Updates and Tips about the games in the playroom

We are excited about all the things happening in this house lately. Duchis keeps getting closer and closer to Tony, which is such a great miracle to watch! Liam is also showing such great interest in observing games and paying attention to what we do. His awareness and communication keep growing day by day. Tony is doing great in school and is such a great model for Duch. You should see him asking her LEGO questions! And she answers them all! Here are some latest news and ideas that seem to be working for the kids:

- Angela created a vehicle matching game with cards and played it with Liam yesterday. You can find it in a zip-lock bag in the lower-shelf on the left side, in a basket. They were matching pictures with words and talking about the cards and Angela says Liam was like 45 minutes with her putting all the attention to that game. She later tried the game again matching the cards with real vehicle toys in the room to create an extension of the game. Angela said she will try to create a similar game with cards of furniture and rooms of the house since Liam likes that theme a lot. Feel free to try the game with the cards.

- Jennie, the speech therapist, and Shelby have both told me that Liam loves rhymes! They write rhyming words on boards. Sometimes they use the cards. Jennie create a song like this: "sun - fun - bun - and run - -- they rhyme!"

- "Hullaballoo" has been a HUGE success with the kids. Duch and Tony do everything in the game. Liam is super excited watching and seems more and more open to participating, too. Keep trying in a fun way.

- Many people have been working on stories with Liam. He LOVES to contribute more and more to stories.

- Kaffie, Tony and Duch put on a Peter Pan show with the curtains-show idea.

- The "friend-Candyland" idea has worked beautifully with Duch and Tony. Thanks to Kristen and Jordan for helping me in its construction. I will create more questions to make it even more fun.

- Jeannie also created a dice with questions that Duchis likes! Celebrate her for answering questions and tell her to read the questions to you, too. Also encourage her to answer with longer sentences.

Next week, because Tony will be at home, we have a great opportunity to have more session with Duch and Tony together. Here are some tips I have received from Megan and from Alex, a therapist who works with Yulene. I participated a few weeks ago in a joint session with Alex, Duch + Tony + me.

- Play games that both kids are likely to like. If there is a situation in which each kid wants to play something else, explain to them that you can all take turns to play each of the games. Tell them you can play Tony's game for 15 min and then Duch's game for 15 min and then YOUR game for 15 min. Tell them that that is what friends do and that it is fun to play the games that each of them like.

- I want to teach them how to ask things from each other because right now they just come and take the thing/book/toy from each other without saying a word and they just leave. So, if you see a moment when Duch takes something from Tony or Tony takes something from Duch, try to repeat the transaction showing them what to say. So, you could say to Tony: "Tony, let's do that again, but this time you can ask Duch: "Duch, can I have that book, please?"" Another option is: "Duch, it is my turn to look at the book, please". So, try to des-accelerate the exchange, so that they take time to ask first. All of this in a very loving and funny way.

- If Duchis leaves the game, ask Tony if he knows how to call Duch back, like "Duch, come back to play with us". Or tell him, "tony, let's call Duch together: DUCH, DUCH, come back to play". Give him tools so that he knows what to do when she leaves.

- I saw that at the end of the session, Alex asked them questions like: "Tony, what was your favorite part of our play session? What did you like the most?" Then, she asked the same to Duch. Then she asked, "And what part did you like the least? What was the part that you did not like so that I know about it?" I thought that was a very sweet way to get them to think about their time together.

- We also noticed that Duch has something like "performance anxiety". We were playing circus with Alex in Yulene's house and every time we asked Duch to do something (like jumping in the trampoline or going on a swing) she said NO NO NO. But, when we would not be looking or would be looking at Tony, she would go and do it quietly. If we would celebrate, she would say: "I did it" looking nervous. So, Alex says that maybe she is self-conscious and does not want to do some things in "public" or maybe she does not want people to make a big deal of the things she does. So, Alex says that we could give her control of the celebrations by congratulating her when she does something in a quiet way, and then ask her: "do you want me to celebrate big or small?"

Have fun!!!