Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Recent Activities with Dad

I wanted to log a few things I have been working on with Henry in the past few days. On Sunday, we did three short activities.

Unloading laundry from the washer to the dryer - he has done this many time and it's apparent that he's quite confident in his role. I tried just about everything I could think of to create productive uncertainty... I dropped the item in front of him, I put it on his head, I wouldn't let go. He really seemed to go with the flow.

8-7-07 - We unloaded laundry again but this time Henry got the laundry out of the washer and handed it to me to put in the dryer. I threw kinks by not putting the item in the dryer, he would just wait or look at me but he never got upset or appeared uneasy.

Watering the flowers - we typically start from the back, but this time, we started in the front and it didn't phase him. Also, I wanted to see how he would react when I didn't hang the previous basket and he was fine with it. The last time we did the exercise, he wouldn't start watering the next basket until the previous basket was hung.

Unloading the dishwasher - here he handed me dishes and I would put them away. He would space out here and there but when he did, I would clear my throat and if that didn't do it, I'd say "I need a plate" or something to that affect. When we got to the silverware, he didn't want to do it anymore. Not sure if it was because he was bored of the activity or that he didn't feel comfortable doing the silverware after the dishes because he always does the silverware exclusively (OCD issue).

Our morning routing - it's changed up a little since he has been in summer school. We really don't have time to do a whole lot but I do usually pick out his clothes and make sure he gets dressed. He seems to be understanding when he needs to take off his bed clothes when I say "it's time to get dressed" but with the putting on clothes part, he gets very distracted. I guess it's because he likes being naked but unfortunately, they won't let him into school that way. I try not to use too much speech when directing him to put on his clothes and now that I think about it, lately, have been using almost none. I'll hand him his underwear and if he's spacing out and twirling them around like he does, I'll take them from him and lay them out again. Sometimes I'll have to grab his arm and lead him to the floor where the clothes are laid out. If I don't lay out the clothes all at once, at times I'll hand him his shirt before his underwear (which he usually puts on first, who doesn't?) and see how he reacts. He used to always try to put the shirt on his feet but lately, I've noticed that he's putting it over his head so it seems like he's paying better attention as far as that goes. That's progress, right?

8-8-07 - Well... I gave him is shirt first today and he tried put it on his legs. I said 'this is a shirt' and that still didn't register. I guess I should have given him some non-verbal prompts or a more straight-forward verbal prompt because I eventually had to put it over his head.