Evie's
Progress Report April 2001
The Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) home programme was started at the end of November 1996. This report deals with the following areas of progress:
Before the ABA programme:
Evie was effectively a mute child. Receptive language
(understanding) skills were 11 months at age 3 years 5 months.
Expressive language skills were 7-9 months when tested at age 3
years 5 months.
Three years ago (Feb. 1998): Evie named known
objects (80 words known expressively) and had nearly 20 sentences
beginning, “I want”. She had limited commenting, e.g.
she said, “cat” if she saw a cat. Receptive language
had increased dramatically.
Two years ago (April 1999):
The number and type of use of language and communication
increased. Evie used language to recount past events,
comment on the mood of self and others, communicate needs,
express preferences, share experiences, and to tell and recount
stories.
Evie had an expressive object label list of hundreds of
words. We no longer kept a tally of the words she was using, as
she was picking vocabulary up in a more normal fashion. (This was
true of other parts of speech as well as nouns.) She was using
language to comment more fully, such as by saying, “Daddy is
cooking”, “The dog is dirty”. She was
spontaneously and appropriately asking questions, e.g.
“where’s Alice?”, “what’s in
there?” She was using some pronouns and several prepositions
spontaneously, appropriately and accurately, e.g. “I
clapped”, “Pooh Bear is under the basket”. Her
use of adjectives improved, e.g., “it’s light
blue”, “it’s blue and green and orange”. Her
jokes became more sophisticated, e.g. she would feed a toy dog
and would say, “Scally burped! Naughty Scally”. She
used social language, e.g. to say, “sorry Mummy” if she
had done something wrong. She could tell us what she did on
a day, e.g. “Mummy and Daddy and Evie went swimming”,
“Mummy and Evie went to Lookout”, “on Sunday we
went to zoo”. She made up stories imaginatively, e.g. she
told us about a monster, she would describe its size, appearance
and colour, and what he did. She could re-tell a story she had
heard, e.g. she could tell a simple version of the Christmas
Nativity story. Her ability to request improved, e.g, she would
say, “I want ‘Not Now Bernard’ video”, having
seen that video advertised in a television trailer.
She was using more normal intonation, and was sharing
moments with peers and adults. Her articulation was improving,
such that strangers found it easier to understand her. She
would greet or say goodbye or goodnight to people spontaneously.
She involved herself with quite complex scenarios with her toys
and she loved dressing-up. We could bargain with her and
explain what was going to happen, such as saying that Daddy had
gone to work, that we would go later to visit friends, and what
we were going to have for supper. She was no longer reinforced on
the home programme immediately by food or toys, but either just
by verbal praise or by means of a star chart for doing really
good work. She had basically learnt to obtain reinforcement from
the task itself.
1 Year Ago (April 2000):
Evie’s receptive language skills dramatically
improved, and this was demonstrated across a range of settings
and people. This was also backed up by her improvement in the
formal language tests. Her expressive language was becoming
frequent, meaningful and appropriate. Pragmatic use of language
improved,
In summary, the following key areas of progress emerged
last year:
· more
profound understanding of spoken language;
· learning
new words and phrases naturally;
· making
links between her areas of knowledge and past experience;
· starting to
predict the future;
· using
abstract linguistic concepts such as certain pronouns and
prepositions appropriately;
· Many of her
language skills were starting to be displayed in her mainstream
settings;
· using
language to recount past events, to share ideas, to enjoy
stories, to communicate detailed preferences, to show off her
creations, to socialise, and to display considerable humour and
enjoyment of life.
Now (April 2001):
A significant refinement to Evie’s ABA programme
has been to switch from a traditional-style “Lovaas”
programme to a Verbal Behaviour (VB) approach. Details of this
approach are based on Skinner’s work on language..
