Accidents

For many years the Lark has been struggling with the concept of accidents. Until recently, if I accidentally bumped into him he would become angry. He couldn't understand that I hadn't meant to do it. But the other day we were singing together a little too exuberantly and we konked head. The Lark looked at me and said, "that was an accident." And he was not angry. Yesterday he spilled a bowl of rice on the floor. He looked at me with a sort of guilty expression and said, "it was an accident."

I think this is a really big step. It shows a developing awareness of his own and other people's intentions--and an ability to express that awareness. Now we'll try to explore the concept of being sorry.

Hiding Places

The Gray School is back in business now that summer's pretty much over. Over the summer we played a lot of hide and seek. As I reported, the Lark was getting more enjoyment out of being the seeker, but he was struggling with the being the hider, for several reasons. One reason was that he just couldn't come up with hiding places on his own. He just has a really hard time generating original ideas when asked to do so.

Well, yesterday we had an Easter egg hunt, and I had the Lark hide the eggs. He asked for my help several times, but I just kept hiding my eyes and waited to see what he would do. I sort of expected him to just open up all the eggs and eat all the jelly beans. But after a few minutes I went to take a look--and he had hidden all 8 Easter eggs, in pretty good places too. This is a really big step--that he could come up with the places, that they were all in fact hidden and not just sitting out in the open, that he trusted himself enough to act on his ideas, that he was able to resist eating the jelly beans.... Yay Lark!

Hide & Seek

We've been playing a lot of hide & seek this summer. Part of the pleasure of hide & seek is this: we put ourselves into a state of disequilibrium when we don't know where the hider(s) are, and we restore equilibrium when we find them. For young children who are new at the game, the tension and the relief are both much greater--they're afraid they really might not find you. This is why the game is really much more exciting for them. Until recently, the Lark didn't "get" this part of the game. He just looked for me because I would tickle him when he found me. He relied on me to hide in an easy enough place or make enough noise that he could find me easily. Otherwise, he'd just give up.

This summer it's different. I can hide in much harder places, and he works very hard to find me. He gets really nervous when he can't find me and calls out, "where's Mowbow?!" I make a little noise so he doesn't panic, and he keeps looking. When he finally spots a foot or something, he laughs out loud, really enjoying that restored sense of equilibrium, and he doesn't even care whether I tickle him or not. He's enjoying the game for its own sake.

The other role--the hiding part--he never used to get at all. I think he couldn't understand the other person's perspective enough to know what he had to do to hide so they couldn't see him. Also, he couldn't identify with the other person enough to share her feeling of tension and relief--and he probably still doesn't. He does at least understand the difference between a hiding place and a "seeing place," as he calls it. So now the challenges are to be able to come up with a hiding place and to share the seeker's feelings. He'll get there.

Leading

It's been a little hard to keep up with the blog now that it's summer. But we've been doing our grayschooling every day, and it's going well. Today the Lark did an amazing job leading us through the Lion Hunt story. It's a rhythmic call-and-response story. The leader says a line and then "everyone" repeats it. It involves hand-motions and sound effects. It moves slowly forward as we hunt the lion and then we go back through all the events in reverse as we run away from the lion. And the Lark led the way through the whole thing with just a few hints and reminders. And even when he faltered a bit, he never lost his confidence or became upset. I think this shows how much better he learns when there is no pressure. We did this story many times with me in the lead. He just had to repeat what I said. Finally, he decided to try leading when he was ready. I never really asked him to. By contrast, he is still struggling with our little frog story, which is shorter and simpler. But with the frog story I started making demands on him (and his memory) right away. I think that when I place this kind of pressure on him--no matter how easy I make the task--his capacity to take things in is diminished.

More Curious George

Yesterday we looked at Curious George some more, and the Lark was doing lots more thinking and relating. He looked at the first picture of George and said, "He's eating a banana." A few pages later he saw George trapped in a bag and asked, "What is it?" I told him George was trapped in a bag. He didn't know what to make of that, but I was trying to say as little as possible. Then we got to a picture of the ship that George would take back to the City. It was off in the distance and looked like a small boat. The Lark pointed to the little "house" part and said, "There's a bed in there." He was relating this picture to what he knew about his grandfather's boat, which has a little compartment for sleeping. Luckily, on the next page there was a picure of George and the Man in their cabin, which had beds in it. The Lark was clearly pleased that his assumption turned out to be true. He pointed out the blankets and the pillows. He was curious about the curtains on the two berths. "These beds have curtians," he declared. He wanted to know about the little window and the ocean outside. He asked about lots of things. Then he pointed to George and said, "It's like Tony." And he pointed to the Man and said, "It's like [the Lark]." He was comparing this picture to a photo we have of the Lark and his brother in the tiny sleeping compartment on their grandfather's boat. So the Lark wasn't thinking about the story, or the actual relationship of the characters in the story, but he was trying to relate what he saw to his own life, which is exactly what typical children do with story books. It's the first step And the really exciting part was just how hard the Lark was working to make sense of the pictures--he was motivated, and voluntarily doing the work of thinking and making sense.

Identifying with Curious George

After a week's break, we're back at the Gray School (Summer Edition). As I've said many times, one of our main goals in the Gray School is to help the Lark develop narrative thinking and narrative comprehension. An important element of narrative thinking is the ability to identify with the characters in a story, so we are always trying to stimulate identification--with real people, with animals, and with characters in stories.

