mamashark
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Posts posted by mamashark
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4 minutes ago, sbgrace said:
Does he have any underlying anxiety dx's?
Sometimes anxiety stuff, even OCD particularly when mostly internal, show in weird ways that aren't obvious at first.
Yes. He does. That's true - asd is the top diagnosis and then anxiety, then toileting issues, but we've resolved those during the day with the OT work. The psych said OCD but the diagnosis is generalized anxiety because it was just so pervasive. And we've toned it down CONSIDERABLY with supplements, but it's still a big piece of the puzzle.
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ok so in the absence of a behaviorist to help me at the moment... here's what I've got for reading:
Narrative difficulties,
emotional tension within the plot, (and perhaps the difficulty realizing that just because someone else in the story feels upset, tired, angry, scared doesn't mean I have to feel that way too...)
anxiety over not knowing what the words say and they MIGHT prove to be that emotional tension that he doesn't like,
difficulty with word parts due to not understanding the language piece
and dyslexia
Any other ideas that fall into the possible issues I'm seeing?
The article on inuit parents was fascinating, I am going to have to ponder it some, lots of thought provoking ideas in it.
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1 hour ago, PeterPan said:
It's a rabbit trail, but where is he with retained reflexes?
The OT identified a couple in January, but we haven't gone looking specifically for any. Those that she saw are now integrated .
1 hour ago, PeterPan said:Have you looked into play therapy or Play Project?
He's doing play therapy. But the therapist isn't good at sharing opinions on anything - she shares themes that he's working on and says it could be developmental or something he's working through, and her only suggestion for further therapy was for me to learn how to do the play therapy and she'd train me to do it. I'm not sure she's had much training with ASD either, so that could be part of the problem, but my son loves going to her.
1 hour ago, PeterPan said:He's highly compliant when supports are adequate and the tasks are within reach.
I think this is why the reading thing has me boggled right now - the other stuff I've been able to provide proper supports and the tasks are within reach and we're in a good place with those things. But I can't figure the reading thing out and it's both auditory (listening to read-alouds) and phonetic - reading instruction. I never considered dyslexia becuase of how quickly he picked up letter sounds and cvc words. My dd8 with dyslexia took 2 years to just match letter sounds to letter shapes and her progress has been slow and painfully obviously dyslexia.
1 hour ago, PeterPan said:We do a lot of pre-teaching and pre-thinking through situations. Like when we work together, you're going to get tired or frustrated and want a break. What are your choices, how can you tell me? Do I want you to leave the room or ASK for a break first? So in those early stages we were taking super super frequent breaks because he wasn't ready to ask for breaks. We were writing out the plan and putting *2* breaks on for every *1* bit of work. For real. And a bin or list of break choices. Lots of empowerment. Lots of showing him he had the power to make choices, choices to be here, choices to use the break space in the office and not just leave, choices to come back after he was calm if he did leave, choices not to hit but to do something else like take a walk or go to his quiet closet.
We've worked part of this into our routine, but I love how you spell this out and it gives me some great ideas for tweaking the reading issue, building in the supports and self-advocacy and helping support what is obviously still a difficult thing for him.
1 hour ago, PeterPan said:it's what schools expect frankly. But going more two-way street, where each person has power, is where it has to go for some kids.
Yes. This is my kid. We figured out from really really early on that we had to have his buy-in for something before we could do it with him. If not- major behaviors. BUT this is where I am struggling right now because it's not just school that has this expectation - it's society. Society expects me to get a behaviorist, to break him and teach him to comply. To do this or that or the other thing and their assumption feels much like dog training. Well that doesn't work for my kid.
I love the baby-steps idea, for this. The other day I texted my husband and told him that we were having a rough morning but that my win of the day was the fact that my son sat and listened to a picture book about immigration for history. HUGE win for us even if it looks like this tiny insignificant baby step. But that's my life. I keep a binder of baby-step goals. What I'm looking for in every-day life. Then I come here to post and process things with the big picture to see where I'm going, which direction to head, what path to walk.
Thanks for the article and book recs.
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7 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
Who told you the issue was auditory processing? If you talk to an SLP, auditory processing is largely a language issue.
