One of my biggest struggles lately has been working with Molly. I love her and spending time with her but lately therapy and school have honestly been kind of frustrating. I know what she is capable of and how much potential she has and I want so much for her. It makes it hard for me though when she doesn't do all that I know she can (especially when others are looking on and start to question her intelligence :/ ).
Some days she'll do great and I'll be so encouraged. But more often than not, her stubborn streak comes out and everything is a battle. Some days she'll refuse to sit up or roll over. Others she won't communicate. And some days she won't do anything she's asked at all.
Most of the time it's hard to find the reasons for these behaviors. Is she trying to express frustration or anger about something? Is she trying to take advantage of having something she feels she has control over? Is she just really distracted? Is she being lazy? Is she just plain stubborn?
The hard part is, if she would work with us in getting a solid way for her to communicate, she could let us know what's going on :(
This past week has been extra tough and I really didn't know what to do. Then Nikki started changing the way she does school with Nolan and it gave me some ideas.
Today, I built an obstacle course of sorts with different toys and activities to combine the physical stuff with school and communication in a way that was fun for Molly. It worked! I have never seen her so motivated and focused. Also, all the things I thought she knew but couldn't be sure of were confirmed. She did way more than I can usually get out of her, giggling the whole time!
I think being creative and making things fun is going to be the best way to get Molly going and understanding the independence these skills will allow her.
My problem? I don't have a creative bone in my body.
I made it work today but I am now officially out of ideas!
I thought I'd share what we did today and then if anyone has any ideas or thoughts, please let me know. I am open to any and all ideas you can come up with in any of these areas!
She currently knows letters A-E so I made a little station for each of those letters and one to introduce F.
For A, she had to chose the correct letter and then creep to the wall while pushing the letter along (something that is very difficult for her).
Once she got the letter A to the wall, she got to sit up and play with the rainmaker - having to flip it over before the beads would fall through. She couldn't quite do it by herself but with me keeping it from sliding around, she was able to flip it mostly on her own.
When she had finished, she got to crawl through the tunnel (which she loves although it is very tough for her and her arms frequently get caught by the wires!) to the next station...
...B!
Using the yes/no app on the iPad, I asked Molly a series of questions about the letter I had drawn.
Is this letter H?
No.
Is it D?
No.
Is it A?
No.
Is it B?
Yes (with giggles)!
I asked her if she wanted to color the page and after answering yes, she got to pick out her crayons and fill in the B.
When she had finished, I asked her if she wanted me to hang her picture up on the wall next to some of Lily and Nolan's from earlier this week.
I got back a yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Her artwork is now proudly being displayed on the wall in our living room :)
From there she had to look around the room and point out the C where we practiced colors.
We had briefly introduced red, blue, yellow, and green to her during an activity the day before but I wasn't too sure how much she was even paying attention and didn't expect her to remember.
She found the red and blue sticks right away and pointed to the cup of the same color but it was with a little bit of struggle that she finally got the sticks into the cups.
Yellow and green she needed a little reminder of but then did those as well!
Next she had to find D out of a few options and then pick it up, reach up, and put it on the ledge which was probably the hardest thing for her. Then she had to find it again out of a few options above, pick it up, and set it down on the ground.
When she had finished, she had to lie down and roll over to get to the ball. Then I sat her up and she picked up the ball and had to lift it to the top of the ramp. She enjoyed it immensely and asked to do it again!
I laid her down on her back and then she had to roll over and creep across the room to the E station - her favorite.
First, I asked her yes/no questions about the name of the letter using some yes/no arm bands we just recently got. We really like the idea of them for Mol as they are more portable and easily used than the iPad. The problem though has been her lack of control over her left arm. We put the yes on the left as that is the side it is on on the app but most of the time she tries to lift her left arm, the right goes along with it. We tried getting her to answer by lifting up each arm, hitting the floor on each side, and giving high fives and have found that a low high five (is that redundant?) is the easiest for her although still a struggle. For a while she was getting frustrated and just answering no to everything. Today she was a lot more focused and although she still struggled, I was always able to tell what she was trying to say. I'm hoping that with more practice she will be able to communicate well with them at any time.
After working hard with the bands, I used our Proloquo2go app to let her choose between playing with the magnet paper dolls and reading a book. She of course chose the dolls! :)
*Proloquo2go is another thing we could use some ideas for. Still need to play with it and figure the program out a little better but right now we have it set to only display two options at a time as that's all she can handle fine motor wise. One of our biggest problems with it so far is the fact that Mol accidentally scrolls up or down while trying to select an option. Also, with only two options per page and her not really being able to navigate through the program it poses some problems as we would really like this to be something she can use further down the road to fully communicate. Any thoughts or suggestions on this program and making it work for Mol would be greatly appreciated!*
We finished up the obstacle course with introducing the letter F and watching the F song of Mol's favorite, the Storybots while she sat independently.
