Summertime!

Summer is upon us at the Plato household. Memorial Day is Monday, and Ignatius has two more school days this week before he is officially sprung. Max and I are both done with our obligations of school... Max finished up ECE at Colene Hoose on May 21, and his last day at Little Jewels was Thursday. I completed my tenth year in District 87 and my nineteenth year of teaching in total. Feels weird typing that!

On Friday, Max and I spent our afternoon in the backyard at our friend, Krystal's, house. She just got an in-ground pool installed this spring, and the kids were loving it (OK, the adults were loving it as well). Here is a photo of Max exploring one of the many areas on the side of the pool.

We also met with April, our PLAY consultant, on Thursday. This session consisted of "meeting" Max where he was in play and using techniques from the program to get more out of his communication experiences. Our previous goals remain the same, and now we will be building on them:
1. use "taffy pulling:" stretch the interactions and keep them going by gently teasing or making funny sounds; this engages him and makes fertile ground for his use of language to fulfill his needs
2. use affect in voice in play; continue with simple words, no more than three words at a time; no questioning; use voice intonation to "create" a question
3. use a sense of humor, suspense, and surprise; find ways to make him laugh (pretend you are sleeping and wake suddenly when he gets close; use slapstick humor)

It really requires conscious effort to remember to incorporate this, but there are many times throughout his day that lend themselves nicely to these. Some of these are things that many parents use with much younger children. When he was "of age" for the crazy affect in voice (akin to when you play peek-a-boo with an infant), he was not engaging. So, to a degree, we are backtracking to meet him where he is and guide him forward.

The idea of using only a few words has proven very powerful, and, to those who know me, this is the MOST difficult part for me. :) I have been finding that the most frustrating times involve those moments when I am using way too many words.

April videotaped parts of my interactions with Max and will be sending me the DVD and transcript. She also gave me a DVD of our "baseline" play-based interactions from the first session. She also indicated that, from the looks of how he was engaging in problem solving, she was seeing definite cognitive strength, and she thought he might not have a struggle with the academic part of school based on what she was seeing. That was unexpected, and quite frankly, a relief. We shall see how that transpires over the next few years. She was really impressed with his problem solving ability. We spent a great deal of time at our gate in the back yard. We did "taffy pulling" to get him to express what he wanted (help with opening the gate). When we were not being particularly helpful to him, he found a nearby stick in the yard to help him in his goal. While he didn't completely open the gate by himself, he showed a LOT of efforts in trying to communicate his needs without a whole lot of screaming going on.

I realized that I was getting really good at Max's "language." However, responding to him based on what I knew he was conveying is not enough. I will not always be there to interpret for him, and he must start using words more to assist in allowing others to know his needs. As a family, we have become enablers to a degree... I think that was based on survival.

So, onward we go with our many summertime pursuits. We will be starting the summer reading program at the local library this week. I have plenty of things to keep the boys (and me) very busy!