Reading and Writing

Nick continues to work on his typing.
He has to write out at least one sentence and some sight words and then can also write out what he wants. We set up the computer when he is doing his bathroom routine.

March 13:

Four

Did

Do

Soