Last Friday we went to an Earth Day Celebration where they had a live animal demonstration by The Creature Teachers. The kids had a blast interacting with the animals, and I decided that for today's RPM session I would create a lesson plan about the animals we saw. For visuals I used pictures I had taken of the animals at the party. When we got to the chinchilla his face just lit up and he touched the picture. Suddenly he was less fidgety and very attentive, choosing each answer correctly and very deliberately, and with a huge smile. After I asked him the questions in the lesson, I asked him if the chinchilla was his favorite, which got another big smile! His facial expression was priceless, and I wish I had it on film...the moment he realized he could share something as simple as "My favorite animal was the ______" with another.
Later, as he was setlling down for bed, I showed him another photo of the chinchilla on my cell phone. He took the phone from me and looked at it for a minute, kissed it and handed it back! *mwaah* That kiss is for you, Aidan!
I shall try to think of these things when you are throwing furniture.....Love you!
4/26/11
4/15/11
RPM......Finally
After months of delays (but also preparation), we are finally getting started on RPM! A few weeks ago I started talking about it to Aidan, which made him very curious. He kept bringing me the book I have on it and pointing to the picture of Soma on the back. When I finally showed him some learning materials he looked very interested and sat right down. Of course he still had to test the waters by throwing paper, pencils, etc to the floor, but I calmly persisted (which I confess isn't always my way) and when he realized my reaction wasn't going to be very entertaining he settled in......hmmm maybe I should try calm and persistant more often....
I'm keeping the initial sessions more calm and conversational to ease him into it, but I did manage a little bit of academics. I began with talking about to him about his hands and how important they are to his ability to communicate, then we moved on to Jack's Big Music Show (his favorite show, he chose all the right answers!), alphabet, numbers, days of the week, and what foods are fruit. He was more fidgety on the first day, basically showing me that he was able to choose but didn't much feel like it!
Today he was more interested and willing to work because he knew what to expect, and he floored me by answering most of the questions about fruit correctly (we got more detailed today and talked about how it grows from seeds, etc) and knowing several shapes.
All the clips I've seen of kids communicating fluently using RPM and all that I've read about it could not have prepared me for what I felt seeing my son choose correct answers and confirm what we've known all along: there is SO much going on in there, and there is a way to reach him, to educate him, and to enable him to show what he knows. This is not to say that everything went perfectly and there's nothing to fine tune, there were some times when he didn't choose and wouldn't look and was generally uncooperative, but I'm quite frankly surprised at seeing such promising results this soon. We have a long road ahead of us, but there's no better destination for the boy who sat down across from me, took my face in his hands, looked into my eyes and smiled when I told him that I wanted everyone to know how smart he is.
I'm keeping the initial sessions more calm and conversational to ease him into it, but I did manage a little bit of academics. I began with talking about to him about his hands and how important they are to his ability to communicate, then we moved on to Jack's Big Music Show (his favorite show, he chose all the right answers!), alphabet, numbers, days of the week, and what foods are fruit. He was more fidgety on the first day, basically showing me that he was able to choose but didn't much feel like it!
Today he was more interested and willing to work because he knew what to expect, and he floored me by answering most of the questions about fruit correctly (we got more detailed today and talked about how it grows from seeds, etc) and knowing several shapes.
All the clips I've seen of kids communicating fluently using RPM and all that I've read about it could not have prepared me for what I felt seeing my son choose correct answers and confirm what we've known all along: there is SO much going on in there, and there is a way to reach him, to educate him, and to enable him to show what he knows. This is not to say that everything went perfectly and there's nothing to fine tune, there were some times when he didn't choose and wouldn't look and was generally uncooperative, but I'm quite frankly surprised at seeing such promising results this soon. We have a long road ahead of us, but there's no better destination for the boy who sat down across from me, took my face in his hands, looked into my eyes and smiled when I told him that I wanted everyone to know how smart he is.
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