In August of last year, as I may have mentioned before, the Small Boy was using two "words". They were "no" and "oh no." That was not much of an achievement for a kid of nearly three (and was considerably down from the count we'd had some six - nine months earlier)
These days, he communicates verbally about all sorts of things. Not very easily - I can see his little brain going chug chug chug at very simple questions. He doesn't like questions much - they come on someone else's schedule. But an exchange like "How old are you?" (*think* *think* *think*) "Are you three?" (....) "Are you four?" "Yes! I four!" still makes me smile, considering that even a few weeks ago the answer to that would have been to hide his head in my armpit.
How did we get from there to here? One of the things that brought us was the "It takes two to talk" program from The Hanen Centre. I fell in love with this book the first time we used it - full of devastatingly simple, obvous-after-the-fact insights that just worked. We used this in conjunction with Speech Therapy, getting a photocopied chapter to take home with us after each session. That's probably somewhat illegal, considering I think we ended up with about a third of the book, so I won't mention the name of our Speechies, even though they're great too.
At the beginnng, it didn't even look like "speech" therapy. We just played with toys in the therapist's office on the floor. But with one important twist.
"You're showing him how to play with the toy", said the therapist." That's great. You're showing him really nicely. But Stop It! Stop showing him. Look and see what HE does."
It was a box of magnetic people, in halves. Clearly the aim was to mix and match the halves to put different leg halves together with the top halves. He was ignoring both bits. He was sticking the box on his head and using it as a hat.
"Ok. Now you do the same."
Small Boy with box on head. Mumma with box lid on head. Box falls off. Lid falls off. Small Boy laughs. And then...
"Did you see that?" He looked you straight in the eye. AND he looked ME straight in the eye too. He's looking for our reactions. He's engaged. Now do it again."
And we did it again. And again. (that's a bit of a theme with the Small Boy). After a while, we added some language ("Up!"). And we did it again. And again...
(To Be Continued...)
Monday, 24 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
Mumma is Bored and Cranky...
...is my latest must-use phrase-of-the-month. I don't use it nearly often enough. Why's that? Let me give an example.
Vic Market, thursday last week. Car park is packed, so I slip into a street spot outside. Feed the meter with my single one dollar coin, which gives me...hmmm...
Twenty minutes. For all veggie and meat shopping for the five of us all week. Including the Smaller Girl's birthday party. This is very much not going to happen. Nevertheless, off we set in our trolley to zoom round as fast as possible, and trust to the ticket inspectors schedule to keep them far away from us for the next hour or so.
So we make a good start, grapes, tomatos, 'taters in the bag, and then comes the fateful phrase.
"Mumma! Big Wee!"
This is not going to do our schedule good, but the Big Wee is not to be denied. So off we go to the toilet block.
The toilet block at the market, as it happens, is huge. We're into "pack a bag of sandwiches to make the trek to the far end" territory. It's an embarrassment of riches to someone keen on taking control of the [i]choices[/i] in his life. And making sure that the choice he makes is exactly correct.
You can see where we're going here.
"Daniel! This toilet?"
"Nope. Diffent one"
"Ok, what about this toilet?"
"Nope. Diffent toelet"
"This one?"
"Dis one!"
"That one's got someone in it. Ok, we'll wait."
Half a minute later, person inside comes out. Small Boy promptly transfers his attentions to [i]another[/i] toilet (a previously rejected one) which now has someone in it, who we wait for, and comes out, prompting his transferral of attention to another toilet, and meanwhile the clock on the parking meter is going tick tick tick and I can see the pattern, he's going to work his OCD way all the way back to the first stall, waiting for people to exit toilets all the way, my Bored And Cranky levels are rising to the ceiling, and I crack it and produce the ultimatum "this toilet or NO toilet" which leads to tears, collapse on the floor, and exiting the toilet block with no Big Wee having been performed. (We circled back again 5 minutes later. It was much more successful then)
All of which is the sort of stuff which will have the stricter half of the parenting demographic collapsing with laughter at my wussiness ("just stick him in the first one available FFS!") but in fact mostly when I allow him to make his own choices he does so within a moderately reasonable timeframe, and I've already got "I'm going to fold the clothes - tell me when you've made your mind up." as a well-used response to endless dithering. We don't have a very high-pressure lifestyle, and mostly he does have space to take however long he needs over a decision. Just not on [i]this[/i] particular occasion.
