Thursday, June 27, 2013

Summer camp Bullet points, week 4…



We’re having a great week, and here’re some quick examples


-          On Tuesday, when I picked Dominic up from Camp, they were outside at the park that is adjacent to the YMCA and he saw me park.  He stayed in line, holding hands with a little girl (I think they were buddied up) instead of running towards me.

-          On Wednesday, when I picked him up, they’d gone on a field trip to Cottonwood Creek Park (in town) for a “field day”, and the counselors told me he particularly liked the water balloon station. (imagine that)

-          Dominic has been on a echolalia trip the last couple of weeks.  Most of what his verbals are something he repeats from what he hears you say.  However – we are noticing that his MLU (mean length of utterance) for those echoic statements are getting longer AND the actual words he’s repeating are getting more varied.   So last night as I was getting him ready for bed, I had just given the dog a bath.  I told Dominic to come in the bathroom because “now its your turn”.  And he looked in the mirror at himself and said “its my turn”.  He used the proper pronoun instead of echoing. I know that this seems small, but its really actually HUGE.   Rod was floored when I told him.

-          This morning, when Rod dropped him at the Y Camp, Dominic ran in, hung his backpack up and started walking and talking with a little girl.  (different little girl than Tuesday).  Rod couldn’t hear what he said, but Dominic was clearly initiating interaction.   Very pleased by this.


He’s actually taking a week off from camp next week because my parents will be visiting us for a few days, so we’ll see how that little shift in routine does when he starts back up the 8th. I don’t think there’ll be any issues. 

We are so pleased that what we hoped he would work on this summer with the Y camp – the social piece – is actually happening.   We plan to do it again next year.

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