Jack enjoyed listening to the story, 'A Mother for Choco'. Jack drew a picture of something he likes doing with his mother (hugging) and then dictated a few sentences about things he likes to do with his mom. We reviewed the short a and the short i sounds. Jack benefits from encouragement to sound out each sound in a word. We worked on choosing the correct word to complete a sentence. The short o sound was introduced today. Jack knows the short o sound in isolation but would benefit from practice blending the sound in words. He did well determining if a given picture name had the short o sound in it. He also did well blending CVC words with the short o sound. We played a sight word game in which Jack took one step (on our way to the kitchen) for each sight word he read correctly. We reviewed writing the numbers 0-5. Jack needed a few reminders about the direction of some of the numbers. Today, we worked on same, greater than, and less than. Jack did well on these concepts. We played a game of 'War' to practice and then added the number of the two cards starting with the number that was greater. Jack had snack with the children in the science camp. He also sat with the children for a bit while they learned about the brain. Jack dictated another chapter of his train story. We spent the last few minutes on the playground.

Santino did not come to program today.

Jack enjoyed listening to the book, 'Jack's Garden'. He was very interested in the names of the different insects and birds. We continue to practice blending words rather than guessing from context. Jack did well reading phrases and then matching them to the corresponding pictures. He has done well with short a and short i. Next week the short o vowel sound will be introduced. He is able to write numbers 0-5. Next week, writing the number 6 will be introduced. Jack is beginning to be able to add low digits without pictures. We will continue to practice adding. Jack enjoys working on 'Math Seeds'. He practiced adding with and without pictures.

When Santino was brought in by Ingrid today, she mentioned that he might be a bit disoriented because he was up in the middle of the night for hours, woke up very late, and refused breakfast. I did notice he seemed a bit subdued and tired; his behaviors were quieter. Nonetheless, Santino was cooperative when tasked with a few activities. He assembled a magnetic alphabet puzzle and knew how to put the letters back in their correct order when I intentionally rearranged them incorrectly. He also identified the pig in his favorite 7-piece farm puzzle and selected the correct letter ('P') from several shown to him when verbally prompted. He also was able to hand me some of the animals in a 6-piece jungle puzzle and placed them in their appropriate spot on the puzzle board. Santino handed me his bottle and became a bit more energized and vocal after drinking his vanilla shake. However, he did not use his communication board to indicate that he wanted to drink when shown the ‘yes’/’no’ Velcro picture options. He sang along in a clear voice to a song about ducks in a pond, which counts down how many are left in the lyrics. He also played the Little Baby Bum app, re-playing "The Wheels on the Bus” several times. Santino seems to gravitate towards playing it in Spanish, but he alternated between Spanish and English today, repeating the phrase "round and round" as he sang along. Next, Santino participated in putty and peg activities. He is given movement or sensory breaks after demonstrating evidence of sustained attention to the task. Santino is gradually improving his ability to sit at a desk for short intervals of time, given such intervals of movement periodically. He was able to find the items hidden in the green resistive putty and handed them back to me upon request with 80% accuracy. Hand-over-hand assistance and several prompts were needed to encourage him to sign "more" or "all done," during our sessions, and he did not remain engaged independent of prompts when I attempted to incorporate and utilize the communication board with him. However, he did transition from one classroom to another very well, demonstrating gains in his adaptability to change over time from previous sessions. Santino enjoyed imitating my rhythmic movements to songs, clapping after me and giggling as we hopped and skipped around the room. He seemed to enjoy musical activities today and left in good spirits after washing his hands at the sink, with minimal to moderate prompts needed only to dispense soap from the dispenser and obtain paper towels.

Jack enjoyed listening to the story, 'Grandpa Bud'. We focused on sequence and cause and effect. Jack said that apples were her favorite food. He did well describing apples using his 5 senses. Jack needed some encouragement and redirection to practice writing numbers 1-5. Once engaged, he did well counting sets of objects and writing the corresponding number. We continue to practice picture addition and to encourage counting on. We took a brief recess and played outside. Jack did well reading CVC words that contained the short a and short i sound. Jack continues to benefit from encouragement to sound out the whole word rather than guess based on the initial sound. We practiced sight words and added a few cards to his sight word box. Jack enjoyed dictating another chapter in his train book. In 'Math Seeds', Jack worked on picture addition, adding to 3 without pictures and counting on.