Today we tried Curious George again--the first one. I remembered that it had pictures of George walking on telephone wires and floatng away with a bunch of balloons. The Lark has frequently expressed a desire to fly, to jump down from the clouds, and even specifically to climb up a telephone pole and to float up with a balloon. So I sat down with him and the book and opened it up to the pictures of these things. I didn't say anything about the story; I just tried to express my identification with George--"Be careful, Curious!" or "Wheee, up he goes!" The Lark was very interested and amused. He pointed at the picture of George hanging on to the balloons and looking very frightened, and said, "That will be the end of Curious George!" (This is a phrase I use when he asks me things like, what will happen if he jumps out of the car as it's moving--I say, that will be the end of the Lark." He finds this very funny.) Anyway, when I pointed to George up on the wire and gave a look of mock anxienty, the Lark matched my expression with his own and then laughed.

The best part is that I resisted the urge to take it any farther than this. I'll pick it up again tomorrow and see what happens.

Meaning Emerges

There are many activities we do with children that they don't understand at first. But if we repeat the activities often enough, they gradually become meaningful. This year we kept a running tally of our days in the Gray School. Every day we added a tally mark, then we sang our song ("How Many Days Have We Been in the Gray School?"), and then we counted our groups of five to find the answer. At first the Lark did not seem to understand this activity, but now he does. He understands that we add only one mark for each day, and that if we count up all the marks, we can see how many days we've been in the Gray School.

The important point is, there are a lot of activities that they don't bother doing with the "self-contained" kids at the Lark's school, because they think it wouldn't be meaningful for them (like Star of the Week and Art Awareness and poetry and class performances and class pets), but if the kids had been doing them since kindergarten, then these activities would have become meaningful by now.

Story Time

Today during story time we read some Shel Silverstein poems. (Paula suggested we try Shel Silverstein, and it was a great suggestion. The Lark really enjoys some of his poems and drawings.) Anyway, after we were done with that, the Lark said, "Let's tell a Box Toot Toot Video Broken story" (or something like that). Maybe he noticed that we hadn't actually had a story (or maybe he was just thinking about breaking videos). I said, "Okay, how should we start?" And he said, "Once upon a time, there was...." He didn't know how to continue, so I said, "What was there?" And he said, "A box." Then I said, "Okay, once upon a time, there was a box, and...?" And he said, "It was a Toot Toot box." And on we went. I had to provide lots of support, but the Lark told his own story--and it really was a story--about how he broke a video and then it didn't work so we had to throw it in the trash. This was such a triumph for me! Narrative thinking is one of our most important goals, since it is really the most basic way we understand the world. And the Lark actually managed to tell his own story today.

Raising the Bar

The Lark seemed to be getting tired of some of our activities--certain song-games and "act-outs." I was trying to think of new activities, but then I remembered one of the many things I learned from doing RDI: you don't need to keep coming up with new activities; you just have to keep adding new challenges to the ones you're doing. This worked really well today. For instance, there's this one tiny little "scene" we perform, in which I'm usually the narrator and the Lark does the actions. Today I had the Lark do the narration (it's very short and simple) while I did the actions. He seemed to enjoy this, and he did such a good job. He left out a bit, but he got the main idea, and his intonation was perfect! I also asked him to lead us in our morning warm-up activities (seasonal songs with movements). I gave him a list of the songs and let him initiate and guide us through each one. Again, he did a great job.

As part of our calendar activities, every day we locate the current day on a big calendar, and then follow the instructions we find written there. It's usually a two-step instruction (e.g., find the last day of May and draw a stop sign on it; find the first Saturday in May and draw a star on it). Today for the first time the Lark was able to complete the first step and then remember and perform the second step without any help and without even looking back at the instruction.

Imitation and Narrative Thinking

For some time, the Lark has been in the habit of climbing or descending stairs and counting as he goes. Yesterday he added something new: he climbed to the top of the stair, and when he reached the top, he gave a big, theatrical sigh, as if he were exhausted. Then he went down the stairs and did the same thing. He may have taken this from our Lion Hunt story (which we do every other day) in which we punctuate each step of the arduous journey with a dramatic sigh and a wipe of the brow. So he was able to imitate the gesture and take it from one narrative context into another. Pretty cool!

Narrative Comprehension

We're working on three different stories in the Gray School now. The Frog Story, which we've been working on for some time, is coming along. We've been focusing on two narrative dimensions--motivation of the characters (the frogs are very hot so they jump into the water) and outcome of actions (they feel much better). We don't use a book. We just tell the story together using figures and props. I think for a final project I'll videotape Marco telling the story with props and show it to the family.

A few weeks ago we added a story about a Lion Hunt (like the well known Bear Hunt story), which uses rhythm and hand gestures and again, no book. In this one we're focusing on two more narrative dimensions--visualizing the images and tracking the sequence of events. If and when I get the feeling that the Lark actually is visualizing the images, we'll try making our own picture book with all the scenes in the correct order.

Just this week we added the Three Little Pigs (simplified to the One Little Pig and the Big, Bad Wolf), again with no book but with figures and props. In this one I'd like to focus on the characters and the interaction between them, hopefully building toward identification with the little pig. I don't know what we'll do for a project yet.

