January 18

On Monday night we had a team meeting that was helpful in generating new ideas and reaffirming what we already know but sometimes forget. We watched some micro-tutorials from the Autism Treatment Center of America (where they teach the Son-Rise Program). This reaffirmed waiting until Sarah is really ready before we request something because then the connection will be stronger and more effective. We brainstormed lots of different ideas for growing the Around the Wheel game. This is a very simple game that Sonia and I created and it was only when Sonia pointed it out that I realized there is no end to the game or winning. Sonia also noticed how good Sarah was at all the steps. First you roll the die, then you move your wooden person, then you pick the card that corresponds to the color square you landed on, then you do what the card says. That is a lot of different things within a turn. The great thing about adding ideas for more activity cards is that those activities can be used to build on any other game or interaction in the room. 

On Tuesday, Sarah and I had an amazing session and most of it was inspired by ideas from the group meeting. Sarah wanted a blue elevator but the blanket was yellow-side up. I asked her to help me flip it and she did. She asked for the number flashcards. While she started taking them out of the box I got down the art supplies. I drew a line down a piece of paper and she cut along the line. Together we taped the paper over a small piece of cardboard. I suggested that she draw circles to be buttons for our elevator button panel. She did. Then I asked her to write numbers in the buttons. She did several and I did a few. Then I asked her to color the buttons in. She did, even following prompts to color some in more fully. I put the art supplies away and we were ready to go with our button panel. We used the number flashcards to determine our floor and to label the floor (putting the card on the windowsill). She pressed the buttons on the button panel and I made a sound (sometimes the buttons were broken and the sounds went haywire or my tongue stuck out). When she wanted to go to a floor that was higher than our buttons on the panel we did math to get there (I told her what to press, and she did it. Eg. for floor 100 she pressed the 10 ten times.) At each floor she would get off and she only got caught in the doors (my arms) a few times. I gave her a task at each floor, such as finding a picture of a bicycle or a label that said "table." Then I spread the small word flashcards around on the floor and when she got off the elevator I would tell her to look for a certain word. When she found it I would flip it over so it became a new word (there are words on each side of the cards). She did an amazing job and I only helped a little. When she was clearly done with the word searches I threw the number cards all over and we had to put them in order (1-10) to make the elevator work. Then we were both tired so just did some joining time, for maybe two minutes. For my part I started putting the larger number cards in order. Sarah quickly came over and started tracing them with her finger. She was more careful and deliberate than ever.

I think there is an increase in Sarah's original play ideas that can't be traced to anything but her imagination. She recently pretended to drink Carl's napkin and then in a play session with G. she had the number flashcards being bananas. Last night I suggested that she put the number cards on the blue plank balance beams that I set up in the family room. She and Amy had a wonderful time stepping on the cards and over them. Then Sarah again moved the play towards eating pretend number bananas or sitting in bunches of bananas. Carl and Amy sat with her in the bunches of bananas.

Sarah's sentence clarity is improving. Yesterday she commented that a person had a hole in their sock. In the past she would have said, "having a hole in my sock." This time she said the person's name instead. Awesome! 

On Wednesday, Sarah zipped her coat zipper all by herself for first time ever!!!!!! This was at school. As they were getting ready to leave, Sonia told Sarah to put on her coat and zip it. Then Sonia was busy getting herself ready and when she turned back to Sarah, Sarah was there all zipped. This is super amazing. Since then we have been requesting that she do this more often and she is trying but easily gets frustrated and has yet to repeat her success, but as with so many other things, once there is a first time then there can be a second.

There is an ATEC questionnaire regarding autism that gives a number score. The number determines the level of severity of the autism. I only put salted gentle stock in this, but it is still an interesting data point. I recently filled out the form for Sarah and her score had dropped 3 points from 15 months ago. Keep in mind that this is subjective based on my evaluation of Sarah and my interpretation of the questions and whether things are not a problem, a minor problem, or a big problem. Still, the lower the number the better. This is totally awesome that some areas that used to be more challenging and problematic are no longer problems or are less problematic. Yay. I'll take it!

For what seems like forever, Sarah has been asking every morning to go downstairs in pajamas. Normally we reserved this for Sunday mornings because I believed that we needed the pull of breakfast to help make the girls get dressed during the week. We decided this week to experiment with changing things and following Sarah's request. Astonishingly, humblingly, our mornings have become much more enjoyable and efficient with much less yelling and everyone is ready for the day earlier than ever. I stand happily corrected.

Sometimes Sarah and I have temper clashes. I am still aiming towards not having these moments at all, but since they do happen I am pleased that we continue to have a useful language for discussing it. In the past we used to talk about being on the wrong ball or being borkupines (porcupines). We still use these images but I have added saying that we were on the wrong bicycle. The great thing about this is that Sarah brightens at the very mention of bicycles. This week I said we were on the wrong tandem bicycle. After we had put our prickles away (as Amy pointed out),  we rode on the right tandem bicycle all the way to the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day. Riding the right tandem bicycle involves me holding Sarah under her armpits or around her waist and walking with her while she pedals and I say "pedal, pedal, pedal." Sometimes we have her put on her pretend helmet first. While I do not yet love our angry clashes, I do love our way of pedaling out of them and reconnecting with shared play.

Right (Wright?!) bicycles to all of you,