I'm realising that what all this probably looked like from his point of view was: "I'm choosing a toilet...I'm choosing a toilet...la la la...I'm choosing a toilet...I'm choosing a...Hey! Don't pick me up and PUT ME IN THE WRONG ONE!
What are you DOING all of a sudden!" All the sighs and foot-tappings, short phrases, rising tone of voice...they all mean absolutely nothing to him. What he really needs is for the mumma to get down to his level, look him straight in the eye and say "Daniel. Mumma is now Bored And Cranky!"
(and she's not going to take it any more)
Vic Market, thursday last week. Car park is packed, so I slip into a street spot outside. Feed the meter with my single one dollar coin, which gives me...hmmm...
Twenty minutes. For all veggie and meat shopping for the five of us all week. Including the Smaller Girl's birthday party. This is very much not going to happen. Nevertheless, off we set in our trolley to zoom round as fast as possible, and trust to the ticket inspectors schedule to keep them far away from us for the next hour or so.
So we make a good start, grapes, tomatos, 'taters in the bag, and then comes the fateful phrase.
"Mumma! Big Wee!"
This is not going to do our schedule good, but the Big Wee is not to be denied. So off we go to the toilet block.
The toilet block at the market, as it happens, is huge. We're into "pack a bag of sandwiches to make the trek to the far end" territory. It's an embarrassment of riches to someone keen on taking control of the [i]choices[/i] in his life. And making sure that the choice he makes is exactly correct.
You can see where we're going here.
"Daniel! This toilet?"
"Nope. Diffent one"
"Ok, what about this toilet?"
"Nope. Diffent toelet"
"This one?"
"Dis one!"
"That one's got someone in it. Ok, we'll wait."
Half a minute later, person inside comes out. Small Boy promptly transfers his attentions to [i]another[/i] toilet (a previously rejected one) which now has someone in it, who we wait for, and comes out, prompting his transferral of attention to another toilet, and meanwhile the clock on the parking meter is going tick tick tick and I can see the pattern, he's going to work his OCD way all the way back to the first stall, waiting for people to exit toilets all the way, my Bored And Cranky levels are rising to the ceiling, and I crack it and produce the ultimatum "this toilet or NO toilet" which leads to tears, collapse on the floor, and exiting the toilet block with no Big Wee having been performed. (We circled back again 5 minutes later. It was much more successful then)
All of which is the sort of stuff which will have the stricter half of the parenting demographic collapsing with laughter at my wussiness ("just stick him in the first one available FFS!") but in fact mostly when I allow him to make his own choices he does so within a moderately reasonable timeframe, and I've already got "I'm going to fold the clothes - tell me when you've made your mind up." as a well-used response to endless dithering. We don't have a very high-pressure lifestyle, and mostly he does have space to take however long he needs over a decision. Just not on [i]this[/i] particular occasion.
I'm realising that what all this probably looked like from his point of view was: "I'm choosing a toilet...I'm choosing a toilet...la la la...I'm choosing a toilet...I'm choosing a...Hey! Don't pick me up and PUT ME IN THE WRONG ONE!
What are you DOING all of a sudden!" All the sighs and foot-tappings, short phrases, rising tone of voice...they all mean absolutely nothing to him. What he really needs is for the mumma to get down to his level, look him straight in the eye and say "Daniel. Mumma is now Bored And Cranky!"
(and she's not going to take it any more)
Monday, 12 September 2011
The Year In Review
Within the last couple of weeks, it has been the one year anniversary of our first development assessment with our Maternal and Child Health Nurse, when we were wondering what on earth was up with our little boy. At the time, he was 6 weeks off his third birthday, she gave him the assessment for two and a half year olds, which he comprehensively failed (final score: 13/100).
This is how far we've come since then:
September 2010:
'doing his own thing' most of the time, not really playing with anyone.
Two words - "no" and "oh no"
No interest in toilet training
Wouldn't draw or do any craft type activity
Couldn't wait more than two seconds for anything.
Grumpy and sad and sick-seeming
September 2011:
Wants to play all the time - I can hardly get away! except when I let him have computer time, and even then he gets bored after a while and comes looking for people.
Plays with his sisters whenever they are available, initiates (very simple) conversation with trusted acquaintances, can answer questions from same.
Understands how to play tig, hide and seek, duck duck goose and a number of other games of our own devising.
Speaking in short sentences - often stringing two or three together "on topic". Understands and uses pronouns.
Completely day toilet trained as of last month
Cuts with scissors, glues, draws, paints.