I've decided not to use books for a couple of reasons. First of all, if the Lark likes a book, he tends to memorize it--in lieu of understanding the story. Obviously this is not what we want. Second, there are so many ways to engage with a book without ever engaging with the narrative--there are the pictures, the words (even the font), the cover, the feel of the pages, etc. We really want to focus on the narrative without any distractions. Third, with a book, the story is exactly the same every time. When we tell the story from memory, it's a little different every time, so the Lark can see for himself that there are many ways to tell the same story (building flexibility). This may also provide a good memory exercise, which would be good for both of us :) We'll see!

Pharaoh's Fury

This morning the Lark was swinging his hand back and forth in a pendulum-like way. I asked, "What's that, Lark?" He looked at me, and instead of telling me, gave me a clue. He added a "whooosh, whooosh, whooosh," one whooosh with each swing of the hand. "Let me guess," I said, "Pharaoh's Fury?" And he told me I was right. (Pharaoh's Fury is a carnival ride that swings back and forth.)

I took this as a sign that our ACT-OUT program is helping. The goal of ACT-OUT is to help the Lark develop his capacity for mimesis. Mimesis is when we act something out with the intention of communicating or consciously externalizing a mental representation. This is a basic form of communication, more basic than spoken language. Children engage in mimesis when they make pretend. A wedding ceremony is a mimetic event--the bride and her father take a long, slow walk down the aisle, symbolizing the life they've had together; they separate, symbolizing the beginning of her new life; the ring symbolizes the bond of marriage; the kiss symbolizes the physical union. Mimesis exists along with spoken language. People who develop spoken language without mimesis (like many people with autism) miss the whole mimetic subtext of spoken language (i.e., body language).

For people with narrative comprehension deficit disorder, developing the mimetic capacity is important because it is during mimetic activity that young children begin to integrate the many dimensions of experience (setting, characters, actions, intentions, etc.) into a coherent narrative. That is, this is where mimesis ends up--in sophisticated pretend play. But it begins with the ability to externalize and share mental representations by means of physical actions. Which is (I think) what the Lark was doing when he added the "whooosh whooosh" to his hand gesture so that I would understand it.

Puzzles

The Lark has suddenly become interested in doing jigsaw puzzles. He even brings them to me and asks me to "play" them with him. He's also happy to do them when I suggest it. I'm not sure what to attribute this development to, but I'm hoping it's a sign that our narrative thinking activities are bearing fruit. In the narrative thinking activities, we work on being able to integrate several different pieces of information into a coherent whole. When we do a puzzle, we take separate bits of information--shape, color, picture details--and hold them in mind together while we decide where to put each piece. We also have to hold in mind what our goal is and where we are with respect to that goal.

In any case, it's fun to be able to do a more organized activity with the Lark, and one that moves a bit beyond his private little set of interests.

Reciprocity

The Lark has been making lots of progress when it comes to reciprocal interaction. This is really encouraging, and it just feels so good when it happens. The other day he asked to play a game we used to play years ago but haven't done in a long time--make a "Marco sandwich." He lies down and we pretend to add ingredients, one by one, tickling him with each addition. He helps me think of things--salami, pepperoni, mustard, pickles. Sometimes we add silly ingredients--bugs and worms. Then we pile on pillows or beanbags, pretending that's the bread. Then I jump on top of him and tickle him. Well, he requested this game, so we made a Marco sandwich. When we were done, I said, "what should we make now?" And he said, "a Mowbow sandwich!" Interestingly, once I lay down and waited for him to start, he realized he didn't know how to perform the other role. I could just see him suddenly stop and get confused. So I helped him a bit. But the important thing was that the impulse to reciprocate was there.

On Friday, two other new things happened. At one point, during a break, I tickled the Lark, and he quite spontaneously tickled me back. So I tickled him again, and he tickled me back again and smiled at me. We went back and forth this way a couple of times before it sort of petered out. This was really exciting. Then later we were at a coffee shop having a treat. We were sitting side by side on a divan. The Lark has his arm around my waist (he's very cuddly in general). He gave me three little squeezes in a row. I smiled at him. He looked at me expectantly. So I gave his arm three little squeezes in a row. Then he squeezed my waist four times. So I squeezed his arm four times. Then he did another little pattern for me to follow, and so on. This seems like such a little thing, but it's actually such a big deal. The Lark has been able to follow patterns easily for a long time, but the fact that he came up with the idea to initiate a little game, the whole object of which was to be reciprocal, was so nice. And the fact that he knew how to indicate, but doing something and then looking expectantly, that he was starting a game and he wanted me to know it, shows so much growth in his understanding of intersubjectivity.

Knowing When To Stop

I have to learn to resist the urge to squeeze in that one last thing--a lesson in telling time or shoe-tying--before we stop for lunch. The last little thing I squeeze in never goes well. The Lark is just ready to be done, and I end up feeling like I'm squandering his good will by making him do this thing just for the sake of I don't know what.

I think the reason I do this is that in general I haven't found the right balance between teaching the practical little things that are relatively easy to teach (adding and subtracting, dressing and bathing, playing the piano, doing jumping jacks, coordinating our actions, understanding gestures, etc.) and the big-picture things that are very difficult to even define, let alone teach (narrative thinking, reciprocal thinking, identifying with other people). I end up feeling like I haven't done justice to either area, so I try to squeeze in one last practical thing to make myself feel more productive. When I do strike the right balance, then I feel competent and successful, and I have no trouble stopping. So the trick is to plan our mornings with this balance in mind and to make sure I have at least one good, fun activity that addresses one of the big-picture goals.

