Goals/Progress
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I haven’t managed to keep this page up to date, but there are a few entries to give you an idea of what we have been working on.
Goals March 2010
- Offer food in a fun and ‘no obligation’ way!
- Be creative with the fruit and vegetables and explore them with Henry
- Offer positive experiences around food
- Praise anything that Henry does with the food!
- Tell Henry that he can try when ever he wants but add no pressure
- Use the Mange Tout cards to give you ideas for activities with fruit and vegetables.
Helping Henry to speak in more full sentences particularly the first part of sentences.
Praise and celebrate Henry’s wonderful language
When Henry is highly motivated model the full sentence you would like him to say
When he uses full sentences make sure that your response is quicker and more excited – show him there is a difference
Help Henry be more flexible in giving and taking control.
Offer Henry exaggerated control in areas where he is particularly controlling eg the tap, the door
Model change and problem solving in role play games when things don’t happen as they should -eg the swings being taken at the park, the friend not wanting to play the same game
Remember to be user friendly
Use games like Simple Simon Says, or the Okey Cokey to encourage Henry to follow and take instruction
Offer Henry choices in your games so that there
Encourage Henry to play a wider variety of games
Try using motivation, anticipation, excitement, secrets etc to introduce your game
Only introduce your game if Henry is connected and you have rapport with him.
Try different styles of games with Henry eg:
Gross Motor – Sports, Chase, Hide/Seek
Fine Motor – crafts, drawing, play dough, sewing, cooking, building
Social Role Play/Imagination games – eg at the park, doctors, chefs, space
Listening games – eg books, comic strips, puppets, pretend tv
structured games – board game, card games, dominoes,
Language games – where the focus is on language (these will tend to be repetitive games as it has to be!)
Cognitive games – Games which make Henry think in an academic sense eg matching, counting, letter recognition etc
nce in our response to his nice voice and his shouting.
When he is being very shouty give him exaggerated control. This means giving him what he wants and more. EG if he wants you to sit down, sit down and turn away slightly to take away the eye contact as well.
Praise his listening and patience
In addition – Encourage Henry to take turns where appropriate
When you are playing games with Henry and there is an opportunity to take turns see how Henry copes with this and if he will let you.
Never compromise the interaction and connection but always give Henry the opportunity to allow you to have a go. Remember No means No for 5 minutes then you can ask again! (Of course always check on his connection and motivation!)
Aswell as simple board games/matching pairs/lotto games rememeber to ask Henry to take turns in activity games like hide and seek, role play etc.
Don’t forget to really praise Henry for letting you have a turn and remember to tell him how much fun you have when you take turns.
October 09 update
Henry personality continues to grow and shine and his social behaviour is now at such a level that we are now able to take him to places that he previously loathed and found so distressing. Examples of these include the cinema, restaurants, indoor play areas that he has not previously been to, a public bus, supermarkets, Sutton town centre, the school run and 2 weeks abroad including a 12 hour car and boat journey (something we would never have entertained 12 months ago!).
He is so much calmer these days and absolutely loves other children. He now actively seeks out other children in play areas and although communication is still hard for him he is able to communicate and talk to them enough to play with them as an equal. Henry has a wonderful concept now of a ‘friend’ and actually will tell you ‘ Look Daddy, a Friend!’. Henry plays with the other children after school and other parents have been amazed by how happy and communicative and playful he is now compared to the hysterical, screaming child they used to see.
Henry really seems to understand everything so much better now. He remembers things that have happened and talks about them in great detail. He is also able to associate and can remember where he has left something and is developing a concept of then and now and what comes next. He is also able to think a little out of the box. For example in hide and seek games we can give simple clues to find objects and he is able to think them through and find the right answer
Academic Progress
Running the Son-Rise Program the primary goals at the moment will always be our SOCIAL GOALS, however this is not to say that we are do not also see the importance of his academic development and we are also working on this in the games and activities that we take into the playroom.
Here is a summary of the progress we feel Henry has made academically in the last 6 months:
- Henry can now cut out with a great degree of accuracy, He is doing particularly well as it does appear that he is left-handed so we do need to get him some left-handed scissors!
- He is able to follow quite complex and narrow mazes and is able to independently draw faces. It has been difficult to get him to draw in the last few months however this is now returning so we are currently having to re-visit the progress that we had made before.
- He is starting to recognise familiar words eg animal names and letters, eg his initial and his sisters etc. And is trying really hard to pronounce the sounds and looks at you as you say them.
- Henry has really matured in his attitude to books and will now listen to stories and let you read all the text and wait to turn the page. He is also very open to talking about what the book is about and looking at the different pictures and what is happening on each page.
