What a fun time today! I got to pick Natey up from school and drive to Edgewater to do our little play session. I love this time with him so much- just the two of us.
The session lasted all of 30 minutes but it was very valuable. As I said yesterday, his speech pathologist from school is one of the instructors, and thus she was there for this. When we walked in, she commented that she was very excited to see how Nathan behaved around his mom. I am always writing down things he does at home and sending the info in to school, but they are usually not successful at getting him to duplicate these things when he is in class. I didn't give him his cup and snack in the car on the way over, although I usually would. So first thing when we entered the classroom, he's walking over to me, "more, more". I asked him more what and he very clearly said "cup" right in front of her. She looked a bit flabbergasted, in a good way. The "camera" is an ipad, very nonintimidating. Considering the fact that Nate had just left about 2 hours of drills, he was really very cooperative. We read his duck book, and he pointed to the ducks before I could ask him to, he talked to the back of the book for about 5 minutes after we were done. Both his home educator and the speech pathologist mentioned the fact that his teacher shows the kids something on the back of the books they read- both are wondering if he is trying to "copy" that. Who knows.
He wanted nothing to do with his puzzle or shape sorter. Once again, these are both things he works on in drills, so I am sure he was feeling "done" for the day. So I broke out our stuffed Curious George. The speech pathologist was wondering what exactly our "game" with George is (I guess you could say she was curious, hehe). This is a "special" George- when you push his foot he makes sing songy monkey sounds (John thinks they sound lewd, and frankly I can't say I disagree. I could comment about the ridiculous faces John makes when we are playing with the monkey, but I won't. See, I didn't, ha). I have done many many things to try and capture Nate's attention over the past couple of years. At one point I picked the monkey up, pushed his foot and made him do this ridiculous dance and then leap in the air at the end of his "singing" and squeal. Both boys found this hilarious for some reason. We do it all the time. It was kind of embarrassing to do it on camera, but I got what I wanted. Nathan picked George up when I was done and imitated his dance and "leap". Like I said, any imitation is a big deal. Then I broke out the "pops". He wouldn't say it!!! Typical. However, he went one better, pointed to them and said "that". Lack of pointing is a huge red flag in development, one of the "toddler" signs of autism. The fact that he is starting to do this again (he did it at about a year) is wonderful.
We continued to play, we chased, we tickled, at one point he grabbed my face in his hands and touched his nose to mine. I told the instructors about some of his other communicative behaviors, such as grabbing our hands and putting a desired object in them to show what he wants. Or sitting in his chair and "waiting" to be served food if he is hungry. At the end of our conversation, Nate's school speech pathologist looked at him and said "buddy, you just made my day." And with that statement, she made mine.
The session lasted all of 30 minutes but it was very valuable. As I said yesterday, his speech pathologist from school is one of the instructors, and thus she was there for this. When we walked in, she commented that she was very excited to see how Nathan behaved around his mom. I am always writing down things he does at home and sending the info in to school, but they are usually not successful at getting him to duplicate these things when he is in class. I didn't give him his cup and snack in the car on the way over, although I usually would. So first thing when we entered the classroom, he's walking over to me, "more, more". I asked him more what and he very clearly said "cup" right in front of her. She looked a bit flabbergasted, in a good way. The "camera" is an ipad, very nonintimidating. Considering the fact that Nate had just left about 2 hours of drills, he was really very cooperative. We read his duck book, and he pointed to the ducks before I could ask him to, he talked to the back of the book for about 5 minutes after we were done. Both his home educator and the speech pathologist mentioned the fact that his teacher shows the kids something on the back of the books they read- both are wondering if he is trying to "copy" that. Who knows.
He wanted nothing to do with his puzzle or shape sorter. Once again, these are both things he works on in drills, so I am sure he was feeling "done" for the day. So I broke out our stuffed Curious George. The speech pathologist was wondering what exactly our "game" with George is (I guess you could say she was curious, hehe). This is a "special" George- when you push his foot he makes sing songy monkey sounds (John thinks they sound lewd, and frankly I can't say I disagree. I could comment about the ridiculous faces John makes when we are playing with the monkey, but I won't. See, I didn't, ha). I have done many many things to try and capture Nate's attention over the past couple of years. At one point I picked the monkey up, pushed his foot and made him do this ridiculous dance and then leap in the air at the end of his "singing" and squeal. Both boys found this hilarious for some reason. We do it all the time. It was kind of embarrassing to do it on camera, but I got what I wanted. Nathan picked George up when I was done and imitated his dance and "leap". Like I said, any imitation is a big deal. Then I broke out the "pops". He wouldn't say it!!! Typical. However, he went one better, pointed to them and said "that". Lack of pointing is a huge red flag in development, one of the "toddler" signs of autism. The fact that he is starting to do this again (he did it at about a year) is wonderful.
We continued to play, we chased, we tickled, at one point he grabbed my face in his hands and touched his nose to mine. I told the instructors about some of his other communicative behaviors, such as grabbing our hands and putting a desired object in them to show what he wants. Or sitting in his chair and "waiting" to be served food if he is hungry. At the end of our conversation, Nate's school speech pathologist looked at him and said "buddy, you just made my day." And with that statement, she made mine.
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