"It's storytime!"

Daily Rhythm. The Lark was really in synch with our rhythm today. (I call it a rhythm rather than a schedule because there are no set times--everything just takes as long as it takes--and the items on it are very general. The idea (which I got from Enki Education) is that there should be enough structure to make everyone feel secure and confident, but plenty of flexibility as well.) Anyway, the Lark was one step ahead of me all morning, eagerly anticipating the next activity. It was not a rushed or anxious anticipation (which he sometimes experiences), but a confident, happy anticipation. For example, we had a nice snack together. We chopped up a mango and a banana. The Lark playfully fed me my banana bit by bit, while I pretended to be a baby bird. We cleaned up after ourselves in a leisurely way. But as soon as we were done, the Lark went running down to the basement. I called after him, "Where are you going?" And he called up cheerfully, "It's storytime!" The funny thing is, he usually doesn't particularly like storytime. He was just enjoying being in the groove and knowing what was coming next.

Narrative Thinking. Storytime went really well today. We played "How Would You Feel?" I described a scenario where the Lark brought a cookie to school for snack, and one of his classmates grabbd it away and ate it. I asked, "how would you feel?" and the Lark said, "mad!" in a growly tiger voice. It was very cute, and also really positive that he was so animated about something we were just pretending. He also did better than ever at retelling and acting out our frog story (which were still working on).

Body Mapping and Body Integration. We introduced deep knee bends into our exercise routine, and the Lark simply cannot do them. He cannot squat down and stand up again. That's okay. We're just going to do it once each day until he gets the hang of it.

Imagine That!

We worked some more on imagining how we'd feel in different situations. It was really encouraging. For example, I said, "Let's imagine that the doorbell rings--ding dong. And you run over to the door and open it up. And Laura's there!" The Lark laughed and jumped up and down. Then he jumped on my lap and hugged me in excitement. I said, "How would you feel?!" He was too excited to say, but he was clearly feeling it. I said, "Happy or sad?" He said, "Happy!" with real enthusiasm. The cool thing was that, first of all, he was obviously really imagining it. And what was even cooler was this: he understood that it was a game, and that we were just imagining. In the past, he might have run over to the door and flung it open, and then been confused and disappointed. But he really got the pleasure of just pretending. (Next time I'll try to work in some actual pretend play instead of just talking about it.) I gave him a couple of other scenarios, and he really enjoyed the whole thing.

Mowbow Had a Job

Narrative Comprehension. Whenever the Lark hears a new song, he wants to know who sings it and what CD it's on. Well, today I was singing an old spiritual, and the Lark said, "It's by...?" I explained that it wasn't by anybody, and I never heard it on a CD. I learned it from an old lady. The Lark said, "An old lady named...?" I said, "An old lady named Milly." The Lark said, "Milly lives in...?" I explained that, "A long time ago, I used to have a job--like Daddy. I used to work in a restaurant, and at this restaurant there was an old lady named Milly, and Milly used to sing this song." Before we started working on real-life comprehension through event based learning, this whole story would have been completely lost on the Lark. He probably would have gotten upset because it would have confused him. Now, instead, the Lark thought for several moments and said, as if having an awakening, "Mowbow had a job!"

Swinging

Crossing midlines and full-body integration. I mentioned before that the Lark has trouble integrating movements on the top half of his body with movements on the bottom half. Swinging on a swing has always been very challenging for him, because when we swing we use our arms, our legs, and our core muscles in a way that has to be timed just right. Last year (fourth grade) in the Gray School, we worked a lot on swinging, not just because it's a fun thing to be able to do, but because integrating all those movements helps us integrate activity in different parts of our brain. Well, the Lark did eventually learn to swing last year. He learned to do it, but he didn't reall get it. I knew he wasn't getting it because I could see that he never really enjoyed it.

Well, we didn't really work on it this year, but apparently he's been working on it on his own. Because now he really gets it. He goes out on his own and swings his little heart out. He swings as high as he can go, then he leans straight back and flies through the air like a missle. Then he sits up and pumps some more.

I take a couple things from this. First, it's never too late. If fifth grade is the Lark's years for discovering the fun of swinging, that's a lot better than never discovering it. Second, teaching is a kind of planting. You can't make seeds grow. You can't train them to grow. You can't open them up and pull out the plant. You can only plant them and nurture them. They have do the work of growing all on their own.

How would you feel?

Narrative thinking: We're still plugging away at various aspects of narrative thinking.

1. We know that in order to have any interest in a narrative at all, we need to identify with the characters, and to identify with the characters, we have to be able to imagine how they would feel in the situation that the narrative places them in. To help the Lark develop this ability, Tony suggested that we help him imagine himself in a familiar situation, and help him imagine how he himself would feel. So far, so good. We've tried two different situations, and both times the Lark really seemed to think about the situation and was able to say how he would feel (scared, mad).

2. ACT-OUT: The Lark is definitely getting better at using figures and props to tell our little frog story. As we tell the story, we're focusing on how the frogs feel (hot) and what their goal is (to get cool). Each time we retell the story, the whole thing seems to become clearer in the Lark's mind--not just the sequence, but the setting and the characters' feelings and their goals and the outcome of their actions. This is the key to narrative thinking--to be able to integrate all this information into a coherent and meaningful whole. It's really exciting to watch the Lark putting it all together!

