1/30/09

Things are going very well for Tyler. For a week now, he's been eating like there is no tomorrow. We are noticing his cheeks are beginning to fill out :) he actually is asking to eat and signed eat all on his own. I was in the kitchen and he walked up to me grabbed my hand and kind of threw it up toward the counter and then signed eat. He's really looking forward to eating as he asks to be put up in his chair at the table! We are no longer eating at the little table watching a video to get him to stay seated. We also do not have to use any type of supports such as books, etc. He's just happy to be there eating and at school the other day, he ate his full lunch all on his own! WOO HOO... things are really coming along in terms of his eating. one of the goals on his IEP has to do with him touching his food with his fingers, etc and that's also going well. He ate pineapple with his fingers and the sticky/wet of it didn't bother him. In the past, he's gotten upset or would obsess over his fingers/hand until we'd wipe away whatever was on his hand.

Back in November, Tyler had a bad bout of diarreah when we added in a new supplement to his diet. That experience caused him to start to rebel against diaper change...we dealt with this off and on until we got the norovirus and then of course with all that diahreah he definetly did not want his diaper changed so he'd do whatever he could to try to get out of it and protest while the diaper change was occuring. You learn in ABA 101 to not give any attention to bad behavior and give all kinds of attention to good behavior. Therefore, when changing Tyler's diaper, it is imperative that when he is throwing a fit, that no attention is given, we don't even give him any eye contact. We jsut change the diaper as fast as possible and then walk away. However, when we know he's gonna struggle with it, i.e. diarreah times or when he's not well, etc. we put supports in place before he acts up, i.e. we'll give him a toy before we lay him down tochange his diaper or we'll sing before we change the diaper so that we are helping him get through it. but if that does not/is not working and he begins to act up, you stop that support.. then if he stops acting up.. it's ok to start the support again. I'm not sure if any of that makes sense but essentially that's how we get him back to behaving appropriately during diaper change. It's working... he doesn't protest every diaper change anymore and his fits are taking less time to subside.i.e. he starts to whine or resist and realizes it's not getting him anywhyre, he stops.

Speaking of diaper change, we are beginning to potty train ben. He was ready for a while but didn't seem interested. Now he's interesetd and gets a jelly bean every time he goes potty on the big boy potty. We are gonna get him some pull ups this weekend. He's really doing a good job at going on the potty and looks forward to wearing big boy underwear like daddy!

We have an appt next week with Tyler's teacher and speech pathologist to discuss how Tyler is doing at school compared to his goals, etc. we are excited to announce that he has learned how to ride a bicycle and can now peddle faster than the teachers can walk and they can't keep up! They are gonna take video of him next week for us so we can show you. So cute! He also played trains with another kid in the class room which is huge. We have a lot of fights over trains/tracks in our house and he's usually pushing people away so it's great that he was interacting with another kid at school.

Steve and I also joined a parent support group at the school. THey provide child care onsite so it's fun for Ben too cause he feels like has a chance to go to school. THey actually watched the kids in Tyler's class room this week which was great since Tyler is familiar with it.