Jack enjoyed listening to the book, 'If you Give a Mouse a Cookie'. Cause and effect and story sequencing were areas of focus. Jack did very well on a cut and paste activity in which he ordered pictures of things the mouse wanted in the story. He enjoyed making a mouse puppet and acting out parts of the story. Today, writing the number 5 was introduced. We will continue to work on writing the number 5 and reviewing writing the numbers 1-4. We worked on picture addition. Encouragement and prompting were utilized to count on, rather than count each set individually and then count the first set and the second. In phonics we worked on short a and short i and blending CVC words. He did well choosing which two out of three words rhymed. Jack enjoyed a listening game in which he had to guess the answer to the a riddle in picture form and then wait for direction on how to identify the picture. He dictated the next chapter in his train story. Jack had pizza today with the children in science camp. Lastly, Jack worked in the 'Math Seeds' program on matching word to standard form, picture addition, adding one, time to the hour and making ten frames.

Jack enjoyed listening to the book, 'Fish out of Water'. We used the story to practice the skills of sequencing and determining cause and effect. Paper fish were used to work on picture addition. We played a game of 'Addition Connect Four' to practice the strategy of counting on. We will continue to practice counting on to improve accuracy. Jack used the whiteboard to practice writing the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. He also counted objects and then wrote the number of objects. Friday, we will work on writing the number 5. In phonics, I continue to encourage Jack to sound out all the sounds in a word, rather than guessing. He is able to state the sound of letters in isolation, but accuracy is less consistent when blending the sounds in a word. Today, Jack was asked to choose the correct short a word to complete a sentence. He also completed an activity where he circled the correct word that named a picture. Jack enjoyed dictating an additional chapter to his train story. He is quite pleased with the story and asks for all the chapters to be read back to him. Jack did well with a connect the dot picture with numbers to 20. He also enjoyed cracking the code to reveal a secret message. In 'Math Seeds', Jack worked on ordering numbers from smallest to largest, matching word form to standard form, completing patterns and determining if a set of objects was more than or less than a given number. We took a brief break in the morning. Jack had lunch at school today. Although Jack did not seek out engagement with the other children in the lunchroom, he responded appropriately to their questions and comments. He participated in a game outside with the other children. He did well following the rules and waiting his turn.

I found Santino working in a different classroom today, having just finished his session with the speech therapist. When I appeared at the door to the classroom, we put together a sequence of actions to facilitate Santino's anticipatory response to my arrival and expectation of opening the door after hearing a knock. He required repetition and physical prompts to complete this task. Santino went to grab my hand and kept looking toward the door, so we went outside to the play area as it was cooler today and earlier in the day that we started our session together. Santino first assisted me in watering the plants with both the watering can and a hose today. He was afforded hand-over-hand to assist him and verbal prompts to facilitate his ability to stay focused on the task. He was then given a bit of time to enjoy some of the playground equipment. Santino went down the slide, climbed up the ladder rung, and through the tunnel. I narrated his every action as he went up, down, through, under and over to help him understand the connection between his actions and their language equivalents. We used an exercise ball to help improve and increase body strength, coordination, endurance, and body awareness. Santino enjoyed the stimulation he received from the rolling action of his body on the ball and giggled whenever he moved to and fro. The exercise also serves to facilitate his proprioceptive awareness, the internal sense that tells us where our body parts are without having to look at them. After about twenty minutes, we went inside to wash up and Santino was given an opportunity to have a drink and eat a snack. Although he already had the organic nutritional shake in his bottle from the previous session, Santino handed me the bottle of PediaSure vanilla shake. I switched out the two different liquids and Santino enjoyed drinking his shake and eating Apple Jacks cereal, which he did independently. He remained engaged while watching some videos during his lunch break, repeating several favorites on a loop and listening to them in Spanish and English while spontaneously vocalizing. When he was done eating, we proceeded back into the kitchen to wash our hands. Chaining has proved to be a beneficial behavioral strategy by which I had broken down this task into its smaller sequential steps and that helped improve Santino's self-help skills in the area of grooming and specifically hand-washing. He as yet requires moderate assistance to obtain soap from the dispenser as it is a more complex task, and to dry his hands using paper towels. A subsequent goal will use the behavioral technique of chaining to help Santino acquire the skills needed to obtain paper towels from the dispenser and dry his hands with increased independence.