- Henry, like with his drawing, seemed to go off counting etc after he made great progress. However again, since his flexibility has so greatly improved, so has this. This time Henry really seems to understand not just the sequence of number but also its purpose. He is able to recognise 1 or 2 objects now without counting them specifically and will use this is in his spontaneous language. He is also starting to understand the concept of ‘2 of something’ although he is still inclined to count out all of that category at the moment!
- Henry’s sorting and categorising is also fantastic. He is now able to easily sort colours and shapes/animals and has even done well in more complex tasks like sorting animals with ears and animals without ears. He tends to sort spontaneously without us having to explain the task in hand!
- Henry is also able to take part in simple turn taking games and is able to complete up to a 20 piece jigsaw easily (when is motivated). He is also able to copy simple patterns/structures as well for example using the blocks or with fuzzy felts.
Special changes July 09
- Henry has been on a 2 week holiday, on a 14 hour journey in a car and on a ferry, settled into a caravan without any problems and participated in all the holiday activities and shown excitement and enjoyment!
- Henry is spontaneously speaking in 4+ sentences on a regular basis and is constantly telling you what he is doing/what he has seen/what others are doing! Examples include: ‘Mommy, what are you doing in that box?’, ‘When finish, dinosaur on’, ‘I can’t do it’.
- When Henry does use 2 word sentences he is putting together an adjective and a noun without prompting, eg black rock, big tree, baby starfish.
- For the first time ever on holiday we were able to negotiate with Henry. We told him that unless he ate his sausages he would not be allowed anything else to eat. We did this 4//5 times and have carried it on at home although its success has wavered at times at home!
- Since we came back from holiday, Henry’s flexibility has been amazing. He has virtually gone with every activity that we have taken in to the playroom and he is willing to follow instructions and wait for things. This is a big change.
- Henry is now consistently painting and focusing on the picture instead of simply painting the whole piece of paper. He has also completed his first colouring where he actually colours different parts of the picture with different colours and was really willing to follow instructions and directions.
- Henry is now able to sit and read a book with you and not constantly turn the pages. He will listen and wait for you to say ‘turn the page’.
- Henry is able to change direction with the scissors without you turning the paper for him
Review of Henry’s Current Goals October 2008
When Henry does look in our eyes he tends to give us a ‘quality’ look which we feel is generally 3 seconds however he doesn’t always choose to look at us when he is speaking and asking for something so this is the area that we would like to work on now.
Henry is definitely starting to put more of his words together and made massive progress in the command of his speech (he not only asks for what he wants but wants to share information and ask questions) however he is not putting small sentences together consistently and spontaneously so we really want to keep this goal and continue encouraging him to use more of his vocabulary without being prompted.
Henry has made fantastic progress with symbolic play and he now knows how to pour tea into the tea cup and pretends to serve and eat cake, he puts figures up a miniature slide using the steps and uses his dinosaurs to chase each other and fight! So now we really want to expand this goal into role play and encouraging him to pretend to be something like a cat or a plane aswell!
Henry will now verbally participate in games with us and does so more and more without the need for prompting and he can transfer words he has learnt in one game into another and answer questions that you ask him and he will direct play, eg he will tell you to “run” with the dinosaur, or tell you to “get up” or “sit down” or to “try again”, which we are so pleased with. However like the language goal he still does not do this consistently so we would like to keep concentrating on this goal until Henry is willing to sponatenously participate verbally in our activities.
Aswell as Henry’s Son-Rise goals we shall also be setting specific educational targets to stretch Henry’s development during the session, however SOCIAL INTERACTION is still the primary focus and most important aspect of his growth.
Since we started the Son-Rise programme full-time in September 08 Henry has made progress in the following educational areas:
- He can draw circles and lines and has drawn a face with eyes, nose a ‘big smile’ a body with arms and legs without any need for prompting with the order.
- He recognises and says the following shapes – heart, circle, cross, star, triangle, square, oval and diamond.
- He can count up to 15 fluently and is developing an understanding of ‘lets count’ and ‘how many’ and will count items as you point to them.
- He can roll out play doh with a rolling pin and can roll them into ‘sausages’ with his hands.
- He is developing an understanding of some opposites – fast and slow, asleep and awake, big and little, up and down.
Goals October 2009INTERACTIVE ATTENTION SPAN
We feel Henry has reached a good level and no work is needed at the moment
FLEXIBILITY
Encourage Henry to take turns in and take part in games with simple structure or rules.
LANGUAGE
Help Henry to use his nice voice more often.
Help Henry to express his needs more fully using fuller sentences and greater clarity.
EYE CONTACT
Henry’s eye contact is very good and is not a m
Additional Goal
Give Henry the opportunity to accept negotiation and reason around playing his, and our, games and take turns with each of our games.