Guiding and Working

Sly has a job cutting and edging a neighbor's lawn for $25 a pop. Last year cutting lawns--theirs and ours--was a learning experience for him. He had used the electric push mower some on our previous lawn. Then he had to learn how to use the riding lawn mower we inherited with the new house we bought (along with rebuilding the thing so it would work!). He also began learning how to use the weed eater last year. Habeeb cut lawns for pay when he was a kid and did a lot of guiding and coaching Sly along the way (including the tractor repairs).

Now, last year Sly really wasn't very good at any of these jobs. He was learning, and it showed. It took a lot of "QA" from mom or dad to make sure the job was done, and done decently. He was also a very 'poky' worker last year, taking very frequent and very long breaks. But again, he was learning, little bits at a time and at a pace he could deal with.

This year lawn season is here again, and Sly is once again responsible for cutting and edging our yard (a very large yard for a subdivision) and the neighbor's too. But this year we can see the maturity that has happened since last year. Sly still needs a little "QA" to make sure he's not missed some details, but unlike years past, it only takes pointing out once.

But what pleases and impresses me the most is that he's sticking with the work. He has gotten up and out the door while it was still cool in the mid morning (we don't do 'early!'), gotten his gear and equipment, and gotten to work. He's taken very few breaks and of rather short duration before getting back to work without being reminded. He's actually DOING the job! And on top of all that, he's mostly remembering to put the gear back away and to sweep up the grass clippings from drives and sidewalks too. Amazing the difference a year can make!

Today he added a new skill to his repetoire of yard services: trimming hedges with the electric hedge trimmer. The neighbor's threw in an extra $10 if he'd do the hedges for them. Sly was game, but didn't know how to work the equipment to do the job. But that's what dad's are for! Sly new he had a competent guide who would teach him what to do.

First, Habeeb gave Sly an introduction to the equipment and an explanation of the job. Then Habeeb demonstrated for Sly how to work the equipment, with a particular emphasis on safety. Next, Habeeb told Sly to try while Habeeb was there coaching and supporting. Sly was getting the hang of it, so Habeeb kind of backed off and supervised. However, Sly just didn't have the height to be able to reach around and clean up the back side of the hedges. Rather than trying to scaffold some way for Sly to be able to do that, Habeeb erred on the side of safety and continued to help Sly as much as necessary with that part of the job, including doing some of the back of the hedges himself. Habeeb continued to hang out and supervise the job, offering little advice and reminders, such as being careful around window screens and making sure that the trim work was done evenly instead of with a wave. All in all though, Sly learned from Habeeb and Habeeb transferred more and more of the responsibility for doing the job over to Sly as he became increasingly capable and confident. It was a beautiful snapshot of the principles of Guided Participation, providing scaffolding, and working within the Zone of Proximal Development.

It also was a great activity for building positive episodic memory. After lunch today, after the mowing and edging were done for both yards but before the hedge trimming was started, I was commenting to Sly how I had noticed how much better he was working this year, working through the job instead of taking lots of long breaks and needing lots support. He answered back that he feels more confident this year and also stronger physically. It clearly shows in his work effort. I have a feeling that by the end of the summer he may need very minimal QAing of his yard work. Perhaps next summer he'll even add in another yard or two and make a few more bucks, and grow even stronger and more confident. And in a few more years, he'll be doing some guiding and transferring responsibility to SB3!

Don't Steal!

SB3 is mobile. Jman has a wooden train layout built in the family room. SB3 keeps heading that direction to check it out. Jman keeps saying to SB3, "Don't Steal!" Then Jman picks SB3 up and carries him to another room where he deposits him on a blanket on the floor. SB3 looks up at me, then at Jman, and then starts crawling his way right back over towards the train set. Too funny! I managed to get a pix, which Jman smiled for. Now, Jman is moving his trains to an empty bedroom where he can close the door and keep the thief at bay! But I'm absolutely tickled at the language coming out of Jman: "Don't Steal!" What loaded language! I didn't even know he knew the word 'steal!' Go, Jman!

Building on success

Over the last few weeks, Jman has built three little Lowes workshop projects with me: a jewelry box, a bird house, and a hang glider. These three little events make for a decent little venture into explaining a bit about episodic memory and autism. First, a couple loose definitions are in order.

People on the autistic spectrum often excel at procedural memory. They can remember exactly how to do things (and heaven help you if you don't do it exactly "right," the way they remember and expect!). For example, I remember when Jman at 3-4 years old had no trouble with the procedures of making himself lunch. Rather than waiting for the family or asking for help, he'd get homemade gfcf chicken nuggets out of the freezer, put them on a plate, microwave them for the correct amount of time, and add ketchup. He was in school and receiving speech and ABA at home at the time. I remember his SLP being flabbergasted at what he was doing in the kitchen while we were chatting one day. I also remember my being flabbergasted at her being flabbergasted. After all, the common saying around our house was (and still is): "He's not stupid! He's just autistic!" Procedural memory is the memory of facts and procedures, and is thus very rote, very sterile, very black and white, right or wrong, and something that is NOT a deficit in autism.

