We are Liam and Dusya's Team

We are Liam and Dusya's Team
From our March 2014 Meeting

Sunday, September 12, 2010

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! :)

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