As a result of changing the emphasis of the teaching
style, dramatic improvements have been made in Evie’s
language skills, as outlined below. Current goals are also shown
where relevant:
a) Her ability to MAND
(request and demand attention) has hugely improved. This is
significant because increased MANDing leads to increased talking
especially spontaneous speech. This is evidenced in the points
below;
b) There is a marked
increase in her ability to point things out (demanding attention)
for example, she will, when necessary, precede her communications
where necessary with a remark such as:“Listen, <person
name>” . This makes her speech more easy to understand,
as she is signaling her intent to communicate with the listener,
and this was highlighted by both the LEA and private speech
therapists;
c) There is an increasing
interest in her ability to point things out (shared attention);
for example whilst sharing a video she will say, “It’s
Scamp!”, “He’s all muddy!”
d) She is sharing stories,
toys, memories with people who come to visit, as described in the
home education visit by Mrs Boarder;
e) There is a higher
incidence of MANDing for information (asking questions), and also
she asks a bigger range of questions. She will now ask regularly
and appropriately, “what’s that?”,
“who’s that?”, “what’s in there?”,
“what’s wrong?” and “where?”. We are
currently working on teaching and generalizing the following
questions: “why?”, “when?” and contextual
questions;
f) There is a
more sophisticated ability to request things. Before she was
asking primarily for reinforcers (food, toys, activities). Now
she is asking much more to visit places and people, e.g. to visit
grandparents or peers. She will spontaneously go and get her
calendar and plan visits to people or to see different places,
and loves to anticipate favourite outings;
g) She understands
everyday activities better e.g. she knows that on Mondays she
goes to Kids Club, on Wednesdays she goes skating, etc;
h) She is able to predict
the future better and to anticipate, for example she knew that
Lady and the Tramp 2 video was coming out on March 12th,
and she put this on the calendar and eagerly anticipated it. We
went to order the video on the 11th, and she
understood that the video box was empty and that she had to wait
until the 12th before she could have the video. Prior
to this, she would have been very frustrated and upset, but her
linguistic and cognitive ability has clearly improved;
i) She is able
to discuss her day and the past better. She delights in talking
over with me what she did and often does this spontaneously, not
necessarily in response to a question. She shows clear
understanding and enjoyment of this. For example, she will say,
quite spontaneously, “I went swimming I went to Coral Reef.
I went with Becky and Mummy. I went down the slide the wrong way.
I hurt my side!”;
j) She is able
to plan better, for example she delights in making lists and
packing for holidays and for planning future activities. She
spent a lot of time writing lists of different items to be packed
preparatory to actual packing for her Easter visit to her
grandmother’s house and for her Brownies Pack Holiday. She
loves to put such events on the calendar. This is linked to her
literacy work too in terms of writing scrap-books in diary form
and having a conversation using concept maps. Thus her ability to
think ahead and plan has progressed well;
k) She is having
conversations. This has been built up gradually using the
“intraverbal” language structure. So, for example, we
will have a conversation about a favourite Disney video, by
initially asking what is her favourite video, then we might ask
what is her favourite part, who are the characters, what happens,
why she likes it, what is it like, etc. More and more of these
conversations are becoming spontaneous sharing experiences and do
not feel like language “drills” at all;
l) Narrative
skills have dramatically improved, in terms of vocally creating
stories and being able to recount what she did during the day.
For example, she changed her Toyland stories to a version of the
Tooth Fairies, and all the character names had to change, so Mr.
Plod became Mr. Police Rat, Noddy became Giselle, Big Ears became
Fabian, etc. She shows enormous humour and love of sharing in
this;
m) Verbal reasoning is improving,
although this is still a teaching target. We are working on
developing her ability to answer “why” questions;
n) Predicting thinking in
terms of next steps, choices, and planning have improved, and
these areas are also still current objectives on the language
programme. We will ask whilst watching a story or reading a
story, “what do you think he’ll do?”
“Why?” and this is going well;
o) Imaginative thinking is
also emerging, including an understanding of people’s
emotions in real life and in stories and videos. Again, this is
also an ongoing target. She is learning more complex emotions
other than just her previously mastered ones, such as
“guilty” and “embarrassed” rather than just
“happy” and “sad”;
p) Expression and clarity
are also targeted on the language programme, e.g. we will ask her
to pretend to be the Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear or Baby Bear whilst
reading Goldilocks during a Literacy lesson. Her clarity and
rhythm have greatly improved so she is more understandable by
those who don’t know her so well, and the LEA speech
therapist commented favourably on this;
q) She shows a flexibility
and imagination in her thinking now, so she enjoys tales where
the version is different. For example, she recently received a
copy of “Revolting Rhymes” by Roald Dahl, and she found
it hilarious when Little Red Riding Hood takes a gun from her
knickers and shoots the wolf dead;
r) She likes to play
language games such as one we call the Guessing Game. We might
say, for instance, “I’m thinking of a BBC character. He
wears a yellow hat and big boots. His name begins with a
“B”. Who is it?” She will say “Bob the
Builder” very quickly, and loves this game, which we can
make as complex as we like, judging her mood and interest;
s) She has just
started to be the “asker” in the Guessing Game, albeit
with a little prompting, which is a very significant step;
t) She has
recently started to answer, “what are you thinking?”
type of questions, which is a significant move in terms of
understanding her own thoughts and being able to express them.