People on the autistic spectrum do struggle with episodic memory, however. Episodic memory is the memory of episodes in one's life AND the personal meaning that one attaches to those episodes. For example, if you ask your child what they did at school today and they give you a run down of all the events that happened but without any emotion or reflection or opinion, that is NOT episodic memory but rather procedural memory. They may answer, "First I did my math lesson. Then we had music today and learned to sing 'Goober Peas.' Later I ate my lunch outside. I sat with Johnny and Susie at the table. Johnny stole Susie's apple. Susie told the teacher and Johnny got in trouble. Then we went back to class and did reading." That kind of answer is procedural memory; it tells what happened.

However, if your child's answer included emotion and reflection and projection such as this it would be episodic memory: "I did math first today. I like it when we get math over with first thing. And Johnny got in trouble at lunch today! He stole Susie's apple AGAIN! This time Susie ratted on him, and he got in big trouble! Mrs. Smith said Johnny has to eat his lunch alone the rest of this week. Serves him right! I'm not gonna sit at Johnny's table anymore. I wouldn't want him to steal MY lunch next time!"

So, do you see how procedural memory is the 'how to' memory of facts and procedures, but episodic memory involves attaching emotional meaning to personal events in our lives and using that meaning to both reflect on past events and to help one project how they might act in the future? Episodic memory is one of the core deficits of autism spectrum disorders. Someone on the spectrum may remember great details about what happened, but they struggle with understanding and applying the why of what happened and with extracting personal meaning from the events or episodes in their lives.

This deficit in the area of episodic memory has huge ramifications on someone's developing a sense of Self. It affects their ability to evaluate things from different people's perspectives. It also undermines their confidence in their ability to deal with future events, especially when they are unexpected or when they 'go wrong.' They don't have a store house of personal memories of overcoming challenges or solving problems to pull from and to apply to present circumstances that may be challenging. They don't have a store house of personal memories to help guide their thinking in future dreaming and planning. It's more like life was a book they read of events that happened, but that they are still somewhat detached from, even though they were there. Episodic memory is very closely related to autobiographical memory. Could you imagine being a person who has lived a life but is without a personally meaningful 'autobiography?' That's similar to the challenge that folks on the spectrum face in living life. They have great procedural how-to memories, but deficient episodic memories of personal meaning and reflection.

Now, back to the Lowes building projects. The first project was building the jewelry box at home. By building it at home, we reduced potential obstacles to success (noise level, number of people in the room, unfamiliar sounds, uncomfortable lighting conditions, other distractions, etc). We also eliminated the obstacle of time. There was no pressure to be at a certain place at a certain time or to complete the project in a certain amount of time. By reducing the obstacles to his success (or by setting things up positively to increase his likelihood of success) we were 'scaffolding' the project. To read more about that, check out the post on the "Long" and "Short" of it. Our success at building the jewelry box was the first step in constructing some positive episodic memories that Jman could pull on in future endeavors.

Following on that success, the next Saturday we went to Lowes. We hoped that he would remember our successfully building the jewely box together and thus be more comfortable twith approaching the next building project. We thought we'd give Jman the opportunity to build the project there at Lowes, but were totally prepared to simply pick the project up and to build at home. However, Jman did remember his success from the jewelry box and was willing to build there at Lowes. You can read more about it at birdhouse. Now we had a sequence of successes beginning to build in his episodic memory. He applied his successful building with me at home to be able to try building with me in a more challenging environment there at Lowes. And, much to our delight, he was successful in building the birdhouse with me at Lowes too.

This past Saturday was yet another building project at Lowes. However, he was NOT having a good morning. He didn't want to put on his sandals. He didn't want to leave the truck. He didn't want to enter the store. We were quickly adjusting down our expectations and just hoping to have him walk to the back of the store with us to pick up the project to bring home. We did what we always try to do when Jman is feeling particularly stressed for some reason (often unknown to us): we slowed down. And slowly Jman did join me, walk through the store with me, and into the back work room. Then, much to our amazement, he chose a seat, sat down, picked up the project pack and began trying to get it open. Apparently, even though he was not having a good morning, he recalled his successes at building and wanted more success! Isn't it amazing how success is addictive? And so, once again, we stayed at Lowes and together built the hang glider.

I've speculated over the last couple weeks as to why he worked so well at Lowes after the serious meltdowns he's had at Lowes in the past. I think the answer is largely two-fold. First, the physical environment provided for the workshops at this Lowes provides much better scaffolding for Jman than the Lowes in FL did. Here the workshop is in a smaller room, well lit (though still fluorescent), with tables and chairs. In FL the kids worked in a warehouse room with poor lighting and poor acoustics and were given rubber mats to sit on to do their work on the floor. For Jman, that environment was very distracting and unsettling, but here it's rather pleasant in comparison. Scaffolding the physical environment, particularly when one does not have a solid repetoire of episodic memories to call on for internal scaffolding can be critical to success.