Understands and accepts "first this, then that", "five minutes more" and doesn't pitch a fit about them.
Greets me with a big smile every morning.
This is how far we've come since then:
September 2010:
'doing his own thing' most of the time, not really playing with anyone.
Two words - "no" and "oh no"
No interest in toilet training
Wouldn't draw or do any craft type activity
Couldn't wait more than two seconds for anything.
Grumpy and sad and sick-seeming
September 2011:
Wants to play all the time - I can hardly get away! except when I let him have computer time, and even then he gets bored after a while and comes looking for people.
Plays with his sisters whenever they are available, initiates (very simple) conversation with trusted acquaintances, can answer questions from same.
Understands how to play tig, hide and seek, duck duck goose and a number of other games of our own devising.
Speaking in short sentences - often stringing two or three together "on topic". Understands and uses pronouns.
Completely day toilet trained as of last month
Cuts with scissors, glues, draws, paints.
Understands and accepts "first this, then that", "five minutes more" and doesn't pitch a fit about them.
Greets me with a big smile every morning.
Monday, 29 August 2011
The Power of Yes
The Power of Yes is this week's new discovery in Small Boy Land. It's a little thing, but it makes me smile greatly. Within a few days the answer to "Would you like a sandwich?" has gone from
"Like a sandwich
to
"Yes, like a sandwich"
to just
"YES!"
He pronounces it with great relish, and is clearly very impressed with his new discovery. It's versatile! It's efficient! It decreases the number of words he has to produce to get his message across! Win - win - win.
Inconveniently, however, it does come at just the time when I'd realised I could use his echolalia to promote good manners. I was formerly having some success in prompting "Like a sandwich please mumma?". Now that conversation is going something like this:
"Sandwich!"
"Sandwich please mumma?".
"YES!"
Small price to pay. With that big grin on his face, how could I deny him?
"Like a sandwich
to
"Yes, like a sandwich"
to just
"YES!"
He pronounces it with great relish, and is clearly very impressed with his new discovery. It's versatile! It's efficient! It decreases the number of words he has to produce to get his message across! Win - win - win.
Inconveniently, however, it does come at just the time when I'd realised I could use his echolalia to promote good manners. I was formerly having some success in prompting "Like a sandwich please mumma?". Now that conversation is going something like this:
"Sandwich!"
"Sandwich please mumma?".
"YES!"
Small price to pay. With that big grin on his face, how could I deny him?
Monday, 22 August 2011
Big Sister - Junior therapist
I definitely haven't written enough here about the awesomeness that is the Taller Girl. The Taller Girl is four years older than her little brother, and, at seven, is old enough to understand that there's something 'different' about him.
She is incredibly protective of him - sometimes a little too protective in fact. At playgrounds, she will intercept small kids bounding up to him with "what's your name" or complicated instructions on correct playing of whatever game is currently taking over the playground, and act as his barricade. "He doesn't understand you. He doesn't talk." No longer quite true, as it happens (although he's still more than usually quiet, particularly outside the family) and I have to encourage her to have a more optimistic view of his abilities. Under the best of circumstances, a seven year old is always going to take a rather superior view of the abilities of a three year old brother!
But the most valuable thing she does is play, play, play with him. The Smaller Girl also plays with him, but generally by playing down to his level. The Smaller Girl is a big bouncer, squealer and runner-about - these things are certainly very attractive to His Shortness, and they can happily bounce squeal and run about together all afternoon (or until accidental grevious bodily harm is inflicted one upon the other, and we experience a different type of squealing). When the Taller Girl plays, she extends him.
Last week she was home for two days with conjunctivitis - enough to exclude her from school, but not exactly sick. So they drew. Her drawing is, of course, far advanced of his, but not so far advanced that he can't appreciate and aspire to the level she's at. He drew trees - she drew trees too, but with branches. An interesting new development. Now he can do branches too - fat boxy affairs, scaffolded (of course) with dots. She drew fishes. So he wanted to draw some fishes too (which sadly proved a little hard, so we ended up with 'mumma draw a green fish!'. But the attempt was there). Currently he's decided that eggs are what he's drawing this week. I can understand the attraction - they're really easy to get right.
And while all that was going on, I did the dishes. That's valuable too.
