesame Street. You can see a video of how she does that at NTS with Cara at this address:
http://vimeo.com/14584376
- The new themes for the Puppets will be JOBs. We have a doctor's kit, a construction worker's kit, pirate stuff, farmer stuff, lots of costumes, baker stuff, etc.
- Halloween theme! Anything related to halloween :) I will get the garbage bags you suggested.
- I will meet with Shelby and Kaffie for handwritting related activities. But for sure you can play with the wooden letter pieces and the playdoh letter activity.
- Please check the recent feedback by Gerd, where he suggest games for Dusya: http://dusyaandliamsonrise.blogspot.com/2010/09/gerds-comments-about-my-video-with.html

III. IDEAS FOR TONY

1. We will all continue with this Brain Balance exercices:
- Ball squeezing
- Situps, Abs
- Wheelbarrow walk, crab walk, bear walk
- Throwing balls
- Fine motor exercises (look at the list on his wall for ideas)
- Cutting and coloring
Remember that the more often he does these things the better he gets.
 
2. We decided to teach him to play the typical kids' games. If you need more space, please go to the big empty playroom:
- Tag
- Chase
- Green light/red light
- Simon says
- Hide and Seek
- Duck duck goose
- Halloween theme! Anything related to halloween :) I will get the garbage bags you suggested.

3. I will meet with Shelby and Kaffie for handwritting related activities. But for sure you can play with the wooden letter pieces and the playdoh letter activity.

And now, the moment you all have been waiting for ... Here are our group meeting pictures! Can you feel the love and the fun? Let's start thinking about our theme for next month's picture! :)

Gerd's comments about my video with Dusya

Ladies, I had a GREAT consultation yesterday with Gerd, a wonderful SonRise teacher. Here is his feedback about Dusya and in the next posting you have his feedback about Liam.

First of all, here are my videos with Dusya:
http://www.vimeo.com/14579467 (1 minute)
http://www.vimeo.com/14579569 (9 minutes)

He told me he noticed three main things from the video:

POINT #1:
Dusya’s attention is span is so much longer. The main jest of her attention went to ME. Gerd mentioned that Dusya’s attention stayed on ME 90% of the time. That was very different from the previous videos Gerd had seen about Dusya about five months ago. He said that it is amazing when a kid discovers how much fun people are and that that interest in people opens many opportunities

Gerd thought it was great that I had stickers on my face. He thought that even if we had so many puppets around, the stickers helped to keep the attention on ME.

Gerd’s main advice was to be careful that we don’t guide Dusya’s attention away from PEOPLE. The puppets are just an extension of US. Big bird cannot become bigger than US. The emphasis needs to be on US always.

POINT #2:
Gerd noticed that I had an INTENTION of what I wanted to do in the playroom. He said it was very important to always have an intention. The game was to take stickers out of my face and to put them somewhere else.

Gerd noticed that there was a moment when Duchis was losing attention. The QUALITY of her attention started to go down. She became more lethargic, more comfy on the floor. He said it was great that I made her move.

An idea he gave me that I could have used in that moment when she was become more lethargic was:
*The game would consist of putting the sticker in different places in the room. For example, the room could be a zoo and the stickers could be animal stickers. One corner could be for the monkeys, or another corner for the birds, etc. So, she would have to find appropriate places in the room for the animals to go. It would be a matching game using the imagination to put animals around the room. That way I could get her to move.

POINT #3:
Gerd told me to be observant of where her motivation is. He said that be biggest laughs were when we were plopping and when Big Bird was screaming. I told him that she loves funny sound, silly faces, screams, being scared, blahing, etc, etc.

I told her that sometimes I did not know what new thing to do with blahing and that it may be becoming repetitive. Gerd said that we just need to think of creative combinations or variations of the blahing, and that I should not judge it as repetitive. He said that she is CLEARLY motivated towards that, so we could use the sounds to make a DEAL: “you do something for me and I will scream the loudest scream you have ever seen”.

He also told me that it is great that she is interested in all these funny things because it is very age appropriate. He said that kids usually around 5 years old are interested in funny sounds, slapstick humor, forbidden words, etc. He said it speaking developmentally, this is a great milestone in her development and it comes at the right age.

His final comment was: “Boy, her attention is just staying with you beautifully; this is a wonderful achievement, a reason to celebrate.”

Gerd's comments about my video with Liam

Ladies, here is my video with Liam (it is 10 minutes long):
http://www.vimeo.com/14582238

Here are Gerd's comments and suggestions:

POINT #1:
With Liam my intention in the video was to play with the rockets and send them to the targets on the floor. Gerd said that I did everything I could to get Liam back to the game, but he thought I tried TOO MUCH. He reminded me to be flexible enough to LET GO of the game. He said that in the long run, it is always better to go with what the child wants to do. My intention was too strong: “Boy, I have to bring the rockets back”. I told him I was trying to weave my game with his interests, but Gerd said Liam did not bite my game and, in contrast, in the video Liam proposed me three things:

1) Leap pad books: he was asking me to read the long words at the end of the book
2) Horsey ride
3) Sign language: he was asking me to show him the signs of the alphabet

Gerd said it was great that Liam requested these 3 things and that, although I paid attention to his requests, I always tried to mix them with the game even if Liam did not show a lot of interest in it.

Gerd reminded me that this is a CHILD-DIRECTED PROGRAM, which means that LIAM IS THE BOSS in the playroom. He said that if Liam always asks for the same things it is a matter of coming with creative variations and going with Liam’s intention and interests.

POINT #2:
Gerd also thought that Liam seemed to be very interested in SYMBOLS, like the numbers, phonics, math, letters, sign language. He said this is a fascination he would support and foster because that can be a way to capture more of Liam’s interest. I told him that Liam can read since he is about 2.5 years old and that he has always been interested in letters, numbers, shapes, music, etc. Gerd thought it was amazing that at 4pm, after a full day of work, Liam will ask for his "phonics books" and his "math books". Gerd’s suggestions were:

- Write more things. Use the board more.
- Show him combinations of letters and numbers (e.g., progressions and patters)
- For horsey rides, combine them with horse races, talk about the horses having numbers and people betting money on the horses
- Come up with some time of monopoly game for Liam with money to buy things
- Play kitchen talking about ingredients and different amounts
- Bring a measuring tape and measure his toys
- Bring a scale and weight his stuff
- Talk about Egypt; show him Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Gerd final message about Liam was: "I think we have a little genious here. Go with his interests. He knows more than you think he knows."

Our playroom shelves have a new look!

Hi everybody, We gave our shelves a "makeover". The spaces in the shelves are labeled to keep everything ordered and in place. If you want to rotate toys, please do it by using the current classification :) I think this new method will prevent the toys from taking over our lives :) Thanks!

Reminder - GROUP MEETING ON SATURDAY SEPT 11 (6-8PM)

Ladies, mark your calendars! We will have a meeting on Saturday, Sept 11 from 6pm to 8pm. We will be covering the three kids' goals. See you there!  And now .... some funny pictures of the events of the last weeks.

Love this picture of Duchis jumping on her birthday

Tony celebrated his birthday in Ecuador, too!

Our latest excursion to the Zoo

Liam loves his baths