help on aba at home

[Guest guest]

i have a 5 year old who has been in an ABA program since age 18

months. He has been in a school program for 18 months of that. It

is a good school program. My son tried sign and we did it until

about a year ago, now PECS. He has not made any more progress with

expressive language than he did in the beginning. He can (in my

opinion) discriminate between 20 PECS pictures but they are all food

and we are still not to the last phase of the PECS. I think that

the PECS gives him a way to tell you what he wants to eat and that

is it. Toys in the book (these are all great pictures), he never

goes for even with all toys up where he cant have them. He does

well with signs for actions, up, go, swing, tickle. He does have

seizures and history of other medical problems.

What I have discovered is that my son has lots of receptive

language. He can follow one step directions very well, sit down,

stop, come here, put down. If I said do you want the light on he

would look to the light. so lots of tacts he knows for things in

his environment. I also know this because I started teaching him

tacts. Being non verbal I want to make sure I teach him correctly.

I initially started with doing 10 trials of new pictures (with

seizures that i cant see really this i think is needed, plus he does

not want to look at picture) With new pictures he can learn a

couple of new ones each day. i then went to a picture and a blank

picture and immediately moved to a field of 2 various pics. He is

doing so well with this and we have about 20 or more than he has

mastered. We do puzzles, shape sorters and other fine and gross

motor activities that are short (no arts and crafts that take a

while)

What I want from the group is advice, hints, ideas on how to

capitalize on his strength-receptive language to move to

expressive? How to do this, procedures for teaching, anything that

has been done by others, what works and why and what does not work.

What is the best way to move generalization of these tacts along,

look at books, tv. I have tought him a variety of tacts for this

reason, animals we can go see or are in movies, colors, shapes, and

items at home like the tv and appliances. I have been to the first

2 carbone workshops and have all the books. I feel that I know what

I am doing, just need to tweek this to maximize his learning. I

feel that by teaching more receptive language i can get to

expressive. The school is doing a good job but i feel it is my

responsibility to teach him as much as I can while still being a

parent and letting him be a kid.

Any help will be appreciated

Leighanne