She is incredibly protective of him - sometimes a little too protective in fact. At playgrounds, she will intercept small kids bounding up to him with "what's your name" or complicated instructions on correct playing of whatever game is currently taking over the playground, and act as his barricade. "He doesn't understand you. He doesn't talk." No longer quite true, as it happens (although he's still more than usually quiet, particularly outside the family) and I have to encourage her to have a more optimistic view of his abilities. Under the best of circumstances, a seven year old is always going to take a rather superior view of the abilities of a three year old brother!
But the most valuable thing she does is play, play, play with him. The Smaller Girl also plays with him, but generally by playing down to his level. The Smaller Girl is a big bouncer, squealer and runner-about - these things are certainly very attractive to His Shortness, and they can happily bounce squeal and run about together all afternoon (or until accidental grevious bodily harm is inflicted one upon the other, and we experience a different type of squealing). When the Taller Girl plays, she extends him.
Last week she was home for two days with conjunctivitis - enough to exclude her from school, but not exactly sick. So they drew. Her drawing is, of course, far advanced of his, but not so far advanced that he can't appreciate and aspire to the level she's at. He drew trees - she drew trees too, but with branches. An interesting new development. Now he can do branches too - fat boxy affairs, scaffolded (of course) with dots. She drew fishes. So he wanted to draw some fishes too (which sadly proved a little hard, so we ended up with 'mumma draw a green fish!'. But the attempt was there). Currently he's decided that eggs are what he's drawing this week. I can understand the attraction - they're really easy to get right.
And while all that was going on, I did the dishes. That's valuable too.
Monday, 15 August 2011
In Praise of Dots
Occupational Therapists are great. This is what we learnt from our OT a couple of visits ago:
One dot on the page. Dot to the right. Dot below. Dot to the left. What does that make?
Across...down...across...up...a square!
Another dot on the page. Dot below. Another dot below. Down...across...up...a triangle!
The Small Boy has been having a lot of trouble with the concept of drawing. He likes in in theory. But then he gets that pen on the paper, and his perfectionist nature rears its ugly head, roadblocking him. He draws a line and it's not right!. Tears, and a piece of paper is flung away. Next paper. Another line. Not Right!
Dots are calming, dots are soothing, dots help him to stay in control. The line that he draws from one dot to another may be exceedingly wobbly - it may even not hit the target dot. But that's okay. As long as he has another dot to aim for, he can handle this.
After we learnt the square/triangle/diamond exercise, I started extending him. First we did square inside a square. Then circles (lots of dots). Then for a couple of weeks we were doing aeroplanes. I'd do the dots, we'd join them up together (hand over hand). With the more complicated figures, he seemed to have not quite so much confidence to do it all himself (and in any case Mummy Help is always appreciated).
Then a few days ago he was in the kitchen by himself for about half an hour beavering away, and when I finally came in I discovered he'd created this:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
They're trees. Big rectangle with dots for the trunk, more dots for leaves on top, and "two eyes a nose and a mouth". I believe they're probably based on the Mean Stuff-Stealing trees from Pyjama Sam
Oh, and he used the kid scissors to cut them out entirely by himself too.
Did I mention I like dots?
One dot on the page. Dot to the right. Dot below. Dot to the left. What does that make?
Across...down...across...up...a square!
Another dot on the page. Dot below. Another dot below. Down...across...up...a triangle!
The Small Boy has been having a lot of trouble with the concept of drawing. He likes in in theory. But then he gets that pen on the paper, and his perfectionist nature rears its ugly head, roadblocking him. He draws a line and it's not right!. Tears, and a piece of paper is flung away. Next paper. Another line. Not Right!
Dots are calming, dots are soothing, dots help him to stay in control. The line that he draws from one dot to another may be exceedingly wobbly - it may even not hit the target dot. But that's okay. As long as he has another dot to aim for, he can handle this.
After we learnt the square/triangle/diamond exercise, I started extending him. First we did square inside a square. Then circles (lots of dots). Then for a couple of weeks we were doing aeroplanes. I'd do the dots, we'd join them up together (hand over hand). With the more complicated figures, he seemed to have not quite so much confidence to do it all himself (and in any case Mummy Help is always appreciated).
Then a few days ago he was in the kitchen by himself for about half an hour beavering away, and when I finally came in I discovered he'd created this:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
They're trees. Big rectangle with dots for the trunk, more dots for leaves on top, and "two eyes a nose and a mouth". I believe they're probably based on the Mean Stuff-Stealing trees from Pyjama Sam
Oh, and he used the kid scissors to cut them out entirely by himself too.
Did I mention I like dots?