Future
Goals:
In
addition to the current targets described above, we intend to
continue to target conversational skills, especially to develop
this with peers. We intend to work on listening and attention
skills in mainstream settings. In line with targets discussed
with the LEA speech therapist we continue to work on aspects such
as verbal reasoning, planning, making choices, and discussion of
past events. In conjunction with Science teaching we plan to
enhance reasoning skills and explanation as to why she makes a
certain choice or has a certain idea. All of this work will be
underpinned by the VB style of teaching now accessible to us.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie had no letter or reading skills.
Three years ago (Feb. 1998):
She could read about 100 word-cards (taught using the
“look and say” method).
Two years ago (April. 1999):
We started Evie on the Oxford Reading Tree Scheme, and
she spontaneously requested and shared these books, as well as
reading them by herself. She loved them and delighted in
making drawings from the scenes described in the books. She
could read many books at Level 2 and 3 and some favourite books
at Level 4 on this scheme. She was also progressing well on
phonic reading both in the ABA programme and with lessons with a
Montessori (mainstream school) teacher. As well as spelling
words we asked her to spell, she would ask to spell more. For
example, if we said, “spell rug, rr-uh-guh” she might
say, “where is Noddy?” and she would get the pot of
letters and spontaneously spell, “Noddy on rug”. She
delighted in spelling and would often get the pot of letters and
spontaneously sit on the floor spelling words out of formal
teaching sessions, asking for my help if she needed it. She would
also spell things if requested without the aid of a pencil or of
letter templates, for example, we would ask her to spell
“wet” and she would sound out the letter phonic sounds.
She was well on the way to becoming an independent
reader. She read many types of text – simple recipes,
poetry, reading scheme books, and a diary. I wrote a diary
entry of what we did together every day, in fact she largely
dictated the story to me. She watched intently as I wrote
it down. She loved to read and re-read this account.
1 Year Ago (April 2000):
· Reading
for Understanding:
We built on Evie’s reading abilities and using the
Oxford Reading Tree and Ladybird schemes with Evie, including
easy-reader stories. This year we especially targetted meaning
and story understanding. Evie could answer a good range of
questions, including “who is it?” (plus variations e.g.
“who’s that?”; “what’s his/her
name”), “what’s he/she/they doing?”,
“what’s happening (plus variations e.g. “and then
what happened?”), questions concerning emotions, where a
character lives, what is the book title, and she was starting to
address causal properties by answering “why / because”
type questions. She now knew a range of traditional stories, such
as Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks. Evie could recount a simple
story line from the accompanying pictures if the text was hidden.
She demonstrated this skill for the LEA speech therapist during a
home visit at the beginning of the year. Evie started to show a
love of stories and nursery rhymes where the story-line was
changed from the original and given a twist.
· Literacy
Hour:
We changed our style of teaching to prepare Evie to
access the Literacy Hour. This means that we worked on good
sitting skills, with Evie sitting among peers on the floor in a
Circle Time format, and listening to the tutor, who sat on a
chair next to a whiteboard, playing the role of the teacher. We
targetted putting hands up, and responding to questions when
asked. In addition, we worked on the sorts of tasks carried out
by children in the Literacy Hour. For example, Evie could
sequence parts of a story, and fill in words in sentences, using
the whiteboard and taking turns to respond to “class”
questions. She was compliant, and enjoyed this level of activity.
· Story
Time:
We worked on making our story time like the format at
Evie’s Reception/Year 1 Class. Again, she sat on the floor
with her peers and we targetted putting the hand up to respond to
questions. She joined in and read part of the story when asked,
and showed good attention and receptive skills. Her ability to
sit and share at story time were being transferred across to
mainstream sessions, such as school and junior church, where she
would sit readily for a 20-minute story and showed she had both
enjoyed and understood it.