Second is of course episodic memory. Jman still does not have the language to tell me in words what emotions or meanings he's deriving from shared events like our building projects. But based on his gestures and actions, it certainly seems that Jman is slowly building an autobiography of successful episodes of trusting me to lead him and to work together with him through little events like Lowes building projects. We could take the development of successful episodic memories a step further by putting together a little scrapbook of our building projects to look at and share, reflecting on the past and perhaps projecting into the future about other projects (at Lowes or something entirely different) that we could do together. We could include the certificates of completion and/or the patches that Lowes includes with photos of us working on the project. It'd be interesting to see how Jman would relate and respond to such a scrapbook over time. Someday maybe he'll be building me a rocking chair for my old age in his own workshop and reminescing with me about the good old days when we built birdhouses together at Lowes. Wouldn't that be cool?

legos and Real World Math

Today Sly cut and edged the neighbor's lawn front and back for $25. This evening he showed us a lego world he's building out in the shed. He has a garden in his lego world and a few farm animals, but he's having to get pretty creative to stock them. For example, he has lego horses, but he's pretending a polar bear is a cow. It works, but it'd be nice to have a better lego farm system. Fortunately, lego has come out with a really cool farm set. Unfortunately, it costs $90.

Sly decided to do the math. He calculated first that he has to tithe $2.50 on his $25 earned today. He went into the change jug to make change and set that money aside. Then he added up his usable pay with the money in his wallet: $60-something. Then he calculated what he'd have after he did the $15 hedge work for the neighbor on Wednesday: $80ish. (He had the exact numbers. I just can't remember because I was only listening with one ear!)

Then the really beautiful thing happened. Sly decided that he could remind himself of his goal if he took a picture of the lego farm set and used it as the wallpaper on his cell phone. That way, everytime he opened his phone up, he'd remember what he was saving for and be inspired to stick with it when he saw the picture.

It may not sound like much, or like a 'worthy goal,' but really I think it's quite awesome. He is learning the value of a dollar, learning how to do real work (and hard work), learning how to set goals and developing a plan of execution to achieve those goals, doing real world math, and remembering to honor God with his first fruits. And he's further developing his thinking with this crazy involved lego world he's creating (with farms and stores and business hours and doctors and marriages and orchards and military training grounds and more--the details were staggering, right down to the pet frog!). Some days we seriously get more out of not 'doing school!' And I only blogged about part of the day!

Homeschool in the Woods

We FINALLY got to go camping this week! We bought the popup about five weeks ago, and this weekend we finally had good weather plus no other conflicting obligations, and took the family camping Woo-hoo!

A few highlights of the weekend:
Jman and Sly stirring up that red dirt mud while swimming in the lake. I'll take mud over chlorine any day!





SB3 hanging on the swings while the big brothers swim. He says he wants a swing at home!





Sly said he'd like to live in a place like this, with the lake, but without all the people. (There were a lot of people when we got there the first day, and almost no one the next day. I liked
the 'no one' day better too!)


Sly put some of his training from Aviation Challenge into practice and worked at building us a star fire (best for cooking, he says, but not good for overnight because it requires tending). He needed a little more coaching on how to really get a fire started, but I think he'll be able o fly solo next time.

Toasting all natural, gfcf, no blue food coloring (you'd be surprised!) marshmallows, of course!





Jman's artwork decorating the camper door! This was so cute! He was so proud of hanging his art there. When the wind blew it down he was worried, and proceeded to better secure the poster with 3-4 on the bottom, 5-6 on the left, and 7-8 on the right. I asked if he wanted to leave it in the camper or put it back in his book when we put the camper down, and he chose to put it back in his book. I wonder if he'll decorate for us again the next time we go camping.

Hiking the nature trail.



And last but not least, Habeeb helped put out a dumpster fire near our campsite. People, please--do NOT put your charcoals into the dumpster in an effort to 'clean up' your picnic/grill area when you leave the park! That is NOT safe! Fortunately, we and another camper saw the smoking dumpster and were able to contact the park manager and help her get the fire safe thoroughly extinguished with no more flames popping back up and no more smoldering. Unbelievable. Sorry I don't have pix of smoke and flames for you, but we were more pressed with getting the fire OUT. Afterwards I thought to take a pix for remembering.

Hang Gliding

Gee, wouldn't it be awesome if we had actually gone hang gliding? We SO have to put that on our to-do list!

But no, THIS hang gliding was at Lowes. The project on Saturday was building a little hang glider. Jman was NOT having a good morning. We really thought we'd be picking up the project to bring home and try to build later in the week.

But we were wrong! Jman went back to the work room, found a seat, and got to work. Way cool! He finished the project, gave a Tiger Woods arm pump, and then took off out of the room. He's apparently developing a little escape routine when finishing--running away to the water fountain, then returning and getting his project, and then running away again, looking over his shoulder for a chase game. But hey, I can live with that for now!

Field Trip Friday: The Zoo

We did it--we went to the zoo! It's been more probably a year and a half since we've gone to a zoo, maybe more. Neither kid has been terribly interested in the zoo in years past, Jman in particular. He'd just walk up to whatever exhibit I steered him to, then say good-bye to whatever animal I said was there. Good-bye, camel. Good-bye, elephant. Good-bye, hippo.

But this week seemed like the perfect time to make a trip to the local zoo. We've lived here a year and a half and haven't checked it out yet. There was no reason too--it would have been a waste of money, quite frankly. But today we went ahead and bought the family pass (along with the family pass for train rides too, of course).