Molly had such a great day today and I hope that continuing to work with her this way will be not only fun but also will help her learn and see the benefits of what we are trying to teach her.
Once again, any ideas would be much appreciated as would prayers for this very special girl!
Some days she'll do great and I'll be so encouraged. But more often than not, her stubborn streak comes out and everything is a battle. Some days she'll refuse to sit up or roll over. Others she won't communicate. And some days she won't do anything she's asked at all.
Most of the time it's hard to find the reasons for these behaviors. Is she trying to express frustration or anger about something? Is she trying to take advantage of having something she feels she has control over? Is she just really distracted? Is she being lazy? Is she just plain stubborn?
The hard part is, if she would work with us in getting a solid way for her to communicate, she could let us know what's going on :(
I think being creative and making things fun is going to be the best way to get Molly going and understanding the independence these skills will allow her.
My problem? I don't have a creative bone in my body.
I made it work today but I am now officially out of ideas!
I thought I'd share what we did today and then if anyone has any ideas or thoughts, please let me know. I am open to any and all ideas you can come up with in any of these areas!
She currently knows letters A-E so I made a little station for each of those letters and one to introduce F.
Once she got the letter A to the wall, she got to sit up and play with the rainmaker - having to flip it over before the beads would fall through. She couldn't quite do it by herself but with me keeping it from sliding around, she was able to flip it mostly on her own.
When she had finished, she got to crawl through the tunnel (which she loves although it is very tough for her and her arms frequently get caught by the wires!) to the next station...
...B!
Is this letter H?
No.
Is it D?
No.
Is it A?
No.
Is it B?
Yes (with giggles)!
I asked her if she wanted to color the page and after answering yes, she got to pick out her crayons and fill in the B.
When she had finished, I asked her if she wanted me to hang her picture up on the wall next to some of Lily and Nolan's from earlier this week.
I got back a yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Her artwork is now proudly being displayed on the wall in our living room :)
From there she had to look around the room and point out the C where we practiced colors.
She found the red and blue sticks right away and pointed to the cup of the same color but it was with a little bit of struggle that she finally got the sticks into the cups.
Yellow and green she needed a little reminder of but then did those as well!
Next she had to find D out of a few options and then pick it up, reach up, and put it on the ledge which was probably the hardest thing for her. Then she had to find it again out of a few options above, pick it up, and set it down on the ground.
When she had finished, she had to lie down and roll over to get to the ball. Then I sat her up and she picked up the ball and had to lift it to the top of the ramp. She enjoyed it immensely and asked to do it again!
I laid her down on her back and then she had to roll over and creep across the room to the E station - her favorite.
First, I asked her yes/no questions about the name of the letter using some yes/no arm bands we just recently got. We really like the idea of them for Mol as they are more portable and easily used than the iPad. The problem though has been her lack of control over her left arm. We put the yes on the left as that is the side it is on on the app but most of the time she tries to lift her left arm, the right goes along with it. We tried getting her to answer by lifting up each arm, hitting the floor on each side, and giving high fives and have found that a low high five (is that redundant?) is the easiest for her although still a struggle. For a while she was getting frustrated and just answering no to everything. Today she was a lot more focused and although she still struggled, I was always able to tell what she was trying to say. I'm hoping that with more practice she will be able to communicate well with them at any time.
After working hard with the bands, I used our Proloquo2go app to let her choose between playing with the magnet paper dolls and reading a book. She of course chose the dolls! :)
*Proloquo2go is another thing we could use some ideas for. Still need to play with it and figure the program out a little better but right now we have it set to only display two options at a time as that's all she can handle fine motor wise. One of our biggest problems with it so far is the fact that Mol accidentally scrolls up or down while trying to select an option. Also, with only two options per page and her not really being able to navigate through the program it poses some problems as we would really like this to be something she can use further down the road to fully communicate. Any thoughts or suggestions on this program and making it work for Mol would be greatly appreciated!*
We finished up the obstacle course with introducing the letter F and watching the F song of Mol's favorite, the Storybots while she sat independently.
Molly had such a great day today and I hope that continuing to work with her this way will be not only fun but also will help her learn and see the benefits of what we are trying to teach her.
Once again, any ideas would be much appreciated as would prayers for this very special girl!
No comments:
Post a Comment