· Stories
out of therapy time - trips to the theatre and cinema:
Evie visited the theatre and cinema to see full-length
children’s productions. She sat through the whole viewing,
and showed clear enjoyment and understanding. After seeing a
Beatrix Potter production at a local children’s theatre, for
example, she chatted about what the Two Bad Mice did, about how
the kittens’ clothes were put in the water in “Tom
Kitten”, etc. She answered questions afterwards
appropriately, and was perfectly well behaved throughout.
Now (April 2001):
Evie shows clear enjoyment of stories and reads from
story-books, comics and reading scheme books. She enjoys poetry
and non-fiction too, although we are going to target more of this
type of work. Evie continues to demonstrate comprehension and
great enjoyment of what she has read, and she spontaneously links
stories to similar events she has witnessed, videos she has seen,
or other stories she knows. Her love of reading is backed up by
her written work – see below. We continue to undertake
Literacy Hour style activities, which Evie enjoys and does well
in. Evie will often read constructively by herself out of
therapy, as well as bringing books for me to share with her.
Technical reading skills continue to be very strong, and Evie
uses a range of strategies to decode words. We work on
encouraging a reading of blends to assist this, and Evie finds
this very easy.
Future Goals:
In line with the Teacher Consultant advice, we intend to
consolidate work on reading with phonics and comprehension work,
and to increase the breadth of her reading, e.g. poetry and
non-fiction.
Before the ABA programme:
She would not even hold a pencil. When we started
the programme she had a palmar grip at best. She would not
scribble much less draw or write.
Three years ago (Feb. 1998):
She could write her own name, produce half-a-dozen
simple drawings and copy a dozen letters. She had a tripod grip.
Two years ago (February 1999):
She could competently produce all lower-case letters of the alphabet and was learning some upper-case letters. Her grip was improved and the formation of the letters more fluent. She was starting to copy whole words. When she drew something she spontaneously asked the tutor to write the words underneath, e.g., she asked us to write, “green monster and Superted”, and she copied this on ruled paper underneath. She was also starting to produce spontaneous stories, which she asked the tutor or parent to write down.
In addition she had learned to spell 3-letter phonic
words on request (e.g. “spell ram”), and she could do
this either verbally or in writing. She was also starting to
write her own words and sentences spontaneously, e.g. “the
princess was playing at top of castle”, although the
spelling was not necessarily accurate for some non-phonetic
words. She would also now spontaneously label her drawings, using
whole sentences if necessary, again guessing the spelling where
necessary, or asking for help.
Drawing: was much improved too, and she
spontaneously drew whole scenarios both in and out of formal
teaching sessions. For example, she drew a Superted, Rupert Bear
and monster scene from her imagination. She would spend many
hours during the evening out of formal therapy time simply
drawing and writing, and involving those around her in her
“stories”.
One Year Ago (April 2000):
Evie could write simple stories, e.g. of past events,
such as a day at school. This was partially assisted, for
example, she would ask for help with the spelling of a word. She
enjoyed making a drawing to accompany it, and made several books
during the year of which she was very proud:
· A home-made
“Where’s Spot?” book;
· A home-made
ABC book;
· A home-made
Zoo book;
· A home-made
Animal ABC book;
· A home-made
School book, where she filled out an entry for a session in
school, complete with drawing;
· A home-made
book, where she described events, such as her trip to a cinema.
In addition, we concentrated very much on targetting her
independent writing skills. So for example, we could leave her to
complete a set of literacy worksheets, which might include
spelling tasks, matching (e.g. Opposites, Functions), and so
forth. The tutor sat some distance away, not prompting Evie,
unless she asked for help. The tutor might even leave the therapy
room for a short while. At the end, Evie would bring her work to
the tutor, saying, “Look, I’ve finished”. The
tutor then marked the work, and Evie was learning the difference
between a cross and a tick, and would spontaneously correct her
incorrect spellings when the tutor showed how a word should be
spelled. This level of independence was a big step from her
abilities of a year before, and again demonstrated the effort
that the home programme team was making towards preparing Evie
for school.