And this time, Jman was kind of interested! Yes, he was still fascinated with the huge sprinklers in one garden area. Yes, he was fascinated with the train. BUT he also actually LOOKED at the animals in the exhibits with us for a while! Not for as long as WE did, but he did stay and LOOK with us some. We stopped at looked at the beautiful white bengal tigers. (Look close and you can see them in the background.) He was listening when we commented that they look like big versions of our two white kitties, but with stripes.

Another big hit were the pink flamingos! I think Jman stood and looked at them for the longest time. He has known his colors for years, but we had fun pointing out that they were "pink" and that they were "flamingos." I'm trying to work real hard at using simple language structures for Jman throughout the day, and having him repeat them back to me when I can. I'd like to also try to reinforce these simple, experience sharing, language practice opportunities at home with writing, which could also serve to work on episodic memory. (Yeah, I know--what on earth did she just say? Don't worry about it right now. It was a bunch of RDI terminology. I know what I'm talking about, and my try to explain some later. For now, I'm just thinking out loud. Humor me!)

Now, lest you think this was entirely about Jman, I must point out that this was SB3's first trip to the zoo. Yea! He rode around on my back and was just hunky dorey. The funniest SB3 story from the day would be how he jumped everytime the hyacinth macaw squawked!

Now as for Sly, the first thing he did was discover some art books in the gift shop! Gee, go figure! However, he kept his cash and strolled with us through the zoo, drawing supplies in hand. I had given him an assignement: Draw something from the zoo, AND record some factual information about whatever he chose. Since we have the passes, we can go back over and over again, and over time he can create his very on "Zoo Art" book, complete with his drawings and info on the critters. How's that for a way of doing art, research, writing, and science all in one fell swoop? Oh, and also geography because he had to include maps with where the critters lived. Sly was all for it. However, we got there very close to closing time (which we knew) so he didn't really get a chance to sit and draw his chosen critter while we were there. However, that's why God created cameras! Sly took a picture of a flamingo that he could draw from at home, and still fulfill the assignment. Now, we'll have to see if he follows through!

The other critter I just have to include a photo of was the beautiful black jaguar. Wow, was he ever gorgeous and impressive! His head was just MASSIVE, and his paws were huge. I would have loved to reach in there and scratch his beautiful ears, but of course that would probably not have gone the way I would have wanted! So, I just stood there looking at him, and marveling at God and all of God's creation. Just absolutely stunningly beautiful and amazing.

Goodnight, Gorilla

Jman is still on a zoo kick (which I find utterly fascinating, since he's never much cared for the zoo). After our Zoo Fun book, he dug out his copy of Goodnight, Gorilla and has been enjoying it. This is a fantastic wordless (almost) book about a gorilla who follows the night check zoo keeper around and secretly releases all the animals, who then follow the zoo keeper to his house to spend the night. I won't tell you how it ends--you'll have to read it yourself! haha!

Anyway, Jman has enjoyed this book before, but today he took it to a whole new level. Following a haircut (which is always a challenging event for him), he went to his bed to recuperate. I followed him in, and he gestured and asked for "Goodnight, Gorilla." So, we read it again. But this time, we worked a little more on language sentences: The gorilla has a key, The zookeeper has a flashlight, etc.

But here's where it got really interesting: A couple pages into the story, Jman pointed at the zookeeper and said, "Dad." Then he pointed at the mischeivous gorilla and said, "Jman." Wow!

And I got curious. As we read, I began asking him about other family members. He said the mouse (gorilla's sidekick) was Sly. When the giraffes were breaking out, I asked about me and SB3. He pointed to the big giraffe as me and the giraffe toy as SB3. Okay, that was interesting. He thought before he said we were the giraffes. The zookeeper's wife comes later in the book, and I thought he might flip ahead and point to her for me, but instead he tried to find me on the page he was looking at, and I was the big real giraffe and SB3 was the toy.

Well, fast forward to the part of the book with the wife, and presto--the wife is "mom," the zookeeper is "dad," the gorilla is still Jman, the mouse is still Sly, and the big giraffe is now SB3. I could have great fun psycho-analyzing why the itty bitty mouse is Sly and the great big giraffe is SB3. I've come up with several reasons already, but there's really no way to confirm, so, I'll just enjoy the fact and see if the names don't change with a later reading.

Anyway, it's the first time that Jman has applied himself or us to characters in a book or video (to my knowledge, anyway). And I just find that absolutely fascinating!

SB3: 9 months old!

Taking advantage part 2: art

I have another kid with another interest running at high rpm's right now. Sly is developing the budding artist within him. For quite some time he has wanted to learn to draw. When he was doing vision therapy a few years back, he began to add some depth and interest to his scenes, though his figures were still stick people. Later he said he wanted to learn to draw, but he never really stuck with it. He'd doodle some, but it really wasn't anything impressive.

One of the 'electives' we got with Sonlight Core 4 a couple years ago or so was Mark Kistler's Draw Squad. I showed it to him, he got all excited, and then it sat on the shelf for a long time. A couple times it got pulled back out, but never for very long.

Well, in January we started Sonlight Core 5, including the scheduled Bible study, and including the not-scheduled art lessons in the Bible study. Sly looked forward to the art lessons, but found them challenging. However, the idea of drawing what you actually SEE rather than a cartoon or a symbolic representation of what you see was an interesting cognitive concept for him.