The OT told me auditory processing, so it's not her wheel house. The SLP told me no auditory processing issue, but refused to do anything other than the CELF test. I see the connection between behaviors and language - I asked him a question yesterday and recognized his grumpy refusal to answer was related to the difficulty with verb choices that I've seen in language therapy stuff and that he simply can't come up with the right word and so he got grumpy and refused to answer. I'm doing the language myself because I can't afford the lady who would do the right stuff with him (working on possibility of a grant). I'm using 100%vocab and am considering other linguisystem products to support and reinforce weak areas I find but haven't purchased yet.
Regarding the asd diagnosis - we got there, but she didn't give us a support level. She had other issues too, like, refusing to give us answers on the evals she ran for literally months until we left the practice and demanding a written report, that again took MONTHS to receive, but in the end we got the diagnosis in the mail as part of the report.
I have mixed emotions on the behavior support stuff here... The other moms I've spoken to who use them are like, it's great, they push my kiddo until they break and then dial it back and teach them how to manage next time and I'm thinking, no thanks, that's not gonna work for me. I had access to ABA with a different company but it's a long wait list (6+months) and I don't know how they function because I don't know anyone who works with them, so...
Anyway, I was just trying to think through what COULD be behind this, because rarely do behaviors show up in isolation for pure behavior reasons, I've found. There's always something driving it - whether anxiety, OCD issues, rigidity in thought, sensory discomfort, language, etc.
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asd... no other educational testing completed as of yet.
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I am trying to figure out what might be underneath my 6 yo son's dislike of listening to me read aloud anything other than picture books, because I feel like it's bleeding into reading instruction too. The professionals I've discussed with with tell me that the intense dislike (often leading to panic attacks) of watching movies (anything with a "bad guy" or tension - veggie tales, animated hero classics, even peter pan's opening scene with peter trying to get his shadow back...) has to do with what they say is a hyper-awareness of emotions in others, but that his dislike of books would be auditory processing issues.
The thing is, his auditory processing is excellent. I know that's not the issue. I wondered if it was again a hyper-awareness of social tension in the plot-line, which is kept much more minimal in picture books, but I keep getting behaviors with reading instruction too, so I wonder if it's something else.
He learned how to blend cvc words together really quickly a full year ago now, but progressed really slowly from there. He flipped out when I tried to have him read 2-3 word sentences and when I couldn't get past that I took him to the eye dr. The eye dr. said he had a mild eye tracking issue that he considered developmental and average for his age but that otherwise his sight was perfect. I have spent tons of time on tracking exercises (mazes, dot to dot, tracking across lines to circle all the ..... shapes. etc.). He seemed to improve, but I am still getting these behaviors, and we are regressing to where he's even giving me behaviors for isolated single words again.
He has very little frustration tolerance, and is a perfectionist. but I am getting literally NO pushback on math instruction, or handwriting, or language (therapy stuff), or science. History he doesn't like me to read the books aloud, he'll literally leave the room and go somewhere he can't hear us for history or throw a major fit if I try to get him to stay. And I can't get him to do reading. I've tried every trick that's worked in the past - incorporating reading words into obstacle courses, only read the words he writes, as he writes them...etc. I hate to increase the candy motivators again just for reading alone when he's not requiring anything but a picture schedule to follow for everything else. So what am I missing here?
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I was reading through some old threads and Lecka said this: "Asking a question and responding to another person's language (reciprocal questions) are both things that would be considered their own language function. And it's a different language function from "telling about something." So iow -- being able to "tell about something" doesn't automatically transfer into being able to ask a question or respond to another person's language, even if all the same words would be used. "
I really wish the SLP who first tested my son understood this! Her exact words were "he's got all the language he needs to communicate in any situation - if he's not, it's a behavior issue and not something I can help with."
It's an interesting thought process to ponder the difference in language function and the simple collection of words and ability to spit words out in an isolated environment. It's similar to the idea of assuming that since a child shows the ability to feel a variety of emotions, and maybe even can list the types of emotions there are in an isolated environment, they can obviously identify those emotions in ANY given setting. Obviously the identification of emotions will range in difficulty level based on the situation and function (ID in you, ID in me, ID in me when I'm reflecting vs. when I'm experiencing it), just as the ability to communicate will range as well, in the variety of functions that language can play.