In addition, Evie was also learning to play a range of
literacy-based games, which she played both at home and school,
such as Rhyming Lotto and Hangman. Hangman was a great favourite
of several of Evie’s normal friends, and she would play this
game with her peers. In addition Evie would spontaneously write
future events that she was looking forward to, e.g. on her
calendar, and would come to show us.
Now (April 2001):
Evie’s writing ability is as described below.
a) Creative writing has
taken a big jump forward since last year. Evie re-wrote a whole
book entirely, changing the story from “I want a Cat”
by Tony Ross to “I want a Cow”. She asked the tutor to
scribe it for her, changing details with only the odd suggestion
from or discussion with the tutor. Similarly, she typed up a new
version of “Peace at Last” by Jill Murphy to
“Three Mice at Last” on the computer, consistently
changing the characters to the three mice from the Cinderella
story. Both of these projects were entirely Evie’s own idea,
and she will often change parts of a book or story either to
something similar or to something funny;
b) Letter formation using
lower-case is well-established, and we are currently targeting
capitals. Evie knows about sentences and remembers about
full-stops most of the time, and can use exclamation marks
appropriately;
c) Spelling is good, and
we are now following a more systematic programme following the
Teacher Consultant’s advice.
d) Note also that literacy
activities are covered by joint writing, and across the
curriculum by linking with Science and other subjects;
e) We also scribe Concept
Maps for Evie to aid conversation and formal exercises. Evie
finds this quite new in formal teaching like science, but loves
to do this for conversational topics, like planning her Easter
holidays or Brownies pack holiday;
f) She
spontaneously produces lists to plan for things e.g. Brownies
Pack Holiday.
Future Goals:
Future work will focus on ideas put forward by the
Teacher Consultant, but especially on moving Evie forward into
using joined-up writing, a more structured approach for teaching
spelling, and richer techniques for enhancing creative story
writing by means of Writing Frames.
Before the ABA programme:
She could not articulate any of the numbers and had no
knowledge of numbers at all.
Three years ago (Feb. 1998):
She could count to five and answer the question,
“how many?” up to five.
Two Years Ago (April. 1999):
She understood the concept of zero. She could count to
fifty. She could do addition worksheets, e.g. “3 + 7 =
?”. She could do subtraction from 10 with encouragement. She
knew her Montessori Short Bead Staircase, which is one of the
basic steps for work in Montessori mathematics. (She
learned this after a couple of demonstrations.) She could
manipulate Montessori number rods and Montessori Seguin Boards
and perform related bead work (teen counting and 10, 20, 30, 40,
50 matching). She could count backwards from 10. She could
measure objects using a centimetre ruler and could write down the
results in a worksheet format. She could manipulate
worksheets to do with money, e.g. counting the number of pennies
in a purse, drawing the requisite number of pennies, counting and
writing the total of different objects. She could do dot-to-dot
puzzles up to 20, and could do worksheets such as colouring x
number of items, or drawing x number of items. She could
recognise and name the coins and notes of the English currency
system.
One year ago (April 2000):
Evie continued her work with the Montessori mathematics
beads. She demonstrated understanding of number by learning to
match the written labels to the requisite number of beads up to
100. She learned to work with a Hundred Square, and named all the
numbers and could find numbers, beginning to see the patterns,
e.g. 10, 20, 30, etc. She worked with tens, units, hundred and
thousands, again using specialised Montessori equipment. She
learned to do basic addition and subtraction using a range of
tools. We also worked on improving her independence, that is,
having her complete mathematical worksheets on shape, addition,
subtraction, matching, etc. Evie also started to learn how to use
number lines to carry out addition. She completed worksheets
using a range of mathematical concepts, with the tutor situated
some distance away, perhaps even leaving the room for a time, to
simulate the independent work skills needed for a school
situation. We would play a tape of school-room sounds (her actual
class at school engaged in a group activity) to teach her how to
attend to a task whilst coping with background school noise. She
coped with this very well. Evie also learnt to recognise
fractions, was learning about time using a clock, and could
demonstrate an understanding of number concept in everyday
contexts, e.g. counting out items for her teddy bears to have a
tea party. We started working on play with toy money to
generalise her understanding of the money system.