Ownership: The Lark continues to get more and more mindful and responsible during dressing and grooming. He is still reluctant to take ownership of bathing, hair-washing, etc., but we'll get to that.

Math: We ran into a snag today. The Lark has no trouble adding 10 to a number in his head. Today we looked at adding nine to a number by adding 10 and then "going back one." I learned that the Lark does not understand the phrase, "one less than." So before we work on adding nine to a number, we need to work on the idea of "one less than" a number.

Exercise: The Lark did such a good job with his sit-ups, etc. today. We added knee-bends. This is extremely difficult for the Lark, because he has great difficulty squatting down, let along standing back up. This is a good one to work on, but we'll have to take it really slowly.

"He wants to go home."

Narrative thinking. During snack, the Lark and I were listening to "Sloop John B," one of the Lark's new favorite songs. The Lark was listening intently, then he looked up at me and said earnestly, "He wants to go home." I had to suppress a laugh, because the singer/narrator says about 100 times, "I want to go home, let me go home." But I was encouraged nonetheless, because the Lark was thinking about this character's motivation, and then he shared his thoughts with me.

A few days ago I wrote about the importance of narrative thinking. Thinking narratively allows us to organize a vast array of information, sensations, and emotions into a coherent, meaningful whole. At the center of narrative thinking is the ability to understand and identify with the goals of the characters. The goals drive the narrative and allow the people hearing the narrative to organize and remember all kinds of information relative to that goal. In order to help the Lark with narrative thinking, we are trying to help him understand his own goals and intentions as well as those of other people. Today we worked on this in two ways--by acting out the story of some frogs who were sitting in the hot sun and jumped into a pond to get cool, and by playing a game that Tony came up with, where we present the Lark with a situation and ask him to think about how he would feel and what he would do in that situation. Both activities went well.

Ownership: Once again the Lark decided on his own to brush his hair upon noticing how messy it was. And once again he decided on his own to brush his teeth upstairs so he could use his tooth-brushing diagram.

Misc.: Math is continuing to go really well, with the Lark picking up new concepts with great ease. Jazz Chants, an activity we're doing for language fluency, is also going well.

Reciprocity: Tomorrow we're going to get back to our reciprocal games to help the Lark discover the other side of games like Tag and Hide & Seek.

Ownership

When it comes to bathing, grooming, and dressing, we're trying to help the Lark learn to take ownership, so he doesn't do these things just because somebody tells him to, but because he knows it's important or he wants to look nice. Yesterday we had a couple of positive signs. First, after taking a bath and getting dressed, the Lark saw himself in the mirror and noticed that his hair was a mess. On his own, he got a brush and started to brush his hair. He's never shown any awareness of his hair before. After he got started, he asked me for help, and that's fine. It's less important that he can do the task independently than that he actually want to do it. Later, the Lark was in the downstairs bathroom brushing his teeth. Apparently he couldn't remember all the places he needed to brush, because he went dashing up, toothbrush in hand, to the upstairs bathroom, where we have a diagram of a mouth with all the spots numbered. He could have just given up, but apparently he wanted to do a good job.

Narrative Thinking and Narrative Comprehension Deficit Disorder

Narrative thinking is the basic form of human understanding. It is a truism that people in all cultures use stories to define who they are and pass on their beliefs and values. But narrative thinking goes way beyond story-telling. We use narrative thinking every time we remember or plan an event or activity. We use it when we have a conversation or listen to the news.

Narrative thinking allows us to integrate many, many bits of factual information (who, what, where, when, how, why, to what effect), sensory input, and emotional response--to integrate all this into one coherent, meaningful whole. We do this all day long.

Without narrative thinking, our ability to organize all the infinite information, sights, sounds, sensations, and emotions that we encounter would be severely limited. We would probably tune most of it out--except what related to our basic needs.

Our friends on the low end of the autism spectrum are there because their ability to think narratively is severely impaired. They cannot effectively integrate all the information around them into a coherent, meaningful story. They have even more trouble taking a coherent, meaningful story that someone else has composed and recreating that story in their own mind so that it means something to them. This is narrative comprehension deficit disorder.

No School Tuesday

We didn't have school yesterday because I had to attend a meeting at the Lark's regular school. Emily filled in for me and she and the Lark had a good time.

Being-together skills. In the afternoon the Lark and I took a long walk. We walked arm-in-arm, talked, and sang back-and-forth songs. There was a pine cone on the sidewalk and I kicked it. Then, quite naturally and spontaneously, the Lark kicked it. We took turns kicking it for a long way until we got bored with it. A few minutes later I picked up a pine cone as we walked. Again quite naturally and spontaneously, the Lark picked one up too. I threw mine up in the air and caught it. The Lark threw his into a pond we were passing. It was a really pleasant walk.

We're Back

I had to go out of town last week, so the Lark's dad (hereinafter referred to as "Daddy") took over the grayschooling. They kept up with math and calendar activities. They also worked on strengthening their cores.

The Lark is doing really well with math. He can comprehend and, in some cases, even verbalize concepts that eluded him before. I think his progress is partly due to all the work we've been doing on comprehension and building mental models. I think I have also developed a more effective teaching strategy. I introduce a concept with a hands-on activity (not by explaining it), then I just leave it alone. I don't push for any kind of mastery; I don't test to make sure he got it. I just introduce it and leave it alone. Then we do another activity involving the same concept the next day. We do the activity once or twice and then move on to something else, whether he seems to have gotten it or not. The next day we'll do another activity. Only once it's clear that he has figured out the concept on his own do I verbalize it or quiz him in any way. When I do it this way, he seems to get everything.

