Celebrating our fantastic weekend team

We have been very lucky that for almost two years, and one year, respectively, two fantastic ladies, Shampaigne and Martalicia, have been coming to our house on the weekends to play with our kiddos. At 8am the bell rang, and I knew that my kids would be loved and challenged for the next hours while playing with these ladies. Shampaigne just graduated, so she is moving back to Dallas, and Martalicia will spend the summer in Mexico and will come back in the Fall. We will miss you, but I know we will be always connected. Thank you so much for all your help during all this time! We love you and will be forever grateful for your love for our kids!

Ideas for Liam

With Liam, focus on these ideas this week:

- Follow the leader/Simon says type of games

- Puppets and Pillow Pets in pretend play - go wild with scenarios you have never tried before

- He seems very interested in Sesame Street characters (went to Duch room to take Rosita and put her in his tent--first time I hear him saying "Rosita")

- Writing words on the white-board by himself

- Remember to focus on the play, not on the language -- the language comes through the play and connection -- the more connected and involved in the play, the more language he will use.

Mary's graduation

Throughout the years, I have been very excited about all my SonRise team members' graduations from UH -- Jessie's, Kristen's, Shampaigne's, Mary's undergrad one - or St Thomas - Bensy's - but I had never been able to be in one. Finally, I saw Mary graduating this Saturday from BAUER, and it was really a happy moment filled with pride and gratitude for this amazing lady who has played with my kids for hundreds of hours since October 2010. She is the real deal: an accountant who loves to play with kids with autism. I still remember when I interviewed her on the phone in 2010 :) Thanks for all these years of play, Mary! We will enjoy the time we still have with you in our team until you join your accounting job in August :) Here is the first picture I have of you in a group meeting!

UH Easter Hunt and Go Texan Day

Megan's fill-in-the-blank technique

I talked to Megan last week and she reminded me that the fill in the blacks are particularly with OPINIONS, FEELINGS, AND THOUGHTS --  not so much for wants and needs, because Liam can get those easier. What we want is to know what he thinks and feels. So, keep that in mind :) For example, if we know he cannot find this pillow-pet dolphin, and he is just saying dolphin. We would not say: "I want _______" or "help me find the ______" because those are wants and needs. We would say: "Oh! The dolphin is ________"   or "we cannot find the dolphin, the dolphin is ______" he may say "missing", or "lost", or "hiding", or something else :) After finding the dolphin, we could say: "I love this dolphin because ______" 

Group Meeting - March 2014

GROUP MEETING – MARCH 2014 - LIAM

Our previous goals:

PRETEND PLAY campaign with 5 components:

1a. Enjoy and celebrate all those moments when Liam is truly CONNECTED to you.

1b. Lengthen his attention span in one activity.

1c. Strengthen his receptive language.

1d. Strengthen his mimicking skills.

1e. Inspire Liam’s commenting and sharing opinions.

OUR NEW GOALS:

1.       The “Fill-in-the-blank technique and Rhetorical questions technique”:

Example: if he is complaining about a poster that is falling or a book that is missing, we could say:

“OMG, Liam needs __________”

“We need to find some sticky ______________”

“Where could the tape be? ____________”

“The tape is in the _____________”

“Hmmmm, what do we need? ____________”

“Hah, ……, what do we need?  The teddy bear? Let’s try with the teddy bear. No, the teddy bear cannot fix this. We need _________________”

Megan thinks that we could mix things up by not modelling so much right now (since we have modelled lots with the pretend play), but practicing “fill in the blank situations” both in the games and for day-to-day things. He is better with “fill in the blacks” in relation to stories and games than in day-to-day things.

Fill-in-the-blank and emotions

a.       Making sentences with cards and words and fill-in-the-blank activities:

“When Martalicia comes to play, I feel ______________________”

“When my transportation book breaks, I feel ________________”

“I am __________________ when I heard Dusya scream.”

“I feel __________________ when I jump on the trampoline.”

b.      Dumb yourself down and practice situations like this with pretend play or with books: “Liam, I can’t figure this out. Dora looks sad, why is she sad? ______” or “Liam, I can’t figure this out. Dora’s ice cream fell on the floor. What do you think Dora is feeling? Dora looks ___________.”

Fill-in-the-blank and “I don’t like”

One day I brought a shirt for him to wear. He did not like this shirt, but just communicated it to me by whining or saying “no shirt”. So, I said, “Liam, you can tell me you don’t want this blue shirt. Tell me: “I _________”. He responded: “I don’t like this blue shirt”.