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when you mention the mindwings charts, are you referring to the chart that shows the narrative levels?
That type of sale would be awesome! I'll not hold my breath for that much of a discount but any amount off would be helpful! I've already told my husband that I'll need at least $100 in the education fund for April. He rolled his eyes a little but said ok 😉
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Wouldn't this fall under the concept of narration? I'm still working this through in my own head and how it applies to life, but the ability to explain character (yourself), setting (where you were) and actions (what you saw and why it was important). So narration focused products could help.
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2 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
So are you parked on CMC1 or going on through all the lessons and frontloading?
I have front-loaded a bit and had him play with the concepts with his siblings. He can do a lot more in the privacy of our living room with just our family than he can in practice in social settings. It's one of the benefits of having 4 kids. Might make me juggle more, but it gives me a built in social group.
5 minutes ago, PeterPan said:You've really had this mind meld with MW, where you seem to like their stuff, so continuing with what is working seems like a smart thing.
1 hour ago, mamashark said:The thing I like about MW is the visuals. I find the manual (Braidy anyway) to be more complicated than it should be to implement, and takes a good bit of planning on my part, but I can't see anything showing me what SKILL looks like, so I'm having trouble knowing if it's something worth looking at for the cost.
I will talk to the play therapist and see what she thinks.
I think one thing I need to do is think about my intermediate goals. I have short term goals, but knowing what I want to achieve, what "there" looks like, will help me know better where I need to focus.
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oh I'll also mention that I am always looking at stuff with dual purpose - my dd with dyslexia needs the language work, my DD 11 needs the social skill work. DD11 may be asd if we really pushed for a diagnosis, or maybe just gifted with social skill deficits, but she really needs the explicit stuff that my son needs, too. Things like, making smart guesses, she really struggles with. So that could be part of why you think I'm moving too fast, If something works on foundational skills for him, and hits goals for my other kids, it's more likely to catch my attention.
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Is it too spliced to get just the 6-second stories book from the MW set (which addresses one of the specific issues he has with language) and maybe It's All About the Story so I can have more resources to work with basic narration (I am about out of resources with Braidy on the stage 1 and 2 narrations) but not use Making connections? I like Practical Theory of he mind better than what I see of that on the website, and by piecing together what I want it would cost less...
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58 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
Ok, so I'll just laugh. I'm trying to read, but reality is most OT is floozy. Our current OT is less floozy and actually gets some results. But as far as being input/output, you spend money, things change, well... I'm pretty cynical. I drive 40 minutes each way to one, so I'm not too cynical. Just saying as a whole, it's the vaguest of therapy options.
Uh, theory of mind isn't the OT's gig anyway. They should be doing something concrete that falls in their territory.
This is what you're looking for. You'll LOVE it. Practical Theory of Mind Games
Ok, now I'll say this. You could be rushing. How old is he? This is a process, the making of connections, his own personal journey of discovery. You can't force it with curriculum and you can't rush. you can nurture concepts and generalize. You're using the Interoception stuff, yes? So are you completely through phases 2 and 3? Have you read them? I think if you do the PToMG and phase 2 and 3 of the interoception stuff, you'll see things coming together. Where is his joint attention? That you hit with RDI, which you can also buy or find a provider for. We did an intake eval and got tasks. We need to do more, sigh.
I'm sort of rushing but only in thought, not in practice. I know I need to take things slow in application, but knowing where I'm going, so that I can add things in as they fit, is what I'm trying to figure out. And the OT side-steps EVERY stinking question I ask her about order of skills, even concrete ones that should be in her territory. I have the interoception stuff and we're going through it SLOWLY. He needs it to be slow, to digest it and process it and apply it across situations. He was telling me how his feet felt today at the store as he paced while we waited in line. That's exactly what I'm looking for. And he's willing to do it, which is huge. I'll look at joint-attention to see what all that entails. He works for me pretty well at this point, because I am able to mirror his emotions really well and have done a good job at learning to validate him, and make things engaging. He's also really enjoying play therapy for quite some time now and has a great therapist working with him.