Numeracy Hour:
In addition worked with Evie using a new style of
teaching to allow Evie to participate in the Numeracy Hour. This
involved front-of-class type teaching, so that Evie sat on the
floor with her peers, answering questions. This included things
like singing a number rhyme together, then she participated by
coming to the whiteboard and writing the sum, e.g. if we sang
“Ten Green Bottles”, and two bottles fell off, she
would spontaneously write the full sum, 10 – 2 = 8. The
school teacher and classroom assistant both witnessed this when
they came to see Evie on a rare home visit. Similarly she
enjoyed playing games with normal peers such as “Five
Currant Buns”. The LEA Educational Psychologist observed
Evie performing these tasks (although not with other children
present) during home visits during the year. Evie happily did
this sort of task when normal peers come round to play (they
loved playing “school”). In addition, we targeted
skills observed in Evie’s school-class, including counting
animals, sorting them, and doing subtraction and addition sums on
individual slates.
Now (April 2001):
Evie had a recent spell when she did not enjoy
mathematics, and on the Teacher Consultant’s advice we have
varied the resources used and targeted a more verbal approach,
and she now loves doing mathematics. She can now count in twos
and tens verbally to a hundred, without a visual, and learnt to
do so within a very short time. She is, learning to do this with
applications such as money, eggs, rods, etc. She is starting to
learn odd and even. She already had a strong ability to do
written mathematics with the Montessori equipment, but our focus
this year is more on the verbal strategies used in the national
numeracy strategy, and we now have the techniques using Verbal
Behaviour to prompt this appropriately, and Evie is responding
extremely well to this.
She will now bring me a resource that she likes, for example the Hundred Square, and spontaneously do mathematics games outside of therapy, which is very welcome. We are now targeting teaching new skills and transferring them across to real-life applications and play. We are also doing more board games and so forth that practise numerical and mathematical skills such as pairs, snakes and ladders, “Bus Stop”, and so on. Evie enjoys making home-made board games that focus on her favourite activities, such as BBC characters in her children’s magazines. Significant progress in mathematics and in Evie’s enjoyment of mathematics was seen by the Teacher Consultant in just two months in between visits this year.
Before the ABA programme:
Non-existent.
One Year Ago (April 2000)
Evie attended school on Wednesday afternoons since
September 1999, where the teacher sometimes ran a computing
lesson. Evie gradually learned to sit and listen to an
explanation of the activity, and then to take her turn doing the
activity on the computer, with assistance from her ABA
shadow.
In addition, we did computer studies with her on her
home programme. She learnt the basic parts of a computer, and
could name the monitor, disk drive, keyboard, mouse, speaker,
modem and printer. She used a range of Dorling Kindersley
software, a favourite being, “Now I’m Reading”.
She showed great enjoyment, laughing at the funny parts of the
software. She especially enjoyed a guessing game and a spelling
game, and her mouse skills really improved. She could move the
mouse competently and drag items independently, and could enter
and exit the software herself.
Now (April 2001)
Evie uses the computer as an optional tool
spontaneously, and loves to write stories or re-write existing
stories using the word-processor. She also continues to like
playing games, e.g. numeracy games using several Disney packages.
We also do some language work with her whilst she is on the
computer, such as asking her questions about sequences she sees,
getting her to predict and explain computer video sequences, and
she is happy to share in this. Sometimes she will also ask to
work on her own, which is understandable, and is much preferable
to her previously favoured way of showing this, which was to push
someone away or to issue a little scream of annoyance. She can
switch the computer on from scratch to operate her software
independently, and often elects to do this out of therapy,
playing completely appropriately without any self-stimulatory
behaviour. If she gets stuck she will also come and ask for help,
again, a welcome improvement on either giving up or giving the
small annoyance scream.
Future Goals:
Future objectives include teaching Evie how to access
the world-wide web, which has many web-sites for educational use
for young children, as well as teaching her how to use new
technological tools such as the digital camera.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie was physically very able, but very difficult to
control and could not wait her turn.
One Year Ago (April 2000)
Evie was allowed to attend school for PE on only a few
occasions, as the school would not agree to two sessions per week
as specified in her Statement of Special Educational Needs. She
enjoyed PE, and made a start getting used to the routine of
changing, following instructions to her group and to the class.
