Month: September 2017

It’s Friday!

Posted on by MICHELLE N
William with Mrs. Hana after school

Friday afternoon, another hot autumn day.

As usual I picked him up after my quick lunch around 1:00 PM.  I always try to arrive before 1:00 so that I can find a parking spot near the gate.  Almost everyday he walks out with Mrs. Hana; and today with a big smile on his face.

I told the teacher aids about toilet training William at home; and they told Mrs. Hana.  So Mrs. Hana asked me if I want to do that here at Mitchell.  I’m glad that Mrs. Hana is so willingly to help with toilet training.  It’s been a whole week (since Monday this week) and she says there’s no accident at all; we’re so proud of you William!

It becomes a routine now that after I pick him up, I let him play in the car while trying to feed him some thing like hot dogs, sausage or cheese.  Daily report says he doesn’t eat much at lunch so I always bring him some thing to eat before driving him to the daycare.  As soon as he’s done eating we’ll take off and head to the day care; It’s usually about 1:40 PM.

William loves to play in my car
Selfie with mommy! William always finishes this bottle of milk.

Clean up After Your Mess, William!

Posted on by MICHELLE N
Ipad after clean up

Wednesday, ABA session with Mr. Dan at 5:30 PM.

William saw me walking to the living so he followed me there.  He turned on the light and then pushed all the magazines from the coffee table to the ground!  So Mr. Dan set a mission to make William put up everything back on the table before he can play.

His method is to get William’s attention on a toy, then ask William to clean up before he can play the toy.

First Dan tried to blow the bubbles and made some noise with domino.  William didn’t seem to be interested in that: he kept playing and sitting on the magazines without looking up.   Then Dan tried different toys but William did not care either. Finally Dan asked me for William’s ipad: the most powerful enforcer!

So Dan turned on YouTube, played some videos on the iPad; and soon William came to him.  So iPad won!

– “Hi William, do you want iPad?  – Dan kept the iPad and would not let William touched it.”

– “iPad”

– “You will have iPad but fist let’s clean up the magazine first and then we get to play with iPad.”

So they both went to the coffee table.

– “Dan’s turn to clean up” –  Dan put some magazines on the table while he said that.  “William’s turn to clean up” – he gave some to William and asked him to put on the table.  William did a few times and then refused to do it.

– “Sorry William, you have to clean up first.”  So Dan went back to the dining table, turn on the iPad; and push up the speaker volumn.

William hang around the coffee table a bit and then ran back to the iPad.  Mr. Dan repeated the same thing.  “Let’s clean up first, then iPad!”

This time William helped to put all the magazines back on the  coffee table but as soon as he done, he pushed everything back on the ground!

– “Sorry William, that’s not right, clean up first before we can play.”  – So Dan took the iPad with him to the dining room.

William ran to the iPad. Mr. Dan said the same thing!

4th time, finally William was compliant; with Mr. Dan’s help to put all the magazines on the table and did not push them down again.

I was so impressed with the way Dan handled the situation with a very calm voice and patience.

Hopefully this way William will understands that if he messes things up, he needs to clean up.

 

 

 

 

Speech Evaluation

Posted on by MICHELLE N

I got an approval letter from Cal-optima regarding William’s doctor request for speech evaluation; which surprised me because I thought the doctor office should send the approval request few weeks back when they requested for hearing test.  So I called Magnolia Medical group, where William’s doctor is (Dr. Huy / YenChi) ; it turned out that last time they only requested for HEARING test; which means I need to make another appointment with Providence Speech and Hearing center for William to have a SPEECH evaluation.

So I called Providence, the next available appointment is Thursday Oct 26, which is 1 month away!  Looks like it’s the average appointment time with Providence because last time it also took about a month to have hearing test appointment too.

This time I chose the location in Fountain Valley (17075 Bushard, Fountain Valley, CA 92602).  Last time I didn’t know they have a location in FV so we went to Orange location).

I wish the doctor’s office ordered both hearing and speech test last time so that we don’t have to wait another month for speech evaluation; then wait about 2 weeks for the report to ready;  until then the doctor office can initiate speech therapy request to Cal-Optima for my 3 year old son.  This process is just taking too long.

New ABA Staff

Posted on by MICHELLE N
William with teacher Dan, playing “Breaking the Ice” game

In order to prepare for transition to ABA services funded by Cal-Optima (currently our ABA service is funded by RCOC until end of Oct 2017),  ABEST’s director has made some changes with the staffs that teach William.  Ms. Annie has been the primary teacher for William, and some times Ms. Jody; and Mrs. Jody is also to supervise and parent training.   Cal-Optima has different requirements for ABA staffs that’s why Ms. Annie and Jody can’t be on the case anymore.

