Video Liam & Yulene 1/9 (Spinning)

This is the first in a series of 9 videos I am posting about the new exercises we need to do for Liam to eliminate his toe-walking. I will post the 9 of them and then I will describe what Yulene, his reflex-integration OT, wants us to do at home.

Mark your calendars - Megan is coming back!

Megan and I are in the process of deciding on dates for her outreach. For now, we have talked about January 6th, 7th, and the morning of the 8th. She would dedicate one day for one kid, the other day for the other kid, and the 8th for the group meeting with all members of the team. We will be scheduling also times for her to observe some of the members of the team and give specific feedback. Finally, we will have lots of time for questions and answers, so start thinking of questions for her. Megan's visits are always great and is free training for our team members. The more time you attend, the more you learn about SonRise.

Last conversation with Megan - Dec 3rd

Here are my notes from my last consultation with Megan:
Liam

1. We said that there are days when Liam looks overwhelmed sensory wise. His sound sensitivity is high. He does not tolerate clothes. In those situations, Megan wants us to “give Liam more control” and lots of time in the playroom with us following his lead. I am convinced Liam will feel better with his senses very soon becuase we are moving to a new phase in the homeopathy at the end of December.
2. When Liam does not look overwhelmed, we can still challenge him. For example, he is LOVING the game of drawing on the whiteboard and writing sentences about the drawing. He talks like crazy and makes requests and is very engaged and his attention is completely in the game. I have pictures below of him with this whiteboard. He has played with several of you already.

3. Liam is asking “GIVE ME …” a lot, which is great. Keep celebrating and using also the other sentences in the other signs on his wall. Also, if there is a time you don’t understand him and he is saying “GIVE ME” but the rest is unclear, you can use sentences like “Liam, let’s slow down, I am not sure what you are saying”, “Let’s try again”, “Hold on”, “Could you speak a little slower?”. That way her realizes we are really trying to understand his sentence.

Dusya

1. Teach pronouns. She already knows several, but is confusing them sometimes. Megan told me to put signs on the wall with pronouns. When you talk, make two sentences, one without a pronoun and one with a pronoun. For example:

“The puppets are going to school” – “they are going to school”
“Zoe is hungry” – “She is hungry”
“Santa loves cookies” – “He loves cookies”

2. Megan things the throwing things from closets/shelfs could be an “ism”; she likes to create piles. I told her that it is all around the house and it takes time to clean. She says to put some boundaries to it in the playroom and more boundaries outside of the playroom. She says she should not contradict her with “No no no” and “yes yes yes yes” because that creates a power struggle. She says that if she complains or cries when cleaning up the messes, or when preventing the messes, we should say: “I hear you, but we don’t have a choice.”

3. When we cannot help Duchis immediately (specially outside of the playroom when were are busy with the other two kids), and she needs to wait, we should congratulate her and tell her “thank you so much for waiting”, “it is so important to learn to wait.”

Christmas in the playroom

Duch is having a great time with Christmas activities. Just today Ashley and the puppets wrote Santa Claus letters, Kenia acted out the Gingerbread man story, Catherine and her built a Christmas House, and Cari and her made cookies with the gluten-free play-do Cari brought. What an amazing day for Duch! Keep thinking Christmas, she loves it and she is interacting, talking, and learning like crazy!

BTW, I am pretty proud of my Nativity this year. Check out the 3 houses Duchis has built in her playroom, which are now part of the Nativity.

Liam is enjoying the piano!

Thanks to Kenia's generosity, we have a piano!!!!!!!!! And, look who is the one who spent like 30 minutes sitting at the piano and playing with the keys! Kenia will also start piano lessons this Sunday! Thanks again, Kenia!

How to inspire Liam and Dusya to play with us more and more?

Inspiration ~ From Kate Wilde (SR senior teacher)

I often ponder the question:
"How do we inspire another person to do something they were not really intending to do?"

Because that is what we are trying to do when we work with our children with autism using The Son-Rise Program. Our childrens' challenge is being able to deeply connect and interact with the people in their lives. Often they are so busy taking care of their bodies and sensory systems doing their many and varied isms that it may not even occur to them to look at or talk to the people in their lives.

This is where the Son-Rise Program attitude comes into play - part of inspiring them to want to interact with us is:

1.Making ourselves so compelling and interesting that it is fairly impossible not to notice us.
2.To join in with their activity with such delight and passion and non- attachment that they are amazed at the idea that another person likes what they like as much as they do.
3.To join in with their activity with such passion and delight that our children think to themselves that they are just like us, that they have something in common with us- a friend that they might like to hang out with.
4.That we celebrate each time they interact with us with such intensity and sincerity that they want to do it one more time just to feel the warmth of our love.

We feel more, we love more, we make ourselves irresistible.

Some pictures of our last activities

Here are a few pictures of Tony with his cousins in Phoenix. Also, we had a great Thanksgiving this year. We actually had friends coming, which as you know is very rare in this house! :) Also, it was the first time Antonio cooks a whole turkey! Tony loved eating a turkey leg! We also went to the Thanksgiving Parade with Shelby, which was a success with the kids. Duch and Liam were very patient with the loud noises and the crowds. And, we went two times to the Pearland Natatorium, first with Shelby and Ashley, and the next time with Cari. Nobody was wearing floaties!! By the second time, Duch and Tony were already floating and doing their first little swims!! And, Liam was LOVING being in a pool again! Enjoy these few pictures.