Merry Christmas!

The Big Pool and some observations

Jman got his "big pool." Do you know how hard it is to find a "big pool" (of the "easy set" variety) on the Friday of Fourth of July weekend? It took us til Saturday afternoon/evening to get on and start setting it up, but it was up and available for Sunday, and Jman LIVED in that pool most of that day (and got nice and pink, and oh boy did his freckles POP out!).


After having the "big pool" for just a few days, Habeeb and I have noticed that Jman NEEDS a "big pool." One of the biggest improvements we've seen is in his language and communication, as well as in his general demeanor. For example, Jman came in from swimming yesterday afternoon, and said to me, "Mom James." I answered, and asked him if he'd had fun swimming. He replied, "That was funny!" (meaning "That was fun"), and then promptly followed it up with, "Cleaned up." He was wanting me to help him get the wet clothes off (which he can do himself) and help him get cleaned up (quick shower) before we all got ready to go to a baseball game for Sly's birthday. And I must add that even getting him 'cleaned up' was an easy process (it's never fun trying to shampoo an autistic kid that doesn't like his hair being washed, or cut, or combed, or touched, or . . . ).

Another language highlight occurred yesterday when he wanted me to put in the passcode so he could watch youtube videos on the iPod. Instead of "Try again" or "iPOD!" or "YouTUBE!" or one of his other 'demanding' requests, he laid the iPod down on the counter near me, pointed to it, and said, "Locked." Unfortunately for him, I still did not 'unlock' the iPod for him. And yet, he didn't melt down. He can still manage to listen to music on the iPod with it "locked," and that's what he did instead. Hmm.

There have been other "language" moments which I can't honestly remember at the moment, but there was a fabulous moment a couple days ago involving Jman's ability to deal with frustration and disappointment (something that has been a BIG problem for a while). Jman has desperately wanted to go ice skating recently, and I promised him Habeeb would take him when he was home next time. Well, a couple days ago, Habeeb, Sly, and Jman finally made it to the ice skating rink in the mall, only to discover that the rink was out of service due to a freon leak--there was NO ice. Habeeb was waiting for Jman's world to come to an end, and was quickly trying to figure out how to get them through this catastrophe with the least scarring. When he tried to get Jman to leave, Jman wouldn't. He wasn't freaking, but wouldn't just leave. Instead, Jman began to walk, around the ice skating rink, completely circumnavigating it. Habeeb and Sly walked with him. Jman checked out the iceless rink from the whole circumference, studying and confirming in his own mind that yes, there was NO ice, and there would be NO ice skating, much to his great disappointment. And then Jman said, "Bowling."

Habeeb was floored. Not only did Jman NOT meltdown, but he studied the situation, and came up with his own suggested alternative of another fun thing they could do in the face of disappointment. And you can bet, Habeeb was more than happy to take the boys bowling after that amazing processing of Jman's! When he came home and shared the story with me, I just looked at him and reiterated, "Jman NEEDS a big pool!" And Habeeb agreed.

In case anyone is wondering what about a big pool is possibly helping Jman, I have three main theories. First is simply the increased physical activity (exercise). Second is the sunshine and all the biochemistry that goes along with being outside in the sunshine (think Vitamin D and its role in many biochemical processes, including mood stabilization). And third is sensory, primarily the "proprioceptive" input from the water pressure, but also vestibular input from motion. I'm sure that there are other 'advantages' as well (fresh air vs recirculated A/C, for example). But the big three for Jman, I'm confident, are more about increased physical activity, sunshine, and proprioceptive input. Those are ALL "calming" to the physio-neurological system, and are making him more "available."

And just for fun, here's a few extra photos of the rest of the boys (btw, we love having an underwater camera!):

Teamwork!

Today was a lovely day for stringing up Christmas lights! Habeeb was eager to get to work, and I reminded him to include Jman as much as possible. Jman had been asking for the computer (go figure!), but as soon as I told him that dad was going to get down the 'red boxes' he dropped the computer idea in a flash and was out in the garage ready to get the lights down out of the attic.

