Re: Penny's question

[Guest guest]

At 07:13 AM 4/1/01 -0500, Lynda Rands wrote:

>Penny,

>

>Our consultant has a client who in the past has not worked well at the

>table. I think some kids you have to find other places to work or be very

>creative and get the work in during the activities that they find

>reinforcing.

>

>On the days when the therapists were just coming for manding sessions and

>doing things he liked, did he still get upset when they walked in the door?

>

>Lynda

>

>

This is such a tricky situation: Pairing and teaching, upping the anty, and

figuring out how does this child learn, compliance, motivation, etc!

With Isaac, he has learned to put his foot down. In some ways, I think it

is very appropriate, being a male, and a teen. He has some puberty issues

and NORMAL developmental growing up to do, and I can see little glimmers of

absolutely typical resistance. I don't want to squash that, but we also

want him to learn. This is also true of younger kids for different reasons.

We find that if somebody gets on the right page with my son fairly fast,

and alternates between easy and hard, but is dynamic and paces things well,

he is going to be a lot more cooperative. The strength here, and I am

grateful for it, is Isaac wants to please. However, doing just NET is not

okay for us, because Isaac needs a lot more consistency and repetition than

that allows, and he's too much of a high rate stimmer/ He's lost without a

fairly organized session. But, he is starting to generalize much better,

faster, and he is echoing and doing a little bit of spontaneous tacting

now. Not a lot, but it is coming. This week, he saw bread and can not say

bread, and said, " cookie, " clearly, and nodded when my husband asked, if he

meant bread. I think he was tacting that first time, but then decided he

wanted to eat, because he asked for, " eat " verbally, pointing to the bread.

Sometimes, it is hard to tell.

Then he was outside and in the snow and looked at us and said, " Cold. "

Clearly not a mand. Yesterday at the table, he was looking at three cards,

and the therapist was setting up something else, and he touched one and

said, " Popcorn! " and it was a photograph of popcorn. He got a great big

spoonful of chocolate peanut butter for that one!

Yesterday at the mall, walking around with a newer therapist, he saw Papa

Gino's, and the new person said, " That's Papa Gino's., " when she saw him

looking and she added, " You eat food in there. " Isaac stopped, gestured and

said, " Piz-zah? " and from what she said, I am not sure if it was a tact or

a mand or both, but she was so pleased, they went in a bought a couple

slices right then and there. He also was able to point to something " red "

in a rack of clothes, and for him to pay attention and listen, with all the

distractions in a busy store is a big thing. So, it's integrating, but he

does generally need to start at a table or in some low key place first with

a fairly structured approach, still fairly traditional DTT in the sense of

targets, trials and all, just mixing them and making language our end goal.

Jennie

[Guest guest]

I was wondering that too Lynda; i.e., if it's possible to cut out all

intensive table teaching with Penny's son for now, and attempt to do

*all* teaching in other, more natural situations. Maybe even

allowing him to self-stim as a reinforcer?? Our situation is

somewhat similar to Penny's, although I *can* get my son to work at

the table w/o tantrums. Zoning out and stimming are constant

problems. We've reduced the time he spends at the table greatly.

But I hear Jennie's point loud and clear...how do you get all the

intense teaching these kids need totally away from the table and less

structured??

Eileen

> Penny,

>

> Our consultant has a client who in the past has not worked well at

the

> table. I think some kids you have to find other places to work or

be very

> creative and get the work in during the activities that they find

> reinforcing.

>

> On the days when the therapists were just coming for manding

sessions and

> doing things he liked, did he still get upset when they walked in

the door?

>

> Lynda