Then a few weeks ago, he noticed a 20-something at Bible study who was doodling and drawing a winged horse during the lessons (she's one that has to fidget to pay attention). Sly was fascinated with her realistic drawing, and pulled back out his own sketch pads to start drawing again himself. And I must say, he was getting better.

He packed his drawing stuff (the sketch pad and a #2 pencil) to take to FL and kept himself busy sketching and drawing. His biggest frustration was when little brother SB3, now mobile, would get hold of his sketch pad and tear another page out. But hey, they'll both learn, right?

Now, back from FL, he has rediscovered the Draw Squad book from Core 4. You know, it never ceases to amaze me how Sly has his own time table for learning. Even though he was interested in the book before, I suppose he just didn't have the developmental readiness to follow along with the lessons and to practice and develop the skills being taught. But now, 2+ years later, he's all over it! He's studying independently and applying what he's learning. He's previewing lessons ahead to see what's coming, but then going back to the earlier lessons to practice and build his skills.

And so, I'm taking advantage of his artistic pursuits. The plan was that we would be doing Japan this week back at school, but instead, we're doing art. Sly was absolutely tickled when I looked at him yesterday morning and said, "Go outside and draw me something you see." You've never seen anyone so happy to do school! This morning, in an unrelated series of events, I learned that Mark Kistler has videos on youtube (btw, some of the comments I saw on one of the videos are very inappropriate, so you might not want to leave your kids alone watching these if they scroll down and read the comments, but Sly was delighted with the art lesson!).

What else is Sly learning through all this? Well, how about economics! He saw Mark Kistler using a 'stump pencil' to blend some of his shading in a drawing. He began trying to blend his own shading, but without great success. #2 school pencils just don’t ‘blend’ well. I pointed out that there are other pencils that artists use that have softer leads and lend themselves to blending and smudging (which is exactly why schools don’t like them!). After lunch, we stopped by Michael’s and took a look. Now, Sly got to thinking and considering what if anything he should spend money on, seeing as how he’d like to save up enough to buy a Wii (yes, I’ve told him if he can buy it, he can bring it in the house, though I will still set the rules on when it can be played and for how long). There were lots and lots of options, but we kept looking and found a beginner’s set that had a couple charcoal pencils, a few assorted sketch pencils, and even a few stump pencils for blending, along with a sandpaper thingy, sharpener, and eraser. And all that for $5! He asked, “Who pays for this? Me?” I smiled and offered to share the cost with him, much to his delight. In fact, he’s thanked me for pitching in a couple bucks several times since then!

Now, he’s taken to doing some research and experimenting. He has made marks with each of his different new pencils, and tried blending and smudging them with the stump pencil, and made observations as to how they compare to his old pencil and to each other. He’s commented that the art pencils draw so much smoother than the #2 he had been using. And he’s demonstrating his discoveries to me along the way.

Now, my plan was to do Japan this week and next. But plans change. Once again, while there’s a passionate interest, we’re pursuing it. Eventually the passion will slow to a simmer and we can then get back to more scheduled academicky pursuits.But for now, Sly is learning not only how to draw, but also how to pay attention to detail, experiment and draw conclusions, research and find appropriate guides and tools to teach him, some economics, and yes, he’s still got to consider time management and non-negotiable obligations (such as cleaning the cat box, keeping his stuff out of SB3’s reach, and making it to guitar lessons and karate on time). This weekend we’re going camping (or that’s that plan). He has already noted that that will give him the opportunity to draw things from the campsite. Of course, he’s got to help set up and break down camp too—but after that, I’d love to see what he sketches out with his new pencils! As this little mini-gallery tour shows, he's improved immensely just in a few days. I am truly impressed.

Taking advantage: zoo

Sometimes you gotta do things you don't want to do. It's just part of life. And that's okay.

But sometimes it helps to be flexible.

I had a plan. I got a whole bunch of books on birds from the library to read and study birds with Jman. We still may do that. But yesterday, I noticed that Jman had been looking at one of our books he pulled off the shelf. First I noticed he had it in his bedroom. Then later I noticed it laying on the table in the living room. And I had one of those marvelous, wonderful thoughts: Why not ask Jman if he'd like to read THAT book with me?

Well, I made the offer, and actually much to my surprise, he enthusiastically accepted. The book is a little cheapo book I've had for years that I picked up for a dollar somewhere (the price tag says 99 cents), about the size of a lil golden book. It's called "Zoo Fun." I asked Jman if he wanted to read "Zoo Fun," and he said, "Zoo Fun!!!" with a big smile. All righty, then! We headed to the couch to get comfy and read.

Well, in this little cheapo book, two friends go to the zoo. On each page they visit a different zoo animal and pretend to be that animal. So, for example, it starts with them visiting the elephant and they pretend to be elephants. What's kind of neat and what seemed to have Jman's attention is that the 'pretending' is set apart in smaller little circle pictures on the page. Jman likes to copy faces and poses that he sees in pictures or videos. If you've heard of echolalia--imitating or echoing what others say--then you could think of this as a kind of motor-echo thing--imitating or echoing what others DO. The separate little pictures of the kids pretending to be the animals in this book were just the perfect scaffolding for Jman to do the same thing. And that's where it really got FUN.