We're also starting to experiment with retelling story songs and nursery rhymes in simple prose as an approach to narrative comprehension. I'm inviting him to join me in the retelling as a way to very gradually help him learn to tell a story. We'll see how this goes.

Pretend Play

Mimesis. The Lark had fun (very briefly) playing with toy figures. I was acting out a familiar scenario again using four toy figures and a few props. The Lark participated by moving the figures along as if they were driving and by laying them down to go to sleep. But he really got into it when he decided to make two of the figures hit each other. He even used sound effects. We both laughed a lot.

More Pretending. To the tune of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," we pretended we were riding horses, and the Lark really seemed to enjoy himself. He was holding the reins with one hand and spanking himself on the hip with the other hand, and galloping with great enthusiasm.

Phys Ed. Frog hopping is something that has been really hard for the Lark for a couple of reasons. He as a hard time balancing while squatting and integrating his top half with his bottom half, among other things. Today he really got the frog hopping, and he really knew that he got it, and he seemed pleased about that.

Back from Spring Break

We had a good first day back from break.

Imitation. We have a new body mapping routine for April, and the Lark did a great job following my movements. When they got too hard for him at one point, he just did his best and kept up with the little dance.

Comprehension and Mindfulness. We took a bike ride in the woods to visit a beaver lodge on a little pond. We actually saw a beaver swimming in the pond. We saw him go under and come up again briefly. The Lark was really watching and seemed fairly interested. As we headed over to the lodge, he said he wanted to go into the beaver house. I explained that we couldn't go in because the door was under water. The Lark thought about this for a minute and then said, "the beavers swim in their hosue." So he didn't just understand what I'd told him; he thought about it and pictured it.

Narrative/Mimesis. I tried using figures to act out a story. It's a true story that the Lark experienced first-hand and that he often asks me to tell him. He seemed interested when I was setting it up and acting it out, and when I offered him an opportunity to participate, he moved some figures from one "room" to another as part of the story. I'm going to try this again tomorrow with the same story. If he seems to get it and want to participate, I'll gradually add new elements to the story.

Body Mapping

The Lark has found his hips! As I wrote in the last post, the Lark had been having trouble moving his hips from side to side. When he tried to imitate me shaking my hips, he would move his head or his torso from side to side. So for the past two days we've incorporated hip shaking into our movement work. I chose some music with a really slow beat, raised my arms in the air, and spotligted my hips. After a few tries, the Lark got it. Today we did it to faster music, and we varied it by doing a double "shake" on each side. The Lark really seemed to enjoy this new dance!

Mindfulness/Focus: The Lark has been doing really well with the piano. We're learning all the pentascales, one by one. We address many goals when we practice piano.

Imitation. We're not using a book right now. Instead, the Lark has to what I do. Coordination. Once he learns a new scale, we play it together. He has to coordiante his actions with mine to match my tempo.
Mindfulness/Focus: He has to remember the scales and he has to overcome the impulse to use any old fingers, and use the correct fingers instead. This is difficult for him, but he's doing very well.

All by myself!

Mindfulness: The Lark delivered some muffins to my mother's house (about half a mile away) all by himself (I trailed him). He was really excited when I told him to go by himself. He really seemed to enjoy himself, skipping, running, even walking backwards at one point. He got a little mixed up when he got to my mom's place, which is a condo in a huge complex with lots of buildings that all look alike. But he didn't get flustered. He tried a couple of different doors. Then he peered into someone's patio door. That's when I had to appear from behind my tree and offer some guidance. But with that guidance he was able to go the rest of the way by himself.

Imitation/Body Mapping: During exercises today we worked on "twisting" and shaking our hips, both of which motions elude Marco. It seems the body map in his brain is missing the coordinates for his hips. When I move my hips, he tries to imitate me by moving his shoulders or his head or his whole body. It's like he can't find his hips. Imitation is the foundation of all learning--especially social learning. If someone has an incomplete or inaccurate body map, imitating will be harder for him. If he has trouble imitating, he is less inclined to do it. If he doesn't imitate, he will not pick up all the subtle gestures and sounds that unite us culturally. So the trick is not to teach specific gestures and sounds, but to help our children become more competent, confident imitators generally. Then they will pick up communicative gestures and sounds as the need arises.

Okay, Frances!

Today was the end of the second week back at the Gray School. So far, so good.

Narrative comprehension: We had another little break-through today! We were reading our abridged version of "Bedtime for Frances" again. At the part where Frances gets out of bed, the Lark said in a playful-scolding voice, "Okay, Frances!" This is a level of involvement in a story that is brand-new for the Lark.

Imitation: The Lark was very engaged during our spring dance-songs. Here are some signs that all of the imitation activities we do are helping:

1. The Lark has picked up some expressive gestures that he never used before. For example, when he's enumerating something, he sticks out the fingers on one hand and, with the index finger of the other hand, he touches one finger at a time as he lists the items. Also, the other day, he pointed to his head to show that he was thinking.

2. The Lark mirrors my intonation and facial gestures in a very pro-social way when we're talking. For instance, we were having a conversation about all the things we could do during our upcoming trip to Miami. I said, "We can go to the be-each," with a rising intonation, and he responded, "We can swim in the poo-ool," with the same intonation and expression.

