Group meeting - March 2013

We had a fun group meeting. Here is the summary of our discussion. Keep playing with the "experience books". The final products will look awesome, I am sure!

DUCH’s GOALS

1.      Uses pronouns correctly: he, she, you, I , me, they, us, etc

2.      Asks “why” questions

3.      Seeks others personal information within a conversation: Asks questions about another person. E.g., “Where do you live?” “Did you see the ____ movie?”

4.       Is able to politely get someone’s attention when the person is occupied. e.g. “Excuse me”

5.       Transitions: “I am bored” “I want to do something else”

6.       Explaining why she is cranky: “This is loud”, “This is scary”, “I don’t like cheering”

-          Alex says she is working on transitions because Duch sometimes just leaves one thing and goes to another wout saying anything. Alex is working on Duch expressing her desire to switch with ideas such as: “I want to do something else”, “I am bored”. Alex tries to engage her when she sees Duch switching and Alex asks her: “What happened?” “Why are you going to that?” She says Duch not always answers these questions, so Alex provides multiple choices.

-          Transitions are a friendship skill so that Duchis tells friends when she wants to switch to another activity.

-          In general, when there is a small cranky moment (or outburst), Alex goes to “what happened?” “Why are you crying?” She says she not always gets a direct answer but she goes to multiple choices in these cases to show Duch she could express what she is feeling or thinking.

-          Another sentences Alex has used is: “Instead of covering your ears, you could tell me to be quieter”

-          Alex is also asking what Duch liked or not liked about a game or things like “Would it be better if ….”

-          We talked about Duch doing things she had not liked before, like going to the Rodeo Parade. I told Duch still did not want to go to shows or the symphony. So, I have been trying to ask Duch why she does not want to go and to provide her options. The tells me it is because of the “sound” and because it is “loud”. So, Alex wants me to work on her thinking logic of why she does not like the symphony or other things.

-          Alex felt that Duch is trying new things and has a feeling that the tutoring with Rizwana has given her a sense of being successful at activities and feeling more secure of herself.

-          Duch will go twice a week to the school district to a speech class that lasts 30 minutes with 3 other kids. It will be a chance to be in a class environment with 3 other kids (Mon. & Wed., 10am).

LIAM’s GOALS

1.      Pretend play (birthdays, magic carpets, puppets, camping).  Get prompts together to act them out.

2.      Pretend play with themes from books like Good Night Gorilla, or any topic he starts talking about. Get prompts together to act them out.

3.      Expressing what he likes and what he does not like: “I like this pajamas” “I don’t like this shirt”

4.       Practice his sense of independence: “Liam, go and get clothes from the closet. Get a shirt, underwear and pants”.  “Liam, go get the book in the room that is under the pillow”.

5.      Talk about past experiences. We will use experience books. Get prompts together to act them out.

-          Alex had noticed that he was talking about “good night gorilla” a lot and I told her that some girls were playing the story with his toys or making books about it. She encouraged more work with stories like this that he seems to like. She says good night gorilla is great work on in/out, sleep/awake/on/off, etc, etc.

-          She also encouraged me to create “books of experiences” with pictures of activities we have done recently. We could comment on the books and act them out. “Remember when we did this …”  “Which book do you like best?”

-          The “I like/I don’t like” goal is an umbrella goal to get to know Liam’s opinions about things like: food, toys, books.  We could show him pictures or do drawings and ask him what he likes, seaweed or spinach, or Target or Walmart, etc? If he is choosing between two shirts and he chooses one, we could model “Why?” “Is it because it is itchy?” “It’s an itchy shirt”.

-          In the goal about Independence, the focus is receptive language, it does not matter if he does not talk a lot. He is listening and following all the commands, so that’s the priority.

• When he gets upset, like in the case of the missing piece in a puzzle, the goal is flexibility, not language. He needs to see we can still be happy even when we don’t get what we want or even when lose a toy and people are trying to find it.