2.       Yoga: Use Yoga cards (white drawer on the table). Check poses with inflections back-front-side.

3.       Emotions: Use the Emotion cards (white drawer on the table)

a.       Charades/Guessing game. The emotion cards go in a bag. You take a card out and he needs to guess the emotion. Eventually, he will take a card and you will guess the emotion.

b.      Keeping the emotion cards at hand to be used when playing any pretend-play scenario, like birthday party, zoo, cooking, etc. What emotions can we associate with parties, field trips, activities, etc?

c.       When you ask him “how do you feel?” his new answer is “sick”. One time when I asked “where does it hurt?” he did say “tummy”.  Mary once got to play doctor after this. What could we do when he tells us he feels sick?

4.       VOLUME of his voice

The speech therapist told me that she whispered in this ear “Liam, I cannot hear you. Please speak louder” and he started to speak at a higher volume. Let’s tell him in a whisper when he needs to speak louder.

5.       “I Like” and “I don’t like”

I have been thinking about a matching game where he needs to connect things to “I like” and “I don’t like”. Things he likes are: pillow pets, jumping on the trampoline, seaweed, shapes, swinging, planets, shapes, sign language, tickles, kisses, books, vehicles, strawberries, parks, goodwill, Target, barnes & noble, bacon, meat, tangerines, blueberries, zucchini, cold bath.

Things he does not like are: wearing sweaters, going to Pearland Cinema, Duchis whining, Tony screaming, raspberries, green beans, broccoli, cleaning up, hot bath.

6.       More complex concepts like:

a.       Bday parties: invitations, presents, baking, the whole process.

b.      Right and Left. I use it for kisses on right/left arm/legs/chicks, etc.

c.       Both. Do you want X, Y or both?

d.      He is really into shapes. We could use it for building. Also, I will show you a starfall game about placing shapes above/below/in front/next to/between, etc, different locations.

e.      Before and After. Could be used with days of the week, letters, and numbers. When filling worksheets: What comes before 15? What comes after 21? What number is between 2 and 4?

NEW TECHNIQUE FOR DUCH

For Duch, if you get into a cycle of “c is for cookie”, for example, we could say “yes, c is for cookie and no, you are not going to have another one”. Megan thinks that Duch wants us to get to say “yes” to the cookie by asking us the “c is for cookie” questions, so we need to make sure she understands that we acknowledge her question but we will not give her a cookie. Check out the situations when she gets into cycles of “ ____ is for _____”.  I think they happen when she does not get what she wants, or when she has to do something she does not want (like homework). Check out the scenarios you have witnessed or will witness this week and we can talk about them. It is time to help her to get rid of this rigid dialogue of “____ is for _____”.

School scenarios with pretend play:

-          Wanting something that other kids have

-          Waiting for her turn

-          Stopping other kids who are bothering her

-          Wanting to play with other kids

-          Winning a game or losing a game

-          Please and thank you

-          Being ok when we don’t get what we want (moving on)

Video #2 of Dusya and Jennifer - February 2014 (4:53 minutes)

Video #1 of Dusya and Jennifer - February 2014 (3:54 minutes)

Group Meeting February 2014

PRETEND PLAY campaign with 5 components:

1a. Enjoy and celebrate all those moments when Liam is truly CONNECTED to you.

1b. Lengthen his attention span in one activity.

1c. Strengthen his receptive language.

1d. Strengthen his mimicking skills.

1e. Inspire Liam’s commenting and sharing opinions.

+ using the iPad for opinions and feelings + complicating the academics topics or play topics.

Ideas from Megan:

1.       For Liam’s interest in the colors of our clothes:  We could play with his pillow pets/stuffed animals and his shirts. Like playing dress up but with real T-shirts and pillow pets and stuffed animals.

2.       For Liam’s interest in emotions:

a.       Making sentences with cards and words and fill-in-the-blank activities:

“When Martalicia comes to play, I feel ______________________”

“When my transportation book breaks, I feel ________________”

“I am __________________ when I heard Dusya scream.”

“I feel __________________ when I jump on the trampoline.”

b.      Charades/Guessing game. The emotion cards go in a bag. You take a card out and he needs to guess the emotion. Eventually, he will take a card and you will guess the emotion.

c.       Keeping the emotion cards at hand to be used when playing any pretend-play scenario, like birthday party, zoo, cooking, etc. What emotions can we associate with parties, field trips, activities, etc?

d.      Dumb yourself down and practice situations like this with pretend play or with books: “Liam, I can’t figure this out. Dora looks sad, why is she sad? ______” or “Liam, I can’t figure this out. Dora’s ice cream fell on the floor. What do you think Dora is feeling? Dora looks ___________.”

e.      I have been asking him “how do you feel?” or “what are you feeling?” or “how are you doing?” Different responses he has given me are:  grumpy, excited, silly, happy, “scared and grumpy”. One time he said “grumpy”, I asked: why are you grumpy? He said: “scratch” and started to scratch himself. Another time he said “happy”, I asked: why are you happy? And he said: “laughing.” Let’s continue with why questions in the context of emotions.

