This week I truly hope to fit in 20 hours of therapy. It is hard to do when you have a ton of things on your plate. My child's development is top priority, but I can't let everything in the house slide. I am currently working on a schedule to help balance things out.
Today was a not such a good day anyway. Little Bear whined non-stop for about 40 minutes straight. Communication is so hard for him, so when he can't express himself this is what he does. I tried everything but the boy could not tell me what he wanted. The whining is sheer torture, like nails scratching a chalk board. Either cry or don't cry, but that whining is so annoying!
I'm guessing he probably was tired. He has been up for a couple of hours at night for the past few nights. I am not sure why, but he just wakes up and then tosses and turns. He'll go back to sleep but then wake up at 6am. We don't have to be up til 7:30am, so that is pretty annoying. Then by 9am he wants to go back to sleep. This has got to stop! I am not getting any sleep at all. This can be typical for him, but we had it under control for quite sometime, so not sure why he is up again.
When he wasn't whining, he was clinging to me; every where I turned he was under foot. If he wasn't clinging or whining, then he was bouncing around like he had ants in his pants-jumping and crashing. I thought I could get a break when he took a nap, but no such luck! He only slept 1 hour and change. By the time I got out the shower and tried to eat lunch he was up and crying. What the fudge!?
It was too hard to manage therapy today, but I did try a few drills.
Some drills we worked on today included:
Function of objects. A lot of concepts have to be broken down for Little Bear to grasp the meaning. Repetition and reward are also motivation for him to sit and learn. I would ask a question such as, 'what do you drink with?' I had various pictures laid out including a cup and he had to identify the right answer. Children on the spectrum are very visual learners so pictures often work best for instruction. Sometimes, I use real objects as well.
We also worked on conversational questions, such as What's your name?, How old are you? and How are you? These are typical questions he gets asked on a regular basis when we are out in public and of course he cannot reply because he doesn't understand the question. We are slowly introducing these concepts and working them in throughout the day.
Lastly, we worked on was basic sentences 'Mommy, I want juice'. This is something he cannot say right now. He will either take my hand and lead me to the kitchen, or he will throw a tantrum and I am suppose to guess what he wants or on a good day he'll actually say 'juice'. So we are really focusing on sentences and building onto his words.
Honestly, I was only able to manage 30 minutes of therapy today (bad mommy!). The goal is at least 2.5 hours per day until I can get him into professional therapy. I just had so much to do in terms of household things and you can see Little Bear was not having it today either.
I just put him down for his bedtime, I must've read his bedtime story and said his prayers in record time. I just am looking forward to sitting down and watching some TV.
I am sorry my first 'real' post is only complaining. It was just one of those days. Our days are usually not like this, some can actually be a lot worse and then there are those glorious days where they are just wonderful!
At any rate, I am looking forward to this blog though, it's very nice to document milestones and development so I can see Little Bear's progression. I 'plan' to keep this journal updated at least a couple times a week. We'll see. Time to take a couple of Tylenols for this headache.
Mama Bear
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4 comments:
hey thanks for your visit to my blog. I worked with my son Noah at home for many years....in fact I still do. I never did specific behavioral therapies...but more like a combination of whatever worked best for him.....and I had to start out slow....because at the start Noah could only handle 5 minutes or so at a time.
He eventually worked up to longer periods of time with frequent breaks and movement as rewards.....and now he can go even longer......sitting for very long periods of time.....not requiring so much outside physical input stimulation (crashing into walls or falling down to the floor....rubbing his head across the floor.....banging into other people.......running around the room in circles...etc.)
SO hang in there.....you do what you can do when you can do it.....and your son will do very well! I am sure you have many besides just me who will totally understand where you are coming from!
Thanks for your words of encouragement. It was really a frustrating day. Today he is happier; I think therapy went a little better today.
Have you read The Verbal Behavior Approach by Mary Barbera? It was a great read for me when I took over my son's therapy. I also signed up for the Web Ablls and that helped a lot too. I like the Verbal Behavior type ABA better now that we've learned about.
Currently, we are taking a break from formal therapy and looking into RDI, but if I had to choose an ABA approach, I'd go VB all the way.
Hi Julee,
Thanks for the message. I haven't tried Verbal Behavior at all. I heard of RDI from some moms in the various waiting rooms I'm usually hanging out in, but I don't know anyone that has actually tried it yet.
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