Now, I didn't actually try to READ the book with Jman. There's just too many words and it would have been a drag. Instead, we looked at the pictures and I commented and/or asked questions based on the limited sentence structures we're targeting in everyday language work--This is (an elephant), What do you see?, etc. So, after I commented and/or Jman spoke about what we saw on the page, I began to imitate the kids imitating the elephant. Jman watched, and before long he was joining me! Way cool! Anytime you can get more than one part of the brain working in the learning and interacting, you're doing good stuff. Here we had 'reading' the book going on, AND had movement and motor activities going on as well!

The next page was a 'tall' giraffe--an opportunity to work on a vocabulary word (tall vs short) and a chance to STRETCH tall like a giraffe. He was right there with me, having fun. He began anticipating what would be next, enjoying the page and activity we were on for a time and then eager to try what was going to be next! You just can't force that kind of interest!

Together we were roaring lions, leaping gazelles, monkeys, penguins, bats, and more. A couple highlights were when he asked for a banana when imitating the boy imitating the monkey (the boy had a banana, the girl did not), and also when we were on the gazelle page. That was an animal he didn't know the name for (no big surprise there!). I modeled for him, and he said, "gazelle." Then he posed like the kids were posing in the book, but what the kids were REALLY doing was leaping, not posing. I began to model leaping around the room for him, and he just thought that was terrific! He joined right in, and we were leaping gazelles together! Following that, he was even looser and more animated, and we got up to waddle like penguins, swim like dolphins, and fly like bats! He even used a pillow over his back like a cape, imitating the kids using capes for bat wings in their picture. Pretty darn cute.

When we got to the end of the book, Jman sat down and 'rewound' it. (He always finishes a book by going quickly backwards through all the pages from the end to the beginning, and then closing the book with the front cover up.) As we were going along in reading the book, I was reviewing the animals we had become so far, naming them as I pretended to be them quickly. When we got to the end, I reviewed for him again the animals that we had pretended to be, from first to last (yes, I had them in order in my short term memory--reviewing and moving will do things like that for ya!). Jman was watching and began to join me, though in a more subdued fashion, laying back on one of the couches. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a few pictures of his animal poses until my phone rang (Habeeb was inviting us to come in for lunch! yea!).

Now, another piece of info to share is that Jman has never been interested in the zoo. When we've gone, he's typical response is to walk up to whatever exhibit we force him to go up to and to say 'bye-bye' to whatever animal is there and then leave. "Bye-bye, Camel! I'm SO outta here!" BUT now we have this little shared experience with his "Zoo Fun" book. And I'm going to take advantage of it! Nothing like being flexible, ya know! The bird books are going back to the library, and we are going to the zoo. I'm also gonna look for other zoo related games, activities, books, whatever. Maybe Jman and I will make our own 'Zoo Fun' book, complete with pix of animals, a few animal sentences practicing his language goals, and pix of us pretending to be those animals! Wouldn't that be COOL!?!?!!? Will it all get done? I don't know. But I'm gonna riding this wave as long as it lasts. One always learns best when he's interested in the material, and I'm gonna take advantage of Jman's interest in his little cheapo "Zoo Fun" book and the memory we made and shared yesterday reading and playing together.

What do you do when you make a mistake?

This morning, I had Jman finishing up the last of his birthday thank you cards. He was filling in K & D's names, and then had to sign his own at the bottom. He decided this time to do 2D/fat letters for his font instead of curly cues. By the end he was also adding eyes to each letter! He's a funny kid.

But the highlight of the activity was when he made a mistake. He accidentally wrote "B" when he was supposed to write "D" for the start of D's name. His response to his mistake blew me away. As soon as he was done, he snapped his head around to face me and had a very serious "oh no, what have I done?!?" look on his face! He didn't freak out. He didn't immediately erase. He didn't get upset and freak out. He didn't ignore me and try to fix it on his own. He LOOKED at me, with complete and total acknowledgement that he goofed up and had a problem on his hands. NOTHING could have made me happier!

What did I do? I commented, "Oh no! (pause) That's a 'B' not a 'D'!" And then he started erasing, quite intentionally. I waited for the meltdown. Often he'll get frustrated because it doesn't erase 100%. I was still holding my breath, but I needn't have. He still didn't meltdown. He erased the B, then thought a few seconds, and then drew a nice 2D/fat "D" quite to his satisfaction.

And that was it. No big deal. He moved on to the next letter, eventually finished, and that was it. No. Big. Deal.

Except that it WAS a big deal! His instinctive reaction was to share his mistake with me and check for my reaction! And then he stayed calm and fixed it and moved on! That is SO AWESOME! And I just had to share. :)

Meltdowns

This week we're visiting friends in another state. Last night we all wanted to go see the local minor league baseball team play a game. We all got ourselves and our stuff together and caravanned to the game. When we were getting out of the cars in the parking garage, the car alarm went off on a car one row over. It was VERY loud. VERY. My friends know Jman well, and his sensitivity to sounds, and asked if he was okay. He seemed to be fine. He was still sitting in the truck putting his shoes on. Finally the car alarm stopped sounding, though the lights continued to flash. We finished gathering our blankets, Jman got his shoes on, and we started over to the elevator to head down out of the garage.