Habeeb and Jman worked together to get the lights up along the front of the house. Each had a ladder, each had a job, and each kept a "good enough" eye on what the other was up to. SB3 also wanted to get in on the action! He kept trying to climb the ladders, especially "Jman's ladder." I did some quick problem solving and got him an "SB3 ladder"--the step stool. He thought he was big stuff then, just like Habeeb and Brother Jman!

Jman did fantastic 95% of the time he and Habeeb were working. He helped pass up clips to Habeeb (along with a saw and pruning shears for a quick tree limb fix). He moved his ladder when Habeeb moved his. He knew when to run back inside and grab another string of lights without having to be asked. He even kept a bit of a watchful eye on SB3, particularly with regards to the ladders.

Jman did have one major issue, though. He and Habeeb started from the garage corner of the house going towards the middle of the front. When that string was done, Habeeb went to the other corner of the house to again work towards the middle. That's when Jman freaked out. We couldn't figure out what his problem was, but he was seriously freaking out, including flailing and throwing himself on the ground. We weren't sure what his problem was, but I speculated that it might have something to do with switching to the other corner and going in the opposite direction. He did eventually get over it, and got back to being a good helper for Habeeb. When they finished that string and went back to the end of the first strung string, Jman again began to flip out, and that's when we both agreed that yes, it was the transition from one location/direction to the other location/direction that was throwing Jman for a loop.

Now, what we don't know is if it was because he was confused and didn't understand why we were doing what we were doing OR if it was some kind of OCD type thing where even though he may have understood, it just FELT wrong and wigged him out for a while. In either case, he got over his second flail-ex much more quickly than the first, and he and Habeeb finished stringing the roof line. They do still have the front door to string up, and Jman's bedroom, and whatever else Habeeb decides to string up in the house. (Actually, Jman has strung up the hallway bathroom, and is stringing up his bunk bed in lights as I type!)

A ProLoQuo2Go note: While Jman was NOT using the ProLoQuo2Go to communicate during today's festivities, he DID say at one point, "I need help." He had switched roles with Habeeb and was trying to attach a clip to the roof, and was having a bit of difficulty with a particular shingle, and so he told Habeeb he needed help quite calmly. He had a few other P2G-esque moments today as well, but it was mostly means-to-an-end and not experience sharing. Today's most common line (even prior to lights going up) was "Let's go to snow." He loves snow!

A few take home points for anyone doing RDI/Guided Participation with a kid on the spectrum: 1) No one's perfect. There are lots of flaws we make, both us and the kids. Just move on. 2) Think through what you want to do before you try to guide your kid through the activity. Habeeb had a plan for how to string the lights, and he has experience from stringing them in the past. It's much harder to guide your kid when you don't know what you're doing! 3) Don't expect your kid to be excited about an activity just because it excites you. In this case, stringing lights was an activity that really does excite Jman. He'd have been far less interested in helping us do other mundane chores. That doesn't mean you only do things that they find exciting, but do be aware that you may have a more willing apprentice when you have a "mutually meaningful project" rather than a project that one or the other person isn't really into. 4) Whatever your project, make sure the roles of the people are both clearly defined and are 'legitimate' roles. Don't assign a role that is either beneath the other person OR that is overwhelming to the other person. Do assign roles that have legitimate value, that are respectful of the other person as a person, that are in someone's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Remember, work in the ZPD is work that someone can't necessarily do alone but can do with proper guidance. It should be just challenging enough without being too challenging. 5) Slow down. Give the person time to think and respond and solve their own problems.

Yes I like it

For all of those readers who just can't get enough Jman stories about his ProLoQuo2Go, let me share with you the latest.

Today, Veterans Day (thank you, vets!), we pulled the Christmas tree down out of the attic and put it up (sans decorations) in the living room. Yes, it's early--we know that. But for starters, Jman LOVES all things Christmas, so, why not? And for seconders, we figured if we put it up NOW, maybe SB3 would get used to the tree being around before we put a bunch of decorations on it for him to play with. So, we put the tree up (artificial pre-lit) without decorations.

