Nursery Rhymes on Video Site

Looking on YouTube for interesting nursery rhymes I found this site:
Autism Is My Life

Created by a mom for her son to use for independent leisure times.

Documenting Handwriting Progress

In addition to reviewing class work, I've been taking monthly samples of a student's writing.  This customized paper can be generated from the Handwriting Without Tears site, under "A+ Worksheet Maker."  http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/online-tools/APLUS

Each sample is clearly dated and I also write down which words or letters the adult has written.  This may seem silly but it sometimes gets a little hard to figure out what I've written and what the student has written, especially since I try to always write sample text for students with my non-dominant hand.  Students sit to my right and I use my left hand to write the letters so the students can see how the pencil is moving on the paper.

In my opinion, the most important measure of improvement is the student's functional writing in the classroom and on homework.  Writing performed under the direct supervision of a friendly therapist is usually a lot more legible than what the hard-working teacher sees on a daily basis.  Yet, it is good to document what the student's "best" handwriting can look like, since that gives us insight into the factors which influence legibility. 
Do they need extra time to form letters correctly--do they rush through the writing in class so they can move on to something else--do they have a difficult time remembering where they are on the page?  Knowing this information helps us suggest accommodations and strategies to the teachers to aid writing in class.

Take Small Bites

Do you have food stuffers on your caseload? Students who like to imitate chipmunks while they're eating?  Sometimes this can be quite dangerous since they overstuff their mouths and then try to swallow the entire bolus of food.

Quickly adapt the lunch tray (cut off the lid to use as a plate) to permit students to practice eating small amounts of food, portioned out by the teacher/classroom assistant.  By giving students just a few bites at a time they may develop better habits related to portion intake.

If you're working with a student who has decreased sensation or impaired oralmuscular control primarily on one side of their face then you've got to add a bunch of other interventions to this simple adaption.

More Letterboxing at the High School

Our letterboxing activity continued this morning.  Thankfully we had beautiful weather, which was very important since it was SOL testing day in the school and the halls needed to remain very quiet during testing.  Our students were quite excited about the activity and it would have been a little difficult to only whisper as we traveled down those long hallways.

Our speech-language pathologist had spent her weekend making up the directions for finding the letterbox kits at two locations outside the school building.  She made up a set of directions with pictures and another set of directions with only text.  The students slipped the shorter, text-only version into their letterboxing journals.  Can you guess where we were headed first?

 You're right--the tennis courts! 

Our letterboxing kits aren't fancy, just clear plastic bags with the stamp, journal and stamp pad inside.  One observant student found this kit pretty quickly, tucked along one side of the court.

We sat on the tennis court and took turns putting our personal stamp into the journal for the tennis court.  Second, we took out the stamp representing the tennis court and stamped it into our personal journals.

 Some students needed a little physical cueing to stamp firmly enough for the design to be seen on the page.

The second mystery location turned out to be the modern sculpture in front of the school's main entrance.  The poor occupational therapist worked hard over the weekend to figure out how in the world to represent this design in a simple stamp.

 Our very observant student was able to locate the letterbox kit for this location.

Students took turns stamping their stamp design into the journal for the sculpture and then stamped the stamp design for the sculpture into their personal journals.

The OT's husband had told her that the tennis racket design looked like a tree, but we all agreed that it really does look like a tennis racket, sort of.

Everything in Its Place

In our elementary schools students work on word sorts each week.  Sets of words are grouped in word families (stop, pop, top, plop) and students use them in different ways during the week.  I try to schedule time with my students when they are working with their word sorts because they have to cut the words apart, align them in columns according to their word families and then glue them in place.  Great functional fine motor and spatial skills practice.  The composition books can get pretty thick, and often messy, with all the glued strips of words.
One teacher I see weekly, who has a class for students with moderate intellectual disabilities (MoID), runs a tight ship.  She is very creative in her teaching yet is also very orderly in how she has the students keep their materials that are used frequently in class.  Above you can see how she has them keep their Word Sort books and also the composition books in which they copy a morning greeting from the board or write other morning work. 

This class utilizes a set of word processors, which students use daily to write their vocabulary and spelling words and sometimes sentences which include the words.  Students also use the simple word processors for other writing, as the teacher wishes.

The teacher talked her husband into making these wooden stands to hold clipboards.  Students can sit tall and look straight ahead to see their words as they type.  If a student loses his/her place on the list then a simple sticky note can be used to underscore the word being typed.

Yes, the classroom organization even applies to lunch choices.  Students and teachers use the colorful nameplates to indicate their lunch choice.  One more way to foster functional reading skills.

My Obstacle Course website

http://www.myobstaclecourse.com/

This looks like a promising website for activities.

Little Snips

When you're shaky to start with, and life is so exciting that it makes you shake even more, and the foam you're trying to cut looks like the back of a stegosaurus...well, it's hard to hold your hands steady!

All year this little guy has had trouble even attempting to cut paper (even thick paper) so we tried cutting a leftover strip from one of the wristbands we made yesterday.  If I held the foam nice and taut then he could snip without turning the scissors into a plow.  So what if he used two hands--it's a start.

One cool thing about cutting along a dinosaur backbone is that some of the cutting areas are shallow and some are deep, so it's not too hard and not too easy when you're first learning how to coordinate your hands with the scissors.  Also, the ever-vigilant OT can shift the cutting spot a little to suit the student's abilities.