Santino was brought to school by Ingrid today, and I showed him how to punch in the 4 digits to open the inner door to the program. He was fascinated by the outcome of his actions. After entering the classroom, we began the session working on a puzzle activity. Santino demonstrated the necessary finger dexterity, manual coordination, and visual perceptual skills needed to physically assemble the 7 pieces of the puzzle, but he only identified the pig upon request. We used the Boogie Board to write the word 'pig' and traced it with our fingers before erasing it and moving on to the next animal from the puzzle on which we were working. I had taken out his food and beverage options for the day and Santino brought me two yogurts. I opened one and Santino said 'raspberry' after taking a bite; the yogurt was indeed raspberry flavored. I encouraged Santino to self-feed by fading physical prompts, but he would only eat when spoon fed the yogurt, thrusting his head slightly upward when the spoon was placed in his mouth. However, he was hungry, which he indicated via gestures; when I put the yogurt down momentarily, Santino came over and re-presented it to me so as to continue eating. We then watched some of Santino's favorite fairy tales on the computer. He particularly enjoys Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, occasionally spontaneously repeating some words or phrases. I showed Santino how to use the mouse and afforded him physical prompts to do so. Santino next handed me the Fruit Loops cereal. We opened it together and Santino thoroughly enjoyed feeding himself. He identified the shape as a circle after I did. I next read a Nickelodeon Wonder Pets book called, 'Baby Elephant Rescue,' and Santino pushed the buttons on this interactive book and mimicked the sound of an elephant. We next stacked 5 boxes from biggest to smallest. He preferred stacking them at his own pace, but was more receptive than in the past to allowing me to demonstrate how I wanted it done. We next worked on a ‘Stack and Sort' board, to help develop color and shape recognition. This activity also helps to develop fine motor skills, eye/hand coordination, visual discrimination, sequencing, and sorting skills. Some extension activities worked on included asking Santino for a specific colored or shaped block and counting them, with prompting techniques faded with emergent gains. Santino was initially engaged in this activity, but he required a several verbal prompts to refocus his attention to the task at hand. He ultimately stacked them by color but did not identify the 5 different shapes, which I have heard in his verbal repertoire in the past. As Santino is responsive to tactile stimuli/stimulation and differences in texture, the last activity of the day involved gluing noodles onto the letters of his name that we traced on construction paper. Once the noodles were dried onto the paper, I had Santino feel the sensation as he lightly traced his name with his fingers to engage his sense of touch and proprioceptive awareness in efforts to facilitate learning, letter sense, identification, and retention. Santino ate one other yogurt snack while working on manipulating and identifying magnetic letters. He stacked the letters in a vertical column, in order, beginning with the letter 'A' , but grew a bit frustrated when he was unable to find the letter 'f' in the bin. We then proceeded to the sink and Santino was prompted to wash his hands, which he did with minimal assistance. He also drank about 4 cups of water from a small Dixie cup just as his mom arrived to pick him up. She saw the art work we made and plans to hang it on her refrigerator when the glue is fully dry.

Jack enjoyed listening to 'The Cat in the Hat'. He often figured out the rhyme and finished the line. He did very well on a comprehension activity in which he circled the picture that answered a question about the story. When asked what he would do to get the Cat in the Hat out of his house, he said he would show the cat a picture of his family. He said the cat would miss his family and go home to see them. Jack practiced writing the numbers 1, 2,3, and 4 by counting objects and then writing the number. He caught on quickly to the strategy of counting on to add. We practiced the strategy both on paper and on 'Math Seeds'. We continue to practice reading and spelling words with the short a and the short i sound. Jack is more consistently blending the whole word. He was pleased that he could read a short book that focused on the short i sound. Jack did well identifying sets of objects that were more or less. He enjoyed dictating another chapter of his book on trains. We joined the science camp briefly to participate in the dry ice experiment. Jack followed the rules and took his turn. Lastly, Jack worked on 'Math Seeds' on counting on with picture addition and matching numbers to their corresponding word forms.