These things are more important than any specific skill.

Taking an Interest

Narrative Comprehension: Today while we were reading our simplified version of "Bedtime for Frances," the Lark stopped at the picture of "Father" as he lies in bed looking grumpy about being woken up. He studied it for a while, then said, "It's her dad."

This was really exciting for me. The Lark took enough interest in the characters to think about their relationship to each other. As I have written before, one of the main things holding up the Lark's progress in narrative comprehension is a connection to the characters. Without that, there is really no reason to read stories at all. A lot of our activities are designed to help the Lark discover connections between himself and others. This was one tiny sign that maybe we're getting somewhere.

Taking Ownership

Mindfulness: The Lark did a great job dressing again today. I need to provide more opportunities for him to anticipate and initiate activities so he can take ownership of more of our activities.

Imitation: The Lark did a great job learning by imitating during our calendar activity today. We were writing the number words in each of the squares on our calendars. The Lark had never had occasion to write some of these words before (like twenty-one), so he just kept observing me and imitating what I was doing. He was very eager and interested.

He also did a great job acting out our little starfish story.

Theory of Mind

Pretty good day today.

Narrative comprehension. We were reading "Bedtime for Frances." I photocopied the pictures and then made my own book with simplified text and story. The Lark really enjoyed the song Frances sings to herself when she's trying to fall asleep. It's an alphabet song, and I rewrote it to include some items that I thought the Lark would find amusing. We were reading it together, and when we got to "G is for Greg" (the Lark is a huge Wiggles fan and he loves Greg Wiggle), he looked at me with surprise and amusement. This was good first of all because it was social referencing (like, did you catch that?) and he was sharing his pleasure with me. But I think it also showed some theory of mind--or something like it. It showed that the Lark understands that there are things that we know about that aren't general knowledge for everyone else. At least I think it did.

Mindfulness. The Lark seems to be taking a little more ownership of getting dressed in the morning. And tonight he took some initiative in taking his medicine/vitamins. After dinner, I asked him to bring his pillminder over to the table. He brought it over and then, without any further prompting, asked me what day it was, found the Monday pm box, and took all his pills.

Day Five at the Gray School

Lots of fun today.

Narrative comprehension--discovering connections. Children are not born with the ability to comprehend narratives, and young children work very hard to develop this ability. They ask to hear stories over and over, they study the pictures and try to recreate the story from memory, they act out stories in an effort to work through the events and the characters' actions and intentions. Young children are motivated to do this work in large part because they identify with the characters in the story. A child who has yet to discover the connections between himself and others has very little motivation to try to understand stories about other people (or characters). The Lark is going to have to discover these connections on his own. This is not something anyone can teach him. Our job is to help him make discoveries.

Today we took another worm walk. The sidewalk was covered with worms from last night's rain. I suggested that we "rescue" the worms that were stranded on the sidewalk and help them get to the dirt, where they would be happier. The Lark joined in this activity eagerly. He spontaneously imitated the way I was picking them up with a stick. In some cases, when that wasn't working, he improvised and picked them up with him fingers. After a while, I pointed out that some of them were dead, and we didn't really have to move those ones. After that, the Lark moved only the ones that wiggled when he touched them. I announced that I was naming one worm "Amber," and the Lark added, "Amber the worm," to distinguish her, I suppose, from Amber the person we know.

Physical integration: The Lark's jumping jacks were even better today--perfect, really. This is one of many activities that we're doing to help the Lark learn to integrate his top half and his bottom half--something that has been surprisingly difficult for him. Other activities include swinging on a swing (which is going very well) and "frog hopping" (which he is still struggling with).

Other connections: Yesterday we made limeade by squeezing limes. The Lark enjoyed it so much that he asked if we could make grapefruit juice too. So we did. Today he was having a popsicle and decided he wanted to make popsicle juice. I asked how we should do it. He suggested putting the popsicle through the juicer. I said I didn't think that would work, so we decided to let it melt in a cup. We went and did some math and reading, then we came back and drank the popsicle juice.

Day Four at the Gray School

Today was a good day.

Mindfulness. Great job dressing. The Lark did something new. Instead of getting and putting on one item of clothing at a time, he went down his list, got everything he needed, brought it all over to his bed, and put it on very purposefully.

Narrative comprehension. The reason most of us take the trouble to comprehend a narrative is that we identify with the characters in it. This is a challenge for people with autism and NCDD. To help the Lark discover the connection between himself and others, we took a walk in the rain and went looking for worms. We found several beauties making their way across the sidewalk over to the grass. We stopped and watched their progress. We named two of them and rooted for them. The Lark seemed pretty interested. This is obviously going to be a long process. Today was one tiny step.

Imitation: We did our Spanish movement songs and played "Simon dice."

We went around the room with clipboards again, tallying up various items. The Lark did a super job and got into it. (This is also a math objective--understanding how and why we tally things up in groups of five.)

We worked on imitation along with narrative comprehension and building our core by acting out a little story about a starfish trying to turn over.

We did lots of other things too, but those are the highlights.

Day Three of the Gray School

Choosing did not go so well today. In fact, many things did not go so well today. On the upside, the Lark did really well on his core exercises (sit-ups, etc.), and he did the best jumping jacks I've ever seen him do!