We had told Jman we were going to put the tree up today, but we had some errands to run first. Along the way I was playing around with the ProLoQuo2Go on my iPod, finding the preprogrammed Christmasy words. I was thinking we could organize them a little better, customize things for Jman, and maybe create a useful 'activity page' for him to help him communicate more about Christmas with us. Once Jman saw what I was doing, he began trying to swap iPod with me, only this time it was because he wanted the Christmas words and not just because he wanted to watch youtube videos (blocked on his iPod).

While we were out and about, we went to Target. There, Jman remembered we had no star for the top of the tree (ours bit the dust last year or the year before), and he took it upon himself to pick out a new star. We came home, put up the tree, and Jman had Habeeb put the star on top. Jman promptly disappeared and returned with the camera, immediately taking this picture of the new cheap-o star atop our otherwise undecorated tree. Too funny!

Btw, Jman also promptly began building a train set under the tree, and doing his best to try to keep SB3 away from said train. It was pretty funny!

Now, back to the ProLoQuo2Go and the real communication lessons. This evening we were out and about again, and Jman asked to go back to Target, both with and without his ProLoQuo2Go. He was muttering something about 'balls.' Now, knowing Jman, I KNEW that he was talking about Christmas ornaments, but he just didn't know that word. On the way into the store, I quickly programmed in to his ProLoQuo2Go a quickie for answering the proprogammed question "What's that?"

When we got back to the Christmas section of the store, Jman went straight for a set of ornaments that he wanted to buy. I took advantage of the real-life context to work on the language contructs of "What's that?" and the corresponding "That is . . . " along with introducing the vocabulary word/phrase "Christmas ornament." There's no better time to teach someone something new than when they are personally interested in real life. Now, because he's still very much learning, I demonstrated for him both asking the question and answering the question. I navigated from the home page to "Questions" and pushed the preprogrammed button for "What's that?" Then I jumped back to the home page and navigated through "Starters" (for quick and easy sentence starters used frequently), where I programmed in "That is", which took me directly to "Categories", from which I chose "Holidays" and ultimately "Christmas ornaments." Yes, that's quite a few pages to navigate through to get out the simple sentence "That is Christmas ornament" but it works much more quickly than it reads here. With a Christmas specific activity page, we could converse on Christmas things with fewer button pushes, but then again, we have fewer options as well. This seemed a more 'general' way to work on "What's that?" and quick answers for future additional real life opportunities involving more than just Christmas ideas.

So, back to the scenario in the store. Jman paid attention to what I was showing him, and began echoing "ornament." So far, so good: He was indeed stowing away and practicing that new vocabulary word, increasing the chances of him being able to use it in the future.

We wandered around the Christmas section for a while, me debating whether to indulge him and buy any ornaments. I finally decided it wouldn't hurt to get one pack of non-breakable ornaments and take greater advantage of this fabulous learning opportunity for Jman. So, I told Jman he could "Pick one." I of course meant one SET (he was looking at sets of ornaments), but he was a little confused. He was concerned that I meant one piece from a set of ornaments, and he began pointing to each of the 10 ornaments in the set and saying, "that one, that one, that one, . . . " I chuckled and said yes, one SET of ornaments. (Thinking ahead here, this could be a great scenario for working on that math language of 'each' vs 'set').

As we were leaving the Christmas section I had a huge lightbulb moment: This would be a GREAT opportunity to work on some "experience sharing" communication with Jman, as opposed to just the question/answer/vocabulary word aspects (which are important, but stale and static compared to sharing thoughts and ideas and perspectives with each other, which is particularly hard for someone on the spectrum, even without language issues), and in particular with some other preprogrammed buttons he'd been stimming on and playing with in the "Comments" section--"I like it" and "I don't like it."