She also found parts of the PE lesson difficult (for example,
when the children screamed during team games), and became
anxious, and it was a shame that the school did not listen when
we asked for a different type of session for her attend in
school, e.g. literacy and numeracy. This would have provided a
more structured and quieter (and therefore less stressful)
activity for her, and would have improved her self-esteem as she
finds these tasks relatively easy, especially literacy.
In terms of home programme support, we also worked on PE
activities to try to support her school lesson by working on
balancing, movement and bean-bag skills.
Now (April 2001)
Evie has learnt to ice-skate independently this year by
means of her Education Otherwise class. She is now a very
competent skater, and sometimes likes to skate with the other
children of her age, sometimes on her own. During the previous
year, she used to insist on holding my hand or the tutor’s
hand, and could be very anxious at times.
Ball skills have improved as well, and she has learnt
this by herself. She is also much more confident at
roller-skating at home, and likes to do this when she visits
friends too. She enjoys informal dancing at home and she also
does music interpretation and movement with banners at her church
kids club. She attends Education Otherwise Sports Days and enters
into most games, thoroughly enjoying herself. She also
still loves to go swimming, and is very confident in the water
without water aides. Just this week Evie swam for the first time
in deep water unaided, again showing her determination to succeed
when she really wants to do something. Similarly, on Brownies
Pack Holiday, she thoroughly enjoyed herself learning to paddle a
canoe boat for the first time (on her own), whereas some of the
girls found it quite frightening and asked to come back to shore.
She is willing to try new sports, e.g. she tried archery at Pack
Holiday too, but in the event did not like this as she found the
bow heavy.
Future Goals:
Future goals include helping her to learn to ride a
bike, to swim independently, and to consolidate her ice-skating
skills even further. Ball skills need to be improved, as well as
perhaps trying new games that peers often enjoy, such as
badminton, which is taught at Evie’s E.O. Kids Club.
However, we intend to go very much with Evie’s motivation,
as we believe it is important that she enjoys physical activities
and is not coerced into doing them.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie had no concept of planning, and would not even
colour things, much less make something constructively.
One Year Ago (April 2000)
Evie’s abilities in design and technology
significantly improved during this year. She improved fine
motor control with basic tools, including scissors, glue, masking
tape, sellotape, etc, and she experiencing the different
properties of various cards, papers, fabrics and wood. We added a
new element to prepare her better for school and to expand her
listening and planning skills. The tutor ran a front-of-class
type session, whereby Evie sat on the floor in Circle Time format
with her “peers” and the tutor played the role of the
teacher, going through a list of instructions to make something.
Evie responded to simple questions, and read the instructions
when asked. After that, she would go to the craft table to use
the appropriate materials, using the written instructions as a
guide. Here we targetted independence, where Evie was expected to
make the item using the finished product made in advance by the
tutor, and / or to watch carefully how the tutor made her item.
We also encouraged Evie to ask for assistance, to request us to
pass materials, etc. She also did this activity with her normal
peers on play dates, and the skills were establishing themselves
at Rainbows, junior church and school, although more work needed
to be done to increase Evie’s independence at school. Again,
we played a tape at home of class-room noises to help Evie learn
to work against a background noise.
Excitingly, as a result of the work at home on the
design and technology side, Evie would spontaneously make items,
both in and out of formal therapy hours. Indeed, the LEA
Educational Psychologist observed Evie spontaneously making a
mask by making a drawing on card and sticking a wooden stick onto
the back. Once she made something, Evie would take it to the
tutor or to another person (for example, the leader or teacher if
at school) and say, “Look, <teacher name>, I made an
<item name>”.
Now (April 2001)
Evie continues to enjoy design and craft activities, and
is getting better able to observe both at home and in mainstream
settings what the teacher and peers are doing. We continue to
target language activities such as listening, passing, deciding
which material to use, and she has again improved. There have
been the following significant improvements in this area:
a) We have seen real
improvements in gross and fine motor skills that one would expect
from regular sessions;
b) She has also increased
the range of craft areas that she knows about. For example, she
did her first sewing in Brownies, and she made her first mosaic
and did her first pottery at her Education Otherwise Kids Club.