As for the things that didn't go so well, I think I may have been too focused on my own ideas and goals and things, and not enough on my interaction with the Lark and the feedback he was giving me.

We'll keep trying!

Day Two at the Gray School

Here are some notes from our second day:

1. Choosing. Modeling my own choosing strategy seemed to help the Lark. I used "self-talk" to share my thought process: "I think I'll choose a black top to match my black socks." Then we went to the Lark's room, and he was much more focused than I've ever seen him about getting dressed. He chose some grey underwear and then, without hesitation, chose a grey top. (Usually he pulls out three or four different tops and then wanders off without putting one on.) After putting on the top, he stayed focused and chose some pants right away.

2. Narrative Comprehension. I read Strega Nona and the Lark was very interested. He especially liked all the different pictures of Strega Nona and Big Anthony wiggling their fingers over the magic pot. This reminded him of a bit in a Wiggles video in which they do some magic by wiggling their fingers and saying, "wiggle waggle." The Lark made the association. The Lark often resists reading or even looking at new books, so this is good progress.

3. Imitation. We walked around the room, each with our own clipboard, tallying up cerain things. The Lark did a great job observing and imitating me, so he learned to do this without having to be "taught." We also did some act-outs, but the Lark wasn't as enthusiastic as he was yesterday.

4. Mindfulness. Here's one example: we did a puzzle, and the Lark was much more focused than I've ever seen him be with a puzzle. He dumped out the pieces, turned them all over, and began to work on it without any encouragement. I think the difference was precisely that I didn't provide any encouragement (or pressure). I tried to make a friendly comment now and than to show that I was interested, but otherwise I just waited and let him figure it out. Eventually he did need some help, but he stayed motivated until the end.

Sharing thoughts

Yesterday afternoon the Lark and I took a walk and he shared lots of thoughts with me--about a "bunch of geese," a fire engine sign, and a bare rose bush, among other things. He stopped to examine the bare rose bush. He was looking at it and touching it, apparently trying to figure out what it was. Then he surprised himself by pricking his finger on a thorn. He laughed and said, "don't hurt your little finger." Then he looked at me triumphantly and declared, "it's a rose bush." The thorn had provided the clue he needed.

When we got home we watched a bit of Mary Poppins. Only recently has the Lark been willing to watch anything other than the Wiggles and Blue's Clues. This new interest in moveis is a sign that his narrative comprehension is improving! He's trying really hard to understand what's going on. He checks his understanding by making comments and asking questions. When the characters in Mary Poppins jumped into the chalk picture, the Lark asked Tony, "what is it?" Tony said, "they jumped into the picture." The Lark thought about this and then said, "on Mary Poppins they jump into a picture." He also said, "Mary Poppins is like the Wizard of Oz" (one of the few other movies he's seen). And it's true. They both have lots of music and lots of magical things happening. The Lark is especially interested in magical scenes--people flying, the nursery cleaning itself up, etc.

First day back at the Gray School after a long break. It went really well. Here's what we worked on:
1. Imitation/Mimesis. A big part of our program involves building the Lark's capacity for imitation--both the spontaneous imitation that forms the basis of empathy and social connectedness, and the self-conscious imitation that forms the basis of play-acting, social rituals, and apprenticeship. First I introduced a new series of five dance-songs, all with an early spring theme. The Lark did a super job following along with the movements and singing bits of the songs, which (except for one) were all new to him. Throughout the morning we did other "Act-Out" activities. We acted out "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" in two ways, first with little frog figures and then playing the frogs ourselves. The Lark really enjoyed both versions and participated enthusiastically. After that, he initiated acting out "Ten in the Bed," and he even pushed me off the couch when it was my turn to roll over.

We also practiced imitation when I showed Marco a new way to use the abacus (vertically) and a new calendar activity (shading all the even boxes one color and all the odd boxed another color).

2. Narrative Comprehension. I introduced a much simplified version of Strega Nona today. (Actually I introduced the chant that Strega Nona uses on her magic pot the last time we made pasta, so the Lark was already familiar with that. He is also already familiar with witches and magic, and has actually shown some interest in the idea of magic recently.) We just looked at the pictures today and the Lark read a few lines here and there. We used mimesis by wiggling our fingers over a pretend pot as Strega Nona does in one of the pictures. All in all, the Lark seemed pretty open to the book, and I will try reading it through once tomorrow.

3. Mindfulness. We focused on mindfulness as our main objective during breakfast lunch, bathing, and dressing. The Lark knows how to perform his roles in these activities, but tends to lose focus and wander off in the middle of things. The scaffolding I provided was simply to use my body as a kind of corral to keep him from wandering off and then give him the time he needed. With this support, the Lark did really well. Here's an example of his mindfulness. He did a great job washing his face but forgot to wash his nose. He rinsed his hands off and was about to rinse his face when he realized what he'd forgotten to do. So, again without my saying anything, he got some more soap and finished the job.

Celebration. During a break, we jumped into the beanbags. The Lark sat on my lap, facing me, ready to play. I just smiled and waited. He thought for a minute, then initiated a clapping game. We played it several times, adding variations each time--some variations were his and some were mine.

Here's something I learned today. During dressing, I noticed more than ever how much choices can stress out the Lark. He seems to see them as a test, and he's afraid he's going to get the answer wrong. I'm going to try to model with my own clothing choices that we can use choices to express ourselves and that, within certain parameters, there are no wrong answers.