So, I said aloud, "I like the Christmas ornaments you picked." Then I navigated to the Comments page and punched in "I like it." I asked him if he liked them, and then demonstrated for him, "Yes, I like it." He was VERY interested, and he repeated aloud, "Yes, I like it." Then he and I said something about going home, and of course taking the ornaments he picked.

Well, since he'd been stimming on the "I like it/don't like it" buttons as a pair, he began to say, "No, I don't like it." Every time he'd do that, I'd stop and say, "Oh, if you don't like it, then let's go put them back." That'd stop him cold in his tracks and he'd say and/or punch back in, "Yes, I like it." Then I'd say, "Oh, you do like it. Okay, we'll let's go buy them and take them home." We'd start back towards the front of the store, and after a couple aisles or so, he'd go back to 'balancing' out the words and punching in "No, I don't like it." At which I'd stop and offer to put the ornaments back, and so on and so forth. This happened several times before we made it to the cash register, where we finally bought the ornaments and started home.

Once we were out of the store, he again said he didn't like it, and I offered to take them back. He began to get a little distressed, because he really DID like the ornaments, and he was really wanting to decorate the tree with them, but he also had this autistic NEED to 'balance' the words out, or 'cancel' the words, and he really WAS not liking the 'excitement level' he was having to process at the time, made even harder by my stepping up the challenge with not only language but with 'commenting' or 'experience sharing language' to boot. He was trying really hard to deal with all those challenges, and began to get a little overwhelmed. Then things got even more interesting.

We climbed into the car, Jman holding his ornaments and intently looking at me trying to get ME to parrot for him, "I don't like it" (because I had only said that I did like the ornaments). I was trying to not 'give in' to his manipulative request, but he was getting more distraught.

Now, another area on ProLoQuo2Go is a category for "Feelings." We had demonstrated for Jman a few times in the past, "I feel hungry." He cataloged that, and was interested, and had copied it a time or two, but mostly hadn't done too much with the "Feelings" page to date. However, the "Feelings" page is very conducive to some of that "experience sharing" communication we'd particularly like to help him develop. Yes, it's great to be able to get one's needs met, but we as humans also have a 'need' to share our ideas and thoughts and feelings with others too, even those on the spectrum, even though that is one of their most challenging areas.

So, Jman, increasingly distraught, navigated to the "Feelings" page and punched in "I feel" (one preprogrammed button) and then hesitated briefly over the symbol for "frustrated" (a snarling, frustrated looking face) before moving on to "sad" (a word he's familiar with). He proceeded to tell me, therefore, "I feel sad." He couldn't tell me WHY, of course, but he was able to say, "I feel sad." Now, he's told us before that he was 'sad,' but it was only by saying the single word, "sad" OR by echoing a couple lines from a favorite story, "so, so sad, so so bad." This was new because he included "I feel" and also said aloud, "I feel sad" after punching it in.

I tried to talk with him a little about it, and along the way he also informed me that he was hungry (he didn't eat a lot of dinner, and it was 10pm by this time). I told him (and showed him on ProLoQuo2Go) that I was "sleepy." He noticed that "sleepy" and "tired" had the same symbol. He punched in "I feel sleepy sad tired," all of which were probably true! We decided to come on home, and I did along the way indulge him by saying "I don't like it" just to give him a little 'rest' from his 'frustration' (which was the real thing he was feeling, I think).

So, now in one little jaunt to Target, we'd worked on the language constructs "What's that?" and "That is . . .", we'd been introduced to a new vocabularly word "ornament," and we'd introduced the experience sharing language of "I like it" or "I don't like it" and worked a bit more on "feelings." All for the low low price of $5 worth of cheap-o plastic glittery Christmas ornaments! Wow!