It is excellent that she will watch new teachers and have a go at
new activities in this way, and she is very proud of the
resulting work, showing it to family and friends;
c) She is becoming more
imaginative in what she wants to make, for example, she made up a
toy land called Dusty Park, having seen a video of a dinosaur
called Dusty. With some assistance from a tutor, she made scenery
and pictures for her toy theatre, depicting Dusty Park;
d) She is becoming more
spontaneous and independent, selecting items from comics or from
her head, and trying to make them using craft activities. She
does this out of therapy as well as during formal teaching, which
is very exciting to see.
Future Goals:
Goals will focus on improving the design and planning
aspect of Evie’s work, and getting her to think about and
explain what might work and what might not, and why. We also hope
to expose her to more types of craft, such as continuing to teach
sewing.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie had no concept of this subject. On Sunday mornings
we sometimes kept Evie at home because she was difficult at
church. When she did attend with a one-to-one church volunteer,
she showed no interaction at all with the other children and
could not understand what was said. She would sit on her own
separately from the other children.
One Year Ago (March 2000)
· RE
Skills
Evie attended junior church weekly, accompanied by a
trained ABA shadow. She responded well to the class, taking part
in all the activities. She learnt many bible stories, and we
started to help her apply simple moral principles, for example,
she answered the teacher by naming friends whom she could pray
for. We helped her to sort out right and wrong actions, and
encouraged her to identify simple examples in her life, such as
tidying her toys as an example of being kind.
· Social
and Communication Skills in the Church Setting
She enjoyed the play-time, craft / collage, music, story
time, snack time, and drama that took place at the church she
attended. She started to answer Register appropriately, greeting
teachers, answering their questions, showing her work to them,
singing songs with the group, playing parallel to other children,
and joining in with simple dramatic sketches to re-enact the
bible stories. This level of interaction and communication would
have been unthinkable even a year previously.
Now (April 2001)
Evie has this year joined an extra group run through the
church, which uses Christian songs, stories and themes to bring
out creative aspects in children aged 5 to 12. Evie attends quite
a few of these classes, and is learning to do mime, listen to
music, wave banners and flags, and think about the characters in
the stories and songs. Some of this is challenging, and we need
to prompt her through on some activities.
In the normal church setting she is making a transition
to a much bigger group, which she finds stressful, so we are
limiting this to the worship time. She is very comfortable in the
new small group activities, which targets craft, art or writing
to interpret bible teaching.
Future Goals:
We hope to expose her to more bible stories and to get
her to think more about application to her own life. There will
be considerable language work needed to back up this teaching.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie would not hold a pencil or crayon readily.
One Year Ago (April 2000)
Evie’s drawing and painting skills considerably improved over this year. We undertook a lot of work on the ABA home programme helping Evie to be more observant of her world, and to add details to her drawings. She would spend many hours drawing and painting spontaneously out of formal therapy hours, often taking her ideas from books, films or real events in her life. The LEA speech therapist was impressed at Evie’s level of drawing during a home visit, noting that it demonstrated an advanced level of cognitive function and level of development.
Now (April 2001)
Evie’s drawing and painting skills have continued
to improve over the last year. Her colouring in particular is
better and more careful, although we often have to remind her to
slow down. She is very creative and has learnt to mix colours,
make paintings and do more detailed and careful drawings to back
up much of her academic work, especially on the Literacy side.
She is learning to use a wider range of materials, e.g. oil
pastels. She is stating to follow a visual sketch plan from art
books to help her drawing technique, and was happy to do so at an
Education Otherwise Kids Club session for the first time,
alongside the other children. This is helping her independence at
drawing too.
She gained a Brownies Artist Badge for a full folder of
work that was undertaken specially for this badge, and was able
to explain to the tester about how she mixed the colours, and so
forth. Again, this was a significant step for her.
We are now targeting her to observe art works, and she
has visited her first art gallery at the Lowry in Manchester. She
very much enjoyed the interactive children’s gallery there
and showed brief interest in the formal gallery. We are currently
starting to teach art appreciation using a Montessori post-card
project, and she has shown good initial reaction to this.
Future Goals:
We aim to continue to let her have access to different
types of art, both in reproductions and by visiting real
galleries. We also intend to let her try out more in her art,
with links to understanding other artists and to literacy
(stories), as well as letting her try other media.
Before the ABA programme:
Evie showed some response to adults singing songs and
nursery rhymes.
One Year Ago (March 2000)