Social Stories

A common "issue" with kids with Down Syndrome is stubbornness.  Yes, I know, all of you parents out there who have little ones are saying," all kids are stubborn" and that may be true but kids with DS tend to have a little extra punch.  This is not true for all kiddos but a lot.  Also, this stubbornness  is not always a bad thing but can be a bit frustrating.  Here lately we have been dealing with a little of the battle of the wills at our house.  Landon is really testing his boundaries and this is a lot easier to deal with at home compared to dealing with it while we are out or at therapy.

The two areas that have been VERY difficult have been during speech therapy and swim lessons.  After a little research I decided to try the idea of creating a social story.  Social stories were originally thought of for kids with autism but really work for any child who would benefit from expectations written out and read over in book form. I thought I would make a social story for speech first to see how it worked.  I took the camera to speech and took pictures of EVERYTHING.  Starting with what he does while I sign him in to what he does when we are done with speech.  IT WORKED!!!  I didn't really have high expectations but just thought it was worth a try, and like everything else we do with Landon, he proved me wrong.  Before I did the social story, when I told him we were going to speech he would say, "no, no, no" and during speech he wouldn't follow the schdule, wouldn't cooperate or do what was asked of him.  Since writing the book and reading it with him at least one day before and the day of speech, none of those things are true.  He has been obeying Ms. Lori and acting like he had been a few months ago.

Because the social story seemed to be working with speech I decided to try to make one for his swim lessons.  His teachers are college students and they were not very firm with him.  He was getting out of the pool several times and ignoring them when they would ask him to get back in.  He would say, "all done, all done" after not even really trying to do what they asked. so....I took the camera to swim lessons and took lots of pictures. Then the social story was created.  We read the story several times before swim lessons and guess what....the best behavior he has had since he started. :) 

Quincadence or not... I don't know but i really think they work.  I look forward to going to speech again and am thankful that he is finally showing his swim teachers what a good little boy he is.  It's amazing that something as simple as a story can change a situation.  I am very thankful.

Am I the only one?

There are times when I wonder if a mother of a typical developing child feels the same way I do.  I wonder if other moms notice when their child does some the seemingly smallest task.  I first began to think about this when Landon was working on sitting up.  I had no idea that there were so many steps to this task.  I just thought that one day you looked down at your precious little one and they were sitting.  That was not the case for us...it took lots of work and many weeks of physical therapy to accomplish this goal.  But let me tell you... when it happened, we cheered and clapped like no ones business.  Do moms of typical developing children even notice the first time they see this?  Do they throw a "party" and have a special dinner because of the accomplishment?  I don't know but I know what happened in this family!!

I say all of this to set up the occurrence at speech this week.  Landon has been working so hard on his speech the past 6 months.  He gets therapy at school and then we also take him to private speech at Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center in Chartlottesville once a week for an hour.  Lately he has been working on saying "ing" verbs in a three word utterance with no prompting.  Ms. Lori, his therapist, shows him a picture and the goal is for Landon to say, for example, "The girl is running".  Many of the pictures he has seen and knows what the verb should be but needs help putting the whole sentence together so Ms. Lori helps him by using sign language.  Well, yesterday Ms. Lori showed him a picture that he had not seen before.  It was of a baby taking a bath.  Landon looked at the picture, immediately said, "Baby is..." and then there was a pause.  You could see the little wheels turning in his head as he was trying to find the right word.  He knew that the word should probably end in -ing which is why there was a pause but he couldn't come up with the right fit so he said "in bath tub".  You would have thought that he just recited the Gettysburg Address.  No, it wasn't exactly what we were trying for but it was so much more.  We clapped, cheered, gave high fives, and praised him. And then it happened.....I began to cry.  My little boy had just said, "Baby is...in bath tub"  all by himself, with no verbal or signed ques.  It was a moment that I will never for get...a moment that I wonder how many moms would have over looked?  I am so thankful that these "little" moments don't pass me by.  I am so thankful that my little boy's hard work pays off.  Honestly..... I'm just proud of him.

Private Speech Therapy

Today was Landon's first official private speech therapy with Ms. Lori. I'm not sure if he was excited but I sure was. I am amazed at what she could get him to do with a little persistence. As you know, I was not overly thrilled with the speech he was/is getting at school. I don't think it is any fault of the therapist, just the way "things are" in the school system. I am very excited about the potential Landon showed today considering I don't feel that he progressed as much as he could have with a little more "push" during the school year. I have VERY high hopes for the months ahead. She has even agreed to allow me to video her sessions with Landon so that Travis and I can look back over it to help us better work with Landon at home.

The first thing we discussed was goals. Ms. Lori has written out a few goals for Landon to get him started. First let me show you the goals that were written in Landon's IEP for last year.

Area of Need: Expressive language
Annual Goal: By August 2010. Landon will increase expressive language skills to be able to communicate effectively , orally or by using signs, in 80% of opportunities in the school setting.

Area of Need: Articulation
Annual Goal: By August 2010, Landon will improve the intelligibility of speech production to be understood in 70% of opportunities presented daily.

These goals sound great and I agreed to them BUT looking back I have a few problems. First, no one really used signs with him. If his speech was not moving along they should have been working on signs in order to meet his expressive language goal. Second, there is no mention of how Landon was going to get from "point A" to "point B". I understand that they can't write all of the short term goals in his IEP but that is why I requested getting update every couple of weeks to let me know what they were working on. How many updates did I get last school year from speech? One, and that was after I wrote a letter requesting an update. Nothing there after. 

Now, compare the IEP goals with the ones that Ms. Lori wrote after meeting Landon only one time for his evaluation.

1. Landon will select activity when presented with a picture choice in a field of up to 6 pictures 100% of opportunities with given a verbal command.
2. Landon will imitate a variety of CV sounds on 9/10 trials with minimal cueing.
3. Landon will produce simple CVC words 9/10 trials in two consecutive sessions without cueing.
4. Landon will use a sign or picture card with verbal approximations 4/5 trials to request an object during two consecutive sessions without cueing.
5. Landon will spontaneously use 5 two word combinations in one session.

Ms. Lori told me that she thought Landon would master #1, #2, & #4 soon but that gave us something to start with. #3 & #5 were the two big goals that she wanted to work on and that she would add more as she met with Landon and sees more of what his need is. I can't wait to show you what she does with him during a session. After only one meeting, she has inspired me to create a "communication board" , which I'll write about a little later, to help give Landon choices and chances to talk and put words together that we know he can say.

Due to Ms. Lori going on vacation and Landon and I taking a trip to K'ville before school starts we will not have another session until the 18th. I can't wait!!