One other little tidbit of info, for the autstically interested crowd: Folks with autism had an underdeveloped sense of "Self." Kind of funny when you think about it. Folks tend to think that someone with autism is ONLY interested in 'themselves' but that's not really accurate. Instead, they have a hard time actually learning who they are and who they aren't in comparison to other people and their likes/dislikes/experiences. So, working on "I like it" and "I don't like it" will be great for helping Jman develop a better sense of who he is IN RELATION TO who others are. For now, we can work on him saying what he likes (or doesn't) when he likes it (or doesn't). Down the road we can compare that to what someone ELSE may like or dislike. That will help him develop both a sense of his own Self and a sense of who others are, and whether he and others are 'the same' or 'not the same.'

Oh, that reminds me of one other 'aside' in the ProLoQuo2Go language lessons for the evening. While we were at the Chrsitmas section of the star, we noticed a box of ornaments in the wrong place. I glanced around and determined where they belonged, which happened to be next to where Jman had moved to. I carried the box over and showed them to Jman and also pointed out the matching sets on the shelf. I had navigated to his math lessons ahead of time, and, pointing to the matching sets of ornaments, I asked him, "Are they the same?" He looked, and quickly punched in his reply, "They are the same." And so we placed the ornaments back where they belonged. Is that cool or what? An opportunity to apply our little 'at home' focus lesson in the real world!

Okay, so, sorry this is such a long post, but I'm just amazed at the opportunities we're finding for communicating and for expanding communication and for learning language and for sharing experiences with this fabulous little ProLoQuo2Go app. It's fascinating to watch him both when he's learning/using it 'properly' and when he's just 'stimming' on it, laughing at the funny (to him) things he can make it say. When he's stimming on it, I remind myself that babies learning language for the first time do much the same thing--they 'babble.' Jman stimming on his ProLoQuo2Go is his version of 'babbling,' and we're already seeing little glimpses of his babbling growing into 'real' language. And just like a baby takes a year and a half to start talking, and even longer to make sentences, and even longer to ask questions, or tell a consistent tale, so to I expect this to be a 'long haul' process with Jman and not an overnight miracle. But boy, some of the little highlights along the way are just as fabulous as some of SB3's emerging language (which deserves it's own blog post sometime!).

back up, back up, back up!

So, yesterday Jman was having a not-so-great day. I don't think he'd slept any the night before, and he's gotten too much 'screen time' (movies/videos) the last week or so too, and it was time to put some restrictions on the iPod so he couldn't access youtube or the internet for a while.

Well, in the process of trying to re-find those options, Jman managed to delete ProLoQuo2Go. Aaaaaahhhh! The good news is it was no big deal to reinstall it. Once you've bought an app, its yours to delete and reinstall as often as you like, including installing it on additional units. The app is associated with your iTunes account, not your device. So I was able to sync back up to the computer and reinstall in short order.

The bad news is that I hadn't made any hard backups of the changes I'd made up to that point. Stupid me! There is a way to do that (I think), and now I have great motivation for figuring that out too. Ah well, live and learn.

So after I reinstalled ProLoQuo2Go on the iPod, I set about rebuilding his reading and math pages first. It really didn't take very long--I knew exactly what I wanted on there this time and how to do it quickly. I didn't bother recreating the page for our trip to the pumpkin patch or some other little excursions. I can do that again if we decide to go back.

I did begin a new page for an event this Saturday. We don't really do the Halloween thing. We'll pass out candy if we're home, but we don't go trick or treating ourselves for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that the boys can't eat most of that candy anyway, between artificial stuff and milk in the chocolate for Jman). We usually go out for dinner, then watch a movie at home and give out candy to whoever comes by. We still have to decide on the movie for this year.

But there's trick or treating at Habeeb's work on Saturday, and we're thinking about letting the boys go. We can use the candy they collect to give out on the 31st. (Yeah, I'm feeling cheap this year! Re-gifting Halloween candy! Ha!) Jman has a Spiderman costume he likes to wear in general, and Hutch has an Indiana Jones fedora and brown leather jacket he likes to wear in general. SB3 has cute baseball jammies and paraphenalia from the local minor league team. So costumes are easy. I may even get all motivated and pull out the clown face stuff and my unicycle this year--haven't done that in a while.