It was then that Jman began freaking out. It's quite a sight seeing a 10yo boy that weighs 100+ pounds freaking out. He was flailing and thrashing and crying and angry and seemed to be having some serious issues with his sandals. We did get him on the elevator, and then headed away from the garage to the stadium, but he was still very upset. I have some of the best friends in the world because I don't get from them "Why can't you make him behave? What's his problem?! Why did we bring HIM?" I'm sure I was getting such looks from others around us (and there were plenty of people around too!), but my friends know and love Jman, and they just waited for Him and for me. I wasn't sure we were going to identify and solve his delimma and whether we'd actually make it to the game. He was REALLY upset.

What do you do with a kid that's freaking out? Melting down? Having an absolute hissey fit over who knows what?

Well, we just stopped. Literally. We all just stopped and stood there. We didn't TELL Jman what to do, or how to behave, or what he was doing wrong. We just stopped, and waited. We didn't wait impatiently or with an attitude. We waited respectfully, not condemningly, and not even frustratedly. We just waited. We gave him time and space. Time to think, room to breathe. Clearly he was HAVING a problem, not BEING a problem. And so we waited, available to help if he asked, but not pushing him.

So there we are, on the sidewalk, with a flipping out Jman. Waiting, watching, not pushing him. He slowly started to settle down a LITTLE, though you could still see in his eyes that he was VERY stressed. We waited a little longer, again, not pushing him to hurry to to behave. Not sending a barage of questions or advice his way. Just waiting and being patient and available. And he gradually calmed down. He wasn't over it, BUT we had slowed things down enough that he was BEGINNING to feel SAFE again.

I spoke to him kindly and said, "Let's go to the ball game. Come one." And SLOWLY started walking towards the stadium again. Jman began walking with me. Everyone else began walking along too, in a loose and LEISURELY group.

I keep trying to emphasize how SLOWLY we all were taking things. We weren't rushing Jman to get over it. Rushing just would have put MORE stress on him, and he really didn't need MORE stress right then, he needed LESS. So we slowed down. Never mind that the game had already started. We were late to begin with, so what was another inning missed? No big deal in the overall scheme of things. What was important was for EVERYONE, including Jman, to be able to relax and have a good time together. And the only way to do that was for EVERYONE to simply relax. If we stayed relax, Jman would relax eventually. If we were stressed over his meltdown or being late for the game or whatever, then he would sense that stress and would never be able to relax.

Well, we made it past the scalpers and to the ticket sales, got our seats all togethers, and Jman was still with us, and continuing to improve, little by little. We entered the stadium and started for our seats, and Jman continued to stay with us in the crowds and not be flipping out, though he was still stressing. Like I said, you could see it in his eyes and his body. The others were ahead of us a little when Jman saw the bathrooms, and made a bee line for them. We found an empty handicap stall and went in together, and Jman sat, and rested. It really was his "rest room," a safe haven for a while from crowds and car alarms and stadium announcers. It was a sensory deprivation room for a few minutes, exactly what he needed to finish calming all the way down.

After many minutes, with Jman very calm but still rather detached, I finally said, "Come on, Jman. Let's go find our seats." And he was ready. We left the bathroom, found our seats and friends, and sat down to watch the game and eat popcorn and visit with each other.

At the 8th inning, Jman asked to go potty again. We went together, and when he was done he asked very nicely to go home. Then I told him about fireworks after the game and asked if he wanted to stay for the fireworks. He likes fireworks! He said 'yes' and had no trouble with staying for the rest of the game, watching the fireworks, and eventually walking back nicely to the truck, even helping to carry things back.

So instead of missing the game, we all stayed and had a good time together. We could have stressed. We could have pushed Jman even harder in an effort to speed up his recovery. We could have handled things very differently. But we didn't. We all slowed down. We all respected Jman and tried to help HIM instead of worrying so much about US. And the end result was that we ALL benefitted immensely. The game was even sweeter knowing that it almost didn't happen for us.

I share all this to encourage folks when their kids meltdown. I don't always handle things so well, so please don't think I'm being preachy or condemning! But I do know that when we slow down and support rather than push or condemn, it works better for EVERYONE. Of course, if SAFETY is an issue, do what you gotta to be safe! Jman wasn't running out in the street or hitting anyone, he wasn't being a danger or in danger, safety was not an issue.

And here we are, enjoying the game!

Proto-words and Gestural Babbling

I was emailing with a friend about language development in Jman and she asked about SB3's language development. It was fun answering with a snapshot of where I see him right now, and I thought I'd blog it.

SB3 is 8.5 months old right now, crawling and pulling up, and into everything! He doesn't have any real words yet, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good communicator. He may even have a few "proto-words." If I walk by him and don't pick him up, he will often start fussing and saying, "MMMMMMMMMMMAH!" Habeeb and I both think it's a 'proto-word' for "mom." He'll babble "mamamamama," but his "MMMMMMAH" when I'm passing is very different from his generic sound babbling.