So William’s new teacher would be Mr. Dan, a very young nice man; and the supervisor would be Mr. Kevin which we have not met yet.

First day Mr. Dan is 1 on 1 with William, Mrs. Nhu came to make sure everything is fine. I love how she cares for her staffs and clients.
First day Mr. Dan came with lots of toys, he put them on the floor to see which one William likes.
Playing domino

 

Discrete Trial Training (DTT)

Posted on by MICHELLE N

William has DTT every morning from 8:30 AM for 20 minutes.  I heard the teacher and staffs saying the word DTT all the time, “William, let’s go to DTT” but never knew the meaning of it so today I asked Ms. Vanessa what it means.  She saids it’s Discrete Trial Training.

So i’m looking up this word in internet and starting to understand more about this technique.

http://www.educateautism.com/applied-behaviour-analysis/discrete-trial-training.html

“Discrete Trial Training is one of the most important instructional methods for children with autism”
– Smith (2001, p.86)

Hopefully William is learning from DTT.  William has made lots of progress over the past few months; I’m not sure it’s because he’s learning from school or from ABA sessions at home, which is 5 days a week from 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM (Mon-Fri).

Now he likes to sing Happy Birthday, ABC  and Twinkle Little star songs.  He knows to request for “More Time” when he wants to play with toys that he likes.  He uses the word “Open” a lot when requests to open the door or candy packets.  He learns to say in a complete sentence “I want iPad”.  And he’s toilet training at home.

And importantly he responds to his name by looking up; which he never did before.

Cough Again?

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Wednesday Morning 8:30 AM.  I dropped William off at his classroom; he put his backpack in his slot and ran to the play area as usual while I was talking to Ms. Vanessa for a few minutes.  When I looked over to the play area, I saw William lying on the floor with his face up and crying; his hands were trying to wipe off tears!  Not sure what happened but when I picked him up, he coughed several times and looked like he was feeling nauseous.  So Ms. Vanessa called the school nurse; Mrs. Krastine came by a few minutes later.  She listened to William’s heart, looked into his ears and said everything is good.

So I let him stay at the school; mainly because I know for sure he’s fine; maybe when he felt on the floor something got into his mouth that caused his cough.  He was totally fine at him when I prepared him to school in the morning.  He was sleepy but not sick.

Hopefully his day goes well today!

Special Treat From Mr. Gary

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Mr. Gary was there when I dropped William off at the Children World preschool after Mitchell school.  Now that Ms. Leila and Mo don’t work there anymore; Mr. Gary is watching the children in the room where William takes a nap.  I told him William didn’t eat at lunch so he went to the kitchen, hit up some tortilla and roll it up with a slice of ham.  William looked so happy when I put the plate in front of him; he bit a small piece.

After a few bites, Mr. Gary asked him to go to bed.  I really don’t like the location where his bed is: it’s under a hangar that full of stuffs.  What if they fall? And it’s right by the entry from the yard where all the dust from the sand, big trees can fly in; his allergies will get worse.  I’m planning to tell Mr. Gary to move his bed today.

His bed is next to the door (right) which is entrance from the play yard full of dust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The left door is to the next class room and small kitchen. His bed is right under the hangar that full of stuffs; there are 2 buckets of water which I’m not sure what they are. Hopefully it’s not chemical stuffs.

No School Day

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Wednesday, William is still coughing so I decided to work from home to take care of him.  He slept until 9:30 AM and woke up then ran into my office.  His face lighted up to see the door open because the door to this room is always closed.

No Mitchell school, no daycare, William seems to feel better staying at home. I didn’t see him cough much later in the day.

Speech & Hearing Evaluation

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Monday 3:00 PM at Providence Speech and Hearing Center.

William’s primary care doctor  refers us to Providence Speech and Hearing Center so that William can have speech and hearing test. According to the doctor, his test of 2 years ago is too old so she wants us to do a new evaluation.  This is a necessary step in order to request for speech therapy.

Our appointment is 3:00 PM. Our plan is Tim will pick William up at Mitchell school at 1:00 PM, take him home, feed him some pizza and then take him to the Providence center around 2:30 PM.

One year ago when he was evaluated by the psychologist from Mitchell Child Development Center (Santa Ana School District); they said William is not ready for Speech therapy because even though he was 3 years old, his development was about the same as 6 months old children.   Over the year I’ve seen him progresses a lot; now he’d repeat the words we say and listen to our simple request more.  Especially he’d make eyes contact when we say hi or bye.

So I hope if he can have speech therapy soon, he’ll improve his speech at faster pace.  I’m just afraid that the process of getting him to speech therapy is too long.  It took about 1 and half month to get appointment with Providence Speech and Hearing Center for evaluation alone!