58 minutes ago, PeterPan said:If you're not noticing non-verbals, you're missing the input and feedback to realize how others are feeling and make better choices. That's the RDI piece. If you're missing interoception, you're not connecting their physical presentation to yours and realizing how they feel to make better choices.
So those two things are both pivotal. To me, you cycle in and out of the ST materials overtly. They need that foundation so you can go push it some more.
Too hard. It's good, but it's targeted older. Again, no age in sig. How old is he? 7? Definitely way too young unless he has absolutely zero language issues. I like it, pick up a copy, but he's not ready now.
What's he doing with narrative language? How is his language showing up in his play? Have you expanded every unit/chapter in 100% Vocab and beaten that horse very dead? Can he make every single construction there expressively, independently?
Spotlight on Vocabulary Level 1: 6-Book Set
We got HUGE gains from these. Of course look at the samples and see where your dc is. The SPARC series seems to simple, but it has them using everything independently in narratives by the end. My ds had a lot of memorized language, so it SEEMED like he was using language when he wasn't. Once skills were isolated, it was clear he couldn't use them. So SPARC starts off with words and builds the target into narratives by the end. Tons of work, really good work.
Also I really like both the MW ASD set (which you held off on but would be ready for when you finish all your language work) and SKILL. You could learn a TON about the MW/SGM stuff just by reading their blog. I personally would put your $$ into language (narrative or concepts/vocab/syntax) over social thinking/Theory of Mind. You've already done the standards for a good foundation in social thinking, so it's more about generalization and the language holding him back.
He's 6, but I don't think he has the same language deficits as your son, I'll see more maybe as I work through the 100% vocab. We've not fleshed out all the sections of it yet, again I don't want to rush it, and I want to ensure that he's understanding each concept. So far he's doing better with it (not struggling at all - finds the questions amusing) and my almost 8 year old DD who has dyslexia has to stop and think about the questions a little more. Ironically, I had to explain to my 3 year old son that he couldn't answer the questions for my daughter, as he would call out answers across the room while she was thinking. That boy is going to give me a run for my money.
I think the MW ASD set might need to be pretty high on my list, and with an unexpected change in our summer plans, some of our vacation money might be able to go towards it. My thought with the social thinking stuff was that I was told the fact that since he didn't seem to gain anything (except vocabulary) from the We Thinkers group, that he might need something more basic first, thus the Thinking about Me Thinking about You idea - that book was actually the recommendation given me as a more foundational piece that we might back up and do. And honestly, I'm finding splinter things to work on from Color my Conversation (like facial expressions), but in general it's too much for him right now since in practice, he's still unable to remember to say hello and goodbye without prompts.
Narrative language he's improved on - He recently was able to retell an entire paw patrol episode to me including characters and what they did and what the result was. He has to be in the mood to do it, though, and there's something I can't quite put my finger on yet that is still missing on his ability to simply narrate a story or event back to me, almost like he has trouble remembering, or dislikes the emotions that remembering brings up, or something. (so he can narrate back each thing he did in order at OT if he enjoyed it and left well-regulated. If he left disregulated due to an issue with transitions or something, then he won't be able to tell me anything they did no matter even after he's regulated again.
His language in play is rich and he has gotten a lot more vocal lately. I'm seeing a lot more ideation, a lot more ability to direct the play and he's now able to communicate when he's not happy with how play goes. He can't always solve the problems, but he's able to communicate the problems now. AND, he got Stuck in the store today when I told him I couldn't buy him Batman, and he fought and cried and almost threw a big fit in the store over having to walk away, then I saw him stop, put his head down, and blow slow breaths out. I quietly told him he was doing a good job calming down and taking deep breaths and in amazing speed he had collected himself and was able to finish the shopping trip without issue. I was mentally trying to figure out how I was going to exit the store with him fighting me again and was so impressed that he was able to calm down. So that in itself was a huge win for me.
I guess the thing is, I just need to know what direction I need to head next, since I don't have the right level of professionals available to me at this point in time to work with him. I may use the OT for postural strength and fine motor skills. Just needed to know the best direction for the rest.
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Edited- lot of rambling for the long story. The short story is that the OT was great on some things and not great on others, and I have to decide whether her focus is where I want to focus, because her attention to some things feels really scattered and causes more work for me as I have to take those things she starts and create usable ways to integrate them into our lives at home without the original resource to begin with.
