Oh to be a BI

Yesterday gave me a look at myself. I have come far from where I started when it comes to work. I ended up waiting a kid out for more than 25 minutes until he said, "hi Dora". That was the expectation and he has all the skills to pull this off. He was being a turkey and said, "I'll say hi to spiderman". I told him he could say hi to spiderman after he said hi to dora. Than we sat there. He got mad at me, he got violent (tried hitting me, than hitting the dora picture) he tried saying "I don't know" he tried everything possible in his little power. I continued to just sit there and wait. I'm paid to wait, is what I kept saying to myself in my head. It was incredibly frustrating, just say hi dora and we can move on. But he was having a power struggle. I haven't worked with him in over 2 weeks so I'm sure most of this was to test the boundaries again. After our 25 minute sit with nothing but a picture of dora he finally said, "hi dora" and I basically jumped up and down and praised him for complying and gave him every toy he had asked for in that time. After that the rest of our session I had nothing but compliance from him. Whew! But it made me take a good long look at far I've come as a BI. I wanted to give in at one point and switch to a different program thinking I could come back to this later. But I knew that's what he wanted and in order to get my instructional control back I had to wait him out.

Today was a great day, however. I worked with one little guy who is non-verbal and he combined both the sign for "open" with an approximation of the verbal "o-en". I was so incredibly excited. This is a huge step!!! He also really thrived in his pec program. (That's when you use pictures for words). He is really getting it that he needs to be a nagging communicator. Meaning I would put out 3 pictures of things I know are really motivating for him to get. Than I turn my back so he has to not only choose the picture of the thing he wants, but he has to come around me, get my attention, give me the pec in order to achieve his desire. He did it! Again a first and I was so happy and basically jumping up and down once again. I do a lot of jumping at work. (Today I felt it as my tummy was super tight after my shift).

My second shift today the little girl I was working with gave me a laugh. I asked her to describe to me in 4 pictures how to get ready to go outside. The first thing she said was, "you have to put everything you're going to need in your purse, don't forget your keys, than put on your boots, your jacket and open the door". I killed myself laughing with the purse comment. I checked in with her, you have a purse? haha. She said she did. I thought this was hilarious. What a funny kid.

Well, that's about all there is to report for now. Until next time,

Michelle