Mark answered many questions today!

brown jump. little look. make
Worms Live In the ground. i play basketball at the gym. Mom Can drive a Car to  Walmart. animals live in the ocean. pizza bakes in the oven.

Mark and I went to the Self Advocate Leadership Network Halloween party last night.  

I asked Mark who his friend was and he said, "Nemo"

Today, Mark did a great job answering my questions...we have come a long way from when we started and he did not even understand that I was asking a question and wanted a response/answer from him.  I think he gave appropriate answers for 4 of the 5 questions I asked!  I am also realizing how important it is to say what you mean and mean what you say...

Answering "Where" questions...

orange not one play said
We keep Apple Juice In The refngerator. The refrigerator is in the Kitchen. I can swing in the back yard. I see clouds in the sky. I swim. at the pool.


Great session this morning...I was even able to incorporate Mark's incessant asking for apple juice.  We are working on "where" questions so I asked him "Where do we keep the apple juice?" and then "Where is the refrigerator?"

Mark continues to do great on his spelling words!

Mark prays at McDonalds...

you gray am but where
I can buy food at Mcdonalds. I pray at church. i  learn at school. Cows live on a Farm. I watch movies At The theatre.


When I asked Mark where we pray, he said "McDonalds"...actually, he answered almost everything with McDonalds today...working through this but his answer made me laugh...

First Day of typing before school

my clothes Are in my bedroom. Apples Grow on a tree. I eat popcorn at the movies. boats sail on the sea. i get my hair cut at fantastic sams. 
white but did eat get

This morning, Mark was requesting "bowling"...this is a new request!  So excited to see him using new words.  Also, yesterday, we went to our church's Trunk or Treat and on the way there, Mark kept saying Trick or Treating, Trick or Treating, Trick or Treating....I was so surprised because 1) Mark has never been interested in Trick or Treating  and 2) this is also a new request that he has never said before!

I ran out of room on my phone (again)...I am going to try and use Joshua's iPod from now on...he has lots more room on it...

Started a new app called Camp Discovery and it is an ABA type learning app.  There are many different levels and I am going to proceed through them all with Mark each morning when we do our typing.

Mark's typing featured on blog...

Just had a "light bulb" moment...I have been printing off Mark's typing examples and I put it on the back of our lesson plan that we go through...well, finally realized that I should just copy and paste it into the blog so you can actually see what he types.  So, here it is, our Sunday lesson for today:

jesus has two rules For us. 
1. Love God With all your heart, mind, and soul. 
2. love your neighbor as yourself. 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy spirit. Amen.

Words Mark knows:

a

all

an

and

are

at

ate

be

big
black

blue

came

can

come

dad

do

down

funny

go

green

had

I

Idaho

if

in

into

is

it

live

me

mom

my

name

not

old

orange

play

red

run

sad

say

see

she

so

the

there

to

today

up

we

yellow

New format for Sunday typing

I have decided that Mark and I will be working on Sunday school material when we work on Sundays.  I will be the first to admit that I have not been keeping up with Mark's church studies.  He made his First Communion this past summer.  It was very exciting and Mark really enjoys receiving First Communion.

Our church provides a weekly lesson plan so we are going to work through these little lesson plans and do some typing.  We are working on answering "What" questions so I tried to ask him several "What" questions as we went through the material.  Mark was pretty excitable today so it was a little difficult to get him focused at first.  I could see right away that mixing this up and presenting new material will be great for his generalization....

Use word prediction (but not when you are doing a spelling test)...

Today, Mark and I finally got to do some typing...it seems like forever.  We had a great session.  I have added new questions and I can tell that Mark is starting to "listen" more when I ask him questions and he did well answering some questions independently!

I was giving him his spelling words and he started looking at the word prediction to help him spell the word!  I haven't bothered to turn it off because he didn't seem to be using it, but now we are going to have to turn it off...I am actually so excited about this because I wasn't sure how to teach him to use it and it seems he has figured it out himself...

Mark and I had a great time at the University of Idaho Homecoming parade!  He picked up some candy and Joshua rode on the 4-H float!

Generalization

As you may or may not know, generalization is a big thing when working with children with autism.  It seems that they can learn something in one context but the minute that the situation is changed (environment, time of day, etc...) they seem to forget the learning.  This is one reason that I wanted to work with Mark and then have Mr. Dan work with Mark so that he would get used to working with more than one person.  I also went into the school and spoke with Mark's para and teacher and encouraged them to also work on typing with Mark.  The more the better!

Yesterday, I got this email from one of Mark's therapists at his school:

"Mark did a great job typing today. He smiled frequently and was quite fun to work with. I gave him a choice of pictures to type about (2-3 at at time,) then encouraged a sentence out of him. In the past, I have usually written down his words and then covered up the ones I knew he knew how to spell.  The last couple sessions, I have been having him type from my just repeating his sentence.  We sounded out words he did not know and occasionally I would write down a word.  
Some words he spelled independently today were:
 pig
 man
 ride
 bike
 yellow
 
 As a reward for each sentence, he gets a fruit chew, but he has to type which color he wants, such as "I want blue."  He was a great sport and smiled often.  He typed four sentences about pictures and five "I want..." sentences.

I really think all your hard work is being generalized. His speech also continues to be much clearer. Today he kept saying "assignment" and "baby," just trying the words out, I suppose."

This really did bring tears of joy to my eyes...so happy that Mark is making great progress and I am working to make sure he continues...

I (Denise) will be out of town for a few days so there will not be any posts for a while.  I am going to Oklahoma City to the Self Advocates Becoming Empowered convention.  I am going as a support person for a young lady that wants to learn more about being an advocate.  I am hoping to learn a lot myself and will bring back any relevant information.

 If you are thinking about teaching your child to type for communication, I encourage you to just do it!  Start now...you will not regret it!

Better work today

Mark did great this morning and I can tell he is starting to grasp the concept of "categories".  Of course, right after I turned off the video, he correctly identified a category!  I was so happy...too bad I did not get it on video.

Decided that I will only post Words that Mark Knows on Sunday each week...the list is getting long and I am expecting it to get longer!

Words Mark knows:

a

an

are

be

big

blue

came

can

dad

do

go

had

I

Idaho

if

in

into

is

live

me

mom

my

name

old

orange

red

run

sad

say

see

she

so

the

there

today

up

we

Rough day...

Mark was not in a great mood today but we did make it through our session.  I am going  to try and mix it up a little with the typing...maybe he is getting bored...

Typing...

My phone is running out of room so my video kept cutting off...I'll try to make more space!

GUIDED ACCESS!!! You need to know about this...o, the

Do you have trouble with your kid hijacking your learning session and playing games on the iPad?  Then, you needed to set up Guided Access...it is pretty easy to set up.  Once it is in place, you have to put in a code to get "out" of an app that you are working on...hint:  don't share the code with your child...LOL...

As you can see at the bottom, I got this from Rosemary Crossley at the conference in Syracuse.

So, the boys do not have school today and tomorrow (Thursday and Friday) so I am looking forward to having  4 days to work with Mark on typing!