What I want is to know what resources I can utilize for Theory of the Mind so that I can integrate the color my conversation pieces into it. Something designed to give me resources to teach him perspective and thinking through social situations at various levels, starting at foundational levels. I was looking at the Thinking about You Thinking about Me, since he's already been through we thinkers 1 and 2 and it didn't go well - this is a more foundational piece I think.
I've got the anxiety piece under control, so now I feel free to work on the language and social pieces in more specific ways. I'm using 100% Vocabulary by Rothstein to look for gaps and issues there, but I just need to know what other resources will provide me the most usability. I was thinking about Think Talk Laugh to help with language organization and ensure word retrieval isn't an issue.
Anything else I'm missing?
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2 hours ago, PeterPan said:
I'm just being honest how I work, even though it looks floozy. I've already done the seeming equivalent of this program with another program and I watched videos, etc. from MW till I was blue in the face. I'm clearly just pulling in whatever suits me and doing things as I see it. I always admire people who have the character to pick up materials and use them properly.
I've been enjoying the back and forth and just wanted to pop in for a second to say that while I do think that the author of materials mean for them to be used "properly", I think that there's exceptional value modifying materials to suit your student's needs. It's helpful to do so with both eyes open, to be sure you're not missing something important, but at the same time, modification is what makes homeschooling (or afterschooling, whatever) so effective, in my opinion.
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5 hours ago, PeterPan said:
ALL I WANTED was for him to be comfortable enough that he could walk in the door every week without flipping out. I want him to have a sense of connection to community.
Our church is small but we do have a good number of kids...like I think the kids outnumber adults many Sundays (and having 4 kids per family is the average at our church). BUT I think that is not an important feature of the church for attendance, more a better guage for church health (kids are a sign of a healthy church if you listen to those who "know" about these things). Our church is very community focused and I think that's the biggest thing for us (other than solid Bible teaching). Everyone has partnered with us to help our son, so having other kids with autism in the church isn't even necessarily important. Our pastor often going out of his way to stop and talk to my son about anything he can get him to open up about. I've had people go out of their way to let me know things ahead of time, to try to make him feel comfortable, to try to get him involved at whatever level he's comfortable. A quiet smile and hand on my shoulder as friends pass is common when we're in the hall trying to calm down. The support for ME is there, and the support for my son.
That's what I would look for in a church, personally. And I would give up all the supports and "thing" in the world to have a supportive church community to lean in on when things get tough.
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On 2/16/2019 at 5:30 PM, Mainer said:
Do you have base-10 blocks? Can your DD build 2-digit numbers with blocks? If she can build with them, then she can use them to add/subtract. I think it would be worth giving it a try.
I do have base-10 blocks but I haven't pulled them out in a while, I should do that and see how that works for her.
14 hours ago, PeterPan said:Race to 100 game where we'd try to fill in the board rolling dice doctored only to show 1-3. We had games she called filling the bus, like a british double decker bus, but I called it Monkey Math and cut the frame out of cute monkey print foam. We had another we did with 100 grids (cheap on Rainbow Resource) where you'd roll, place a penny, roll again, and jump to add. So that bridging idea came through the games, very quietly.
We've done all of these games, and they are taxing for her. I thought they were brilliant, but the last time I tried playing race to 100 she began crying after the second dice roll because she was convinced she wouldn't win the race and hated playing all games and never wanted to play another game in her life; which was ironic when I found her playing kids monopoly with her sister later...
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13 hours ago, PeterPan said:
Yup, that's what I figured. The progression is a lot more clear with the ebooks honestly. It might be holding you back. You could look through Dots, see if you've nailed that content (facts within 10, being able to add and subtract them) and then move on to the c-rods ebook. Also I really like the Positive/Negative Turnovers game from her free ebook.
Also, have you had psych evals yet? It sounds like not. If what I described doesn't take care of it, you really need to see about making some psych evals happen. You may need more detailed feedback to figure out what is going on. There are some materials, like Touch Math, that aren't so typical but would fit certain situations. You may need more data to sort that out.
I haven't done psych evals yet because we've been rather focused on our son over the last year, with the exception of her reading issues.