3.       New/Renewed interests of Liam: Days of the Week  + Clocks and Time + Planets + Bones in the body

a.       We could make up a days of the week song saying things we do each day.

b.      We could play a matching game with days and activities, or with days in English and Spanish.

c.       We could pretend activities for each day or times of the day (wake up ….. bed time).

d.      With clocks he is reading the “o’clock” times. We could expand from there.  (+Clock books)

e.      We could “Fly” to different planets and have a different activity in each planet

f.        Simon Says games using different parts/bones of the body.

g.       Calendar with magnets

Group Meeting January 2014

LIAM’S GOALS FOR JANUARY

1.     All we will do with PRETEND PLAY

1a. Enjoy and celebrate all those moments when Liam is truly CONNECTED to you.

***Remember that beyond language and playing skills and academic skills, what we want is for Liam to realize how fun it is to connect to friends.

***Story of Liam with Alex hiding pieces in her hands and Liam having to pull her fingers and giggling and looking and her and her hand.

Joint attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing, pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indications. An individual gazes at another individual, points to an object and then returns their gaze to the individual.
Two important skills in joint attention are following eye gaze and identifying intention. The ability to share gaze with another individual is an important skill in establishing reference. The ability to identify intention is important in a child's ability to learn language and direct the attention of others.

1b. Lengthen his attention span in one activity.

Choose a theme for your game and keep building on it to increase Liam’s attention span. He is 8 years old and attention span is 5 minutes * age, so 40 minutes. If he can play a game for 40 minutes or more, his attention span is typical for his age.

One way to make a game bigger is to combine your original idea with ideas he suggests, which could be any works or comments he makes during the play. Remember when we did this with Duch when she was scripting a lot. Anything she said, we built on it.  Take Liam’s words are comments and suggestions. If you really see no connection between what he is saying and your game, then you could acknowledge: “I see you are thinking about shapes” and keep bringing this attention to the game.

1c. Strengthen his receptive language.

He is understanding everything we say. As part of the game, keep giving him jobs to do, specially 2-step instructions. He is very good with 1-step instructions. Let’s give him more practice with 2-steps ones.

Continue to have Liam practice his independence and tasks throughout the day: getting dressed, brushing his teeth, eating by himself, bringing the plates down, cleaning up, making his bed, etc.

 1d. Strengthen his mimicking skills.

As part of the game, keep using silly words, silly sound effects, silly movements, and motivate Liam to imitate. Also, he is more interested in using his hands for sign language and has a better control of his hands. Use the sign-language cards/books, the feeling cards, the animal hats, and any other props that would involve games of imitation of silly sounds or movements.

1e. Inspire Liam’s commenting and sharing opinions.

Needs versus Opinions: Liam uses language to get her needs met (e.g., he is hungry, he is thirsty, he wants a door to be open, he wants to go outside, he wants to go to the car, he wants a specific shirt, he is looking for a book, etc).

What we want now is to know more of what Liam is thinking and what his opinions are. So, we are going to use techniques for motivating him to share comments and opinions with us.

1.       Make comments yourself: “This is fun”,  “I love this game”, “This is silly”

2.       Leave space for Liam’s spontaneous comments. Don’t talk all the time, leave moments of silence for Liam to say what he thinks. Be aware of how much you talk versus how much silence space you leave for him.

3.       Testing questions versus description questions: Ask follow-up questions, not with the intention of testing him, but in those situations when you want more details.  WHO / WHAT / WHERE / WHY questions. Example: Shampaigne’s “show and tell game.” Be aware to not bombard him with questions, but ask for clarifications when you need more information. Example:

Mom: Time to get dressed, Liam.

Liam: Shirt

Mom: What shirt do you want to wear today?

Liam: Green Shirt

Mom: Great, let’s look for it.

Liam: Soft

Mom: Yes, this green shirt IS soft. You like soft shirts.

DUSYA’S GOALS FOR JANUARY

The feedback from school is that Dusya needs to focus more on her work and finish it independently; she needs to increase her attention span for her work. She gets distracted easily when given a worksheet to work on their own.

Suggestion from Megan: Introduce Dusya to the idea of homework, so that we get to practice attention span for worksheets at work. Every afternoon, after some relaxing time, and before dinner and electronics, we will tell her that it is time for homework. At the beginning she will complain a lot, but it will get better. We can empathize with her and tell her we understand she wants to play, but that she is in school and kids in school do homework to practice all they are learning. Use her workbooks in her drawer. I am thinking to even send the page back to school every day so that she sees that it is really homework.

The idea would be to move to a situation where she can complete a worksheet with no help after having given her the instructions. We could even use a timer and tell her that she has 5 or 10 (or whatever time is appropriate) to finish the task and that after that she can play again. The timer would give her the confidence that the time for the worksheet is limited.

Our 3rd Annual Christmas Party

Our Christmas Party Sing-alongs!