Skills

Right now I'm in discussions with Nathan's iep team about placement for next year. That's a subject for another blog post, and one I'm still processing and thinking about. One thing that is always hard is having those skill deficits pointed out. I do see it, but somehow having it all laid out magnifies it for me, and it's hard. Something that always helps is to focus on Nathan's strengths and accomplishments.

*Just wanted to add a little edit to say that his IEP team DOES start off with strengths and is comprised of people who genuinely care about Nathan and want to see him succeed. It's just that by definition, we are talking about challenges and how to help with those.*

One of the many things discussed was not using toys functionally, but preferring to mouth them or spin them. Of course, electronic toys he does use in a more functional way, but often he does just push buttons to hear a sound over and over and over again.

I found the Leapfrog phonics DJ at a thrift store. It is old but it is fully functional and Nathan loves it. It has a "find that letter" game. Given a choice between 6 letters at a time, you're supposed to pick the correct letter when the toy plays a (really annoying) song about the letter. At first, Nathan just wanted to hear the songs and was not guessing the letters at all, which was not surprising to me. Then I noticed that the toy seemed to be telling him what a good job he was doing, so I paid a little more attention, and observed that he was guessing the letters and getting them right! I knew he recognizes letters, but it's nice to see him find them all when he is asked to do so!

He also really, really loves his Leapfrog Tag Reader and accompanying books. The book "Ozzie and Mack" has games in the back. If you try to play a level 2 or 3 game, it advises you that you must master level 1 first. I thought this was quite unlikely to happen, as Nathan doesn't really play the games, but generally likes to lay on the floor listening to the music it makes during the time when he's supposed to be searching for the whatever. So I was really surprised last to hear the toy start a level 2 game!
"Nathan", I said, "did you master level 1?". Nathan touched his Tag reader to the level 1 button on the page. A game commenced, in which he was asked to find multiple insects on the page as fast as he can: ant, grasshopper, dragonfly, etc . As he'd find one, the game gives feedback that he's got it right and names another bug. I'm not sure what the allotted time is, but its not very long, and there are 15 bugs on the page, corresponding to some of the letters of the alphabet. Nathan correctly found 7 before time was up! I didn't even know he was engaging with this game and following its directions, but apparently he was quietly mastering it! The Level 2 game is finding the letters when they are named, so I'm sure he will manage to master that one too.