Monday, 8 August 2011
Auditory Processing Fail?
I have recently realised something about auditory processing. Apparently, I'm kind of crap at it.Perhaps.
This links back to a longstanding ... mmm ... difference of opinion between myself and the Spouse over my "not listening" to things. As in, we're sitting down side by side at our respective his 'n hers computers, me watching iView and him playing WoW and chatting away to his guildies. And then he'll say:
"mmmbl mmmblbl mm mmm mbl"
And I'll say:
"..."
Because, of course, I'm watching my program. I don't know what he's said to me. I'm barely even aware words came out of his mouth. In fact, I've always considered it extremely weird that he would expect that I would automatically know that he just said something to me (as opposed to the guildies) - obviously I can't be listening to him at the same time as listening to my TV program. You can't be listening to two things at once, can you?
Can you?
Well apparently, according to a big involved conversation we had on this topic, you can. Or at least I can't but maybe you can.
Apparently, all this time when we've been pursuing our respective evening's entertainments, the Spouse has been chatting with his guildies AND listening to my program AND processing the content of both of these AT THE SAME TIME!
Frankly, this blew me away. I would never have remotely considered that this would be possible. When I'm listening to a thing, I'm listening to ONE thing. My ears are totally tuned to that. Other noise doesn't even register. And if I'm not actively listening to something, I'm not in processing mode at all. Come and say something to me out of the blue and you'll have to wait for the system to boot up before you'll get any meaningful answer.
The question then arises of course - who's normal and who's weird? Am I unusually crap at this task, or is he unusually good?
I was online recently with a person who really does have full-on auditory processing disorder. From his account, he has the worst of both worlds. He can't filter out an auditory input to effective non-existance, but he also can't process more than one at the same time. So multiple people talking at once leaves him with a confused meaningless jumble, nothing to catch hold of.
Which brings us back (of course) to the Small Boy. Is this possibly the source of his language difficulties? Has he inherited neither his dad's ability to process multiple sound channels at once nor his mum's ability to switch focus and filter out the excess?
Complicating this also is the fact that I'm not sure that what I do with filtering sound is really the sort of thing you inherit. It's more a sort of trick I've picked up to make sound more manageable. Problem - I've no real idea how exactly I do it. I've no idea how or when I learnt to do it. I've no idea how to teach it to someone else.
This links back to a longstanding ... mmm ... difference of opinion between myself and the Spouse over my "not listening" to things. As in, we're sitting down side by side at our respective his 'n hers computers, me watching iView and him playing WoW and chatting away to his guildies. And then he'll say:
"mmmbl mmmblbl mm mmm mbl"
And I'll say:
"..."
Because, of course, I'm watching my program. I don't know what he's said to me. I'm barely even aware words came out of his mouth. In fact, I've always considered it extremely weird that he would expect that I would automatically know that he just said something to me (as opposed to the guildies) - obviously I can't be listening to him at the same time as listening to my TV program. You can't be listening to two things at once, can you?
Can you?
Well apparently, according to a big involved conversation we had on this topic, you can. Or at least I can't but maybe you can.
Apparently, all this time when we've been pursuing our respective evening's entertainments, the Spouse has been chatting with his guildies AND listening to my program AND processing the content of both of these AT THE SAME TIME!
Frankly, this blew me away. I would never have remotely considered that this would be possible. When I'm listening to a thing, I'm listening to ONE thing. My ears are totally tuned to that. Other noise doesn't even register. And if I'm not actively listening to something, I'm not in processing mode at all. Come and say something to me out of the blue and you'll have to wait for the system to boot up before you'll get any meaningful answer.
The question then arises of course - who's normal and who's weird? Am I unusually crap at this task, or is he unusually good?
I was online recently with a person who really does have full-on auditory processing disorder. From his account, he has the worst of both worlds. He can't filter out an auditory input to effective non-existance, but he also can't process more than one at the same time. So multiple people talking at once leaves him with a confused meaningless jumble, nothing to catch hold of.
Which brings us back (of course) to the Small Boy. Is this possibly the source of his language difficulties? Has he inherited neither his dad's ability to process multiple sound channels at once nor his mum's ability to switch focus and filter out the excess?
Complicating this also is the fact that I'm not sure that what I do with filtering sound is really the sort of thing you inherit. It's more a sort of trick I've picked up to make sound more manageable. Problem - I've no real idea how exactly I do it. I've no idea how or when I learnt to do it. I've no idea how to teach it to someone else.
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