Clinic Days

I can't believe I'm about to say this...

Sometimes, I wish I was back in my on-campus grad school clinic days, where I could videotape my sessions with the kiddos for self-evaluation (and playbacks of comic relief). As the intensity with N320 waxes and wanes, I continue to call the "experts" in. My head spins from all of the suggestions that I receive but fortunately, the past three experts have given me extremely effective suggestions. Unbeknownst to them, a lot of their suggestions overlap (thankfully). The difference with them vs. others is that they have physically been present with me through the Battle of Wills Part VII (i.e., 7th month) vs. others who give me instructions without being present.

Yesterday and today, Ms. KT has been with me. (She is the MF'n woman. I wish she was also my CFY supervisor b/c she is a G with the 320s!) It's been amazing (and comical) the past two days with the kiddos, especially with the two more challenging ones (J320 and N320). With KT's guidance, I conducted group therapy sessions during snack time. The results were awesome as we worked on quiet sitting, turn-taking, requesting, initiation, and expanding MLU. I wish she had had the time to show me much earlier on.

The funniest was J320. He is pretty much the only one that throws a mean tantrum. Prior to escalating to a tantrum (to get what he wants), he will shout to get someone's attention. So, throughout the entire snack time, he kept barking, "CHIP PLEASE!!" (more like, "CHI-PLEE!!") to get my attention. Whenever I turned to him and asked, "huh?" or "what do you want?" or looked at him with raised eyebrows, then he'd say in a calmer tone, "Iwanchiplee." Sometimes, if he didn't say it "nice" enough or if he got ahead of himself and asked for something I didn't have ("I want grapefruit please"), then I'd make him try his request again. At times, he would get so anxious that he'd yell out, "I need help please! Chip please!" And I still wouldn't give it to him until he asked in a calmer tone, "I want chip please." It must've been torture for him, but it was a good behavior-shaping lesson. Today, I wouldn't honor any of his requests until he first had "quiet sitting" (which is immensely difficult for this one) and then asked calmly. Again, he got so anxious that when I prompted N320, "I want..." then before N320 could make his request, J320 would butt in and yell, "chip please!" or "help please! Chip please!" sometimes followed by "WATER! WATER!" You'd swear I was depriving him food and water for days!

KT continued to guide me through therapy with N320 and in the end, we had him following one-step directions. It was like a miracle. With J320, we pulled him in for a quick first lesson on Quiet Sitting. It was pretty comical b/c J320 was soOoOOoo fidgety that KT prompted him literally every 2-5 seconds, "quiet feet/hands/sitting." The longest he was able to sit without fidgeting was ~10 seconds.

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All in all, I have to say that yesterday and today were very hectic but excellent work days. Today was a much longer and productive day than I had anticipated, since I also had 3 IEPs, the last one being semi-unexpected b/c Mom didn't call to confirm! I had just walked into my room 5 minutes before and was going to leave, when I heard the custodian let somebody in. Mom and her son showed up. The thing is that I didn't expect the IEP to be a time for Mom to lecture her son...for an hour and a half! I left at 4, when all the teachers had left at 12! I didn't even bring up that her son used to ditch speech in the very beginning.

Back to KT, I'm glad she came b/c she also filled me in on the latest summer school news...that I might have a total of nine kiddos with severe autism beginning summer school!! Holy snikeys!! If I have even one more J320 and N320, I think my hair'll be half white by the end of the summer. The other news is that TCL may not have the chance to work summer! KT had me cracking up b/c as immensely professional and mature as she is, she said to me, "[TCL] even looks crazy! She looks like she's going to have a breakdown any second! Actually, I'm surprised she hasn't yet!" I couldn't help but admit that when I talk about That Crazy Lady, I truly do refer to her as That Crazy Lady.

Let's hope that she isn't technologically savvy enough to somehow find my blog...She may be crazy, but she is also very intelligent. What's that saying? There's a fine line between genius and insanity?