11-14-18
Santino was in usual good spirits today and was very active around the classroom during transition time, exploring toys and trying to remove a wall chart. As he seemed a bit ready to expend some physical energy, and in efforts to redirect him in more purposeful activity, this tutor accompanied Santino outdoors to the play area. Santino was excited to go outdoors and vocalized in an overtly happy, animated, and excited manner when we first entered the play arena. He is becoming more familiar with the equipment and increasingly confident of his skills and ability. Santino stood up going down one slide, and then proceeded to the next, where he examined the structure prior to going down it, laughing upon landing. He also enjoyed going up and down the rungs on the ladder and did so with greater confidence, speed, and dexterity. After a brief 10 - 15 minutes of physical activity, we went inside the facility where Santino was shown to the sink. He motioned towards the faucet, and when afforded hand-over-hand modelling and support, Santino used soap and washed his hands. However, when the towel was given to him, Santino made no effort to dry his hands with it – so this tutor assisted him, showing him how he needed to complete the task. Following this, we returned to the classroom where Santino was tasked with a letter identification goal. With prompting and support, he was asked to pick out the upper and lower case letters ‘A’/'a" from an assortment of peel and stick letters. Santino was happy to work with letters, but needed an initial prompt to demonstrate what was expected. He was shown a card on which the letter 'A' was shown with tracing guidelines on it. The same was shown for a card showing a lower case 'a.' With his finger, Santino traced the letters in the correct direction, and he also put a smaller lower-case letter on top of the card showing a lower case 'a'. This tutor afforded him a great deal of verbal praise and high fives for tracing the letters. He did so one other time after this tutor began the tracing motion with her finger. He appeared to understand what was expected and proceeded to trace the shape of the letters himself. Santino remained engaged in this activity for at least 20 minutes. He greatly enjoyed it when this tutor placed the letters in random spots on his face. He repeatedly touched them as if to gain information about the texture and placement of the letters from his tactile sensory modality. When another tutor passed by and took a video, another sensory component was added – that of sight. When shown a picture of how he looked, Santino giggled and laughed at himself, peering and observing his face from a variety of different angles, which afforded him an opportunity to gain different perspectives about his appearance. This card and letter activity was handed over to Santino's subsequent tutor so that the great positive reaction it elicited could be reinforced and gains consolidated. Today proved to be a most enjoyable, rewarding, and engaging one for Santino.