Another "proto-word" may be "DY-DY-DY" for "dia-dia-diaper." He'll babble "da-da-da" but his "dy-dy-dy" during a "dia-dia-diaper change" is different and seems intentional.

Just recently I've noticed something I'm calling "gestural babbling." He doesn't wave hello or good-bye yet when someone waves to him. However, just in the last couple days I've noticed that when he notices someone(s) he's interested in off in the distance, someone not paying attention to him already, he may put a little hand out and start opening and closing his fist, kind of a 'proto-wave.' He doesn't really know how to 'wave' yet, but he's beginning to practice this 'gestural babbling,' and it's really quite fascinating to watch.

I've also noticed that when SB3 sees something he finds interesting, he'll study it intently for a few moments and then grunt. Very "Tim the Tool Man Taylor-ish." Makes his daddy proud! haha! Anyway, It's kind of like 'proto-commenting,' I suppose. He doesn't have the words to say what he's thinking, but he still is vocalizing something to fill in that 'communication blank.' Those are excellent times to toss in my own observations, such as, "Oh, you see the kitty cat! He's happy to be outside, isn't he?"

But right at this moment his chosen communication mode is reaching for me while working up a very distressed cry. That communication says, "Mommy, I'm tired! Please pick me up and help me go to sleep!!!"

Happy Easter (again!)

Happy Easter!

He is Risen!!

birdhouse

I got my Easter present today, I think! We decided to take the boys to Lowes this morning for the kids clinic project. They were going to build birdhouses, and we thought that'd actually be a cool project to have both the (bigger) boys do. Of course we never expected Jman to actually do it THERE.

And yet, he did. Wow. Seriously, Wow. Habeeb and I think that our building the jewelry box just a few days ago in the peace and quiet of our home probably was the biggest help for his success today. I think another piece that supported his participation was that they had the clinic in a small room with tables and chairs all set up in an organized way, rather than passing out mats to sit on in the back storeroom like at another Lowes he could never quite handle. Truly, scaffolding the environment like that can make a huge difference (better lighting, better acoustic even though it was still loud, tables and chairs for ergonomic comfort). And 'previewing' the event successfully is priceless (successfully making the box at home a few days prior, recent enough for the memory to be fresh, but far enough away for it not to be TOO fresh!).

Habeeb and Sly worked on Sly's birdhouse (with SB3 snoozing on Habeeb's back). Here's Sly with his finished birdhouse. Sly got a glimpse of the next project (a toy hang glider) and already put in his request to go back for that one (in two weeks).

Jman sat himself down at a seat at the table with all the supplies set out ready to go. I joined him and helped him open up and build his birdhouse. He was all over it! At one point I asked him if he was using a 'long' or 'short' nail. He didn't answer (no big surprise there!), so I hinted "sh-sh-sh-" and he looked up and finished, "Short." Very nice! I asked him that question a few more times, not to practice the words but because I really didn't know which nail he had grabbed and wanted to make sure he was using the right one. He always was. He never 'answered' again verbally, but he'd move his hand to show me what he had and that it was the right one.

The very last piece we had to put on was the bottom, and that required turning the birdhouse upside down. I didn't think anything of it, but as soon as I had it flipped and Jman grabbed the bottom place to put it in place, he said, "Up." Jman has an issue with "down" or "upside down." Things have to be "up" and they have to be right side up. You can drive the poor boy crazy by trying to drain the last of the ketchup out of a bottle! I acknowledged his "up" comment, and then he went ahead and nailed the bottom in place.

And as soon as he was done, he freaked out. I don't know if the success was too much for him, or if his noise capacity had finally reached tilt mode, or if the upside down was just too much, but in any case, he freaked out. Yes, we got some strange looks, but that's okay. It was a strange sight, after all. He'd been GREAT up until that point. But here's the good news: He DID finally calm done, after just a few minutes. It really wasn't THAT long, nor THAT bad. He calmed down, not quite enough to carry his birdhouse and certificate out of the store, but enough to walk out nicely with us while dad carried Jman's stuff. Once in the truck, Jman willingly and contentedly held his birdhouse while we drove off. Honestly, that recovery was a wonderful success as well, but not as fantastic as his building the birdhouse at the clinic in the first place! Way to go, Jman!

And here is Jman checking out his finished birdhouse, all ready for some feathered inhabitants to move in!

Starbase Update: Graduation! Stardate 4.10.09

First, may you have a blessed Good Friday!

Now, on to Starbase. The kids graduated from Starbase today. It was actually a very moving graduation. The Director and Senior Teacher obviously LOVE their job and truly care about the futures of these kids. At the end of the ceremonies, the Director (that awesome guy that helped Jman out in the jet cockpit yesterday) addressed the kids one more time. He challenged them to go home tonight, find an envelope and write on it April 10, 2024 and to put inside a letter reminding them to find him 15 years later and tell him what they've done with their lives for the last 15 years. I swear he was choking up talking to these kids, encouraging them to take action to achieve their goals and dreams, challenging them to make good decisions and good friends, telling them that every choice has consequences and to make right choices. It was really amazing and I am SO glad that Sly and the other homeschoolers and kids from the base elementary school were invited to participate in Starbase. If you ever have the chance for your kids to go to Starbase, do NOT pass it up. It was a terrific week.