I'll take a look at the ebooks, double down on the ronit bird stuff and see how we progress over the next few weeks and see if we can get over this hump.
after looking through the samples available of beast, there's no way I can expect her to go into that without an ability to work with 2-digit numbers, so I may just ditch that idea for next year altogether. But my first priority is to at least move forward where we are now and then I can make a decision about next year.
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8 hours ago, Terabith said:
I would never recommend Right Start for a child who has difficulty with working memory. I LOVE the program, and I used it through level C with my oldest, and I really think it does a great job. I love the counting system. But I don't think it excels on teaching the bridging past ten skill, and it really pushes mental math, in a way that is impossible without really at LEAST average working memory. Honestly, I struggled with holding the numbers in my head and doing the algorithms for adding two multi digit numbers in my head in the first grade program. I could do the mental math part fine, but I couldn't hold the numbers in my head without real effort. I really didn't get past A with my younger daughter with working memory issues. I think Math U See would be a better bet, if she is adamant about not using Ronit Bird. There was no way on God's green earth she was going to be successful.
That's great to know, thanks, I had talked myself out of right start last night again and this helps me know I made the right decision.
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33 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
For RB, are you using the printed books or the ebooks?
printed books
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I could be short changing her abilities by focusing too much on her weaknesses... I just gave her the Beast Academy level 2 placement test and I was impressed at her ability to reason out how to solve the word problems, and by using a number line that she drew herself got only 1 question incorrect (and they allow up to 4 incorrect to place into the book). I only read the questions for her.
She was quite motivated since I allowed her to do that instead of her afternoon chore, but maybe I stay the course for this year, keep working with Ronit bird and the other suggestions here and allow her to go into Beast 2 next year with her brother...is that too big of an issue to have her working with him?
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7 minutes ago, Mainer said:
Can she add and subtract past 10 if she uses her fingers? Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking you could abandon the 3 + ___ = 8 kind of thing for now, and come back later.
She can add and subtract past 10 using a number line.
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And yet the more I research, the more I wonder if Right start wouldn't be better, takes the potential of videos out of the equation and people seem to really like it for those younger grades where we are...even if it is more teacher intensive.
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My dd7 (nearly 8 )is severely dyslexic and not tested for math disabilities, but I've always assumed that her math was impacted by her dyslexia (I'm starting to wonder if she's got a specific learning disability in math too). We are using Ronit Bird and she's currently able to add and subtract within 10 with confidence, and can bridge to 10 but not through 10 to larger numbers without lots of prompts. She understands how to do exploding dots to add bigger numbers, but has not been able to move past that with any confidence and since bridging through 10 is still prompt bound. She has a heck of a time grasping how to manipulate numbers and cannot hold more than one thing in her head at a time. We've worked some with On Cloud 9 and that has helped a little, but not enough to get past this hump.
She hates the games (and manipulatives that I pull out to use) from Ronit bird. She just wants to "do math" like her sister and brother, who go through workbook pages with me and don't struggle, and her brother, who is younger, doesn't always need or use the manipulatives to complete problems, so I wonder if that's driving part of the dislike of manipulatives (he's using MEP level 1 right now)...I tried a few pages of that with her too and they got too difficult pretty quickly. They want her to manipulate the numbers around in the problems (much like math mammoth) and she can't figure out how 5+?=8 is the same as 8-5=?
Anyway, I tried starting her over with Math Mammoth level 1 again and I am making no progress. I've hit a wall with adding numbers that bridge past 10, and don't know where to turn now, since she throws big fits anytime I try to do another math "game" with her from Ronit Bird. I need a new approach and don't know where to turn.
I am concerned that something like Right Start would be too teacher intensive (I already do an intensive 1-1 with her for reading) and I'd be concerned that she would throw a fit with the number of manipulatives. I'm wondering if math u see would be beneficial given the lack of grade level labels and the videos could be independent... Math Mammoth was a dismal failure...she doesn't need more practice with the same difficult-for-her problems; she needs a different approach. Singapore would probably be too difficult, and Beast academy (what I'm putting my son in next year) is probably far too advanced for her. I don't know where to turn next!
reading push-back (both instruction and read-alouds)
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
no I missed that! I'll go check it out... inositol is one of the things we're using that is helping!