Anyway, for Jman's PLQ2G page I included a button with kids in costume that says "Trick or Treat!" It also has buttons for "I feel" and "happy," "scared," and "sad." There are plenty of other 'feelings' available, but I'm trying to keep it simple on this little page here. I included a few other likely buttons as well (jack o'lantern, spider, spider web, costume). Over the next couple days I'll think about what else I should add, without overdoing it. "I see" or "This is fun" might be good. There's plenty I don't need to add, though. He can very easily navigate his way through to tell us if he's hungry and what he would like to eat (last night he wanted gfcf pizza and learned how to ask for that using the PLQ2G!) or if he wants to go home (or use the computer, his favorite button, of course). He doesn't have to be limited to the "Halloween page" when he talks to us there. I'm just making it to organize a few things quickly for him which he might not otherwise be able to find and share yet. In the RDI world, this would be called 'Scaffolding.'

As for his reading and math lessons, we didn't do those yesterday. A--he was ALL out of sorts, and B--I had to rebuild those darn pages because I didn't back up. Last night he slept some though (and is still asleep right now, which is why I can be here blogging), so hopefully today will be better all around AND we can work on 'langauge lessons' (aka, reading and math) again.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is not about the beginning of summer vacation. It's not even about honoring all those who have served in the armed forces. It's about honoring those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of liberty and freedom.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

TAPS

Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar drawing nigh,
Falls the night.

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest;
God is nigh.

Then goodnight, peaceful night;
Till the light of the dawn shineth bright.
God is near, do not fear,
Friend, goodnight

Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor God keep.
On the land or the deep,
Safe in sleep.

Thanks and praise for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, 'neath the sky,
As we go, this we know,
God is nigh.

Happy Easter (again!)

Happy Easter!

He is Risen!!

onion skin Easter eggs

This is the really COOL way we've made Easter eggs since I was, oh, about Sly's age. My mom read about it in some newspaper, and we decided to try it, and the eggs were SO cool that's the only way we've done them since. An added bonus is that they are all natural, so you don't have to worry about the artificial colors leaching through the shell and making your kids all wacky. And it makes for a great RDI activity too!

Here's how you do it: First, gather your materials. You'll need UNCOOKED white eggs, a bunch of red and yellow onion skins, some twist ties, and some fabric you don't want.
A few hints: 1--If you use egglands best eggs, the red 'EB' stays visible, so you might want to choose plain, unstamped white eggs. 2--Don't worry about buying the onions. All you want is the loose dry skins that come off the onions easily. You can just pick up the ones loose in the onion bin and bag them. The cashier will look at you funny, and you'll find yourself explaining what you're doing, and then they'll send you on your merry way. 3--For fabric, we use old T shirts or old sheets. You could also use cheese cloth, but we try to buy nothing but the eggs. :)
Cut your fabric into squares big enough to wrap around an egg with enough left over to fasten the square on with a twist tie.

Wrap your plain white uncooked egg with dried onion skins. You might want to do some all with red skins, some all with yellow, some with both, some leaving white spots, some making criss crosses, whatever strikes your fancy.

Keep the onion skins on the egg by wrapping the covered egg up with a square of fabric and twist tying it shut. Then place all your wrapped eggs in a big pot of water, just like you're going to boil eggs, because that's just what you're going to do! Add a little vinegar to help set the color, turn on the burner, and boil your eggs! Yes, it'll make your house smell like onions and vinegar for a little while, but it doesn't last.

After your eggs have had time to cook, take them off the stove, pour off the hot water, and let the eggs cool before handling them. Running cold water over them will of couse speed the process. Then simply unwrap your eggs, and voila! You have the coolest Easter eggs ever! They look like marbelized eggs, or like dinosaur eggs! No two will be the same! These are some that we made last night. We'll probably make more to take to our friends this week, and if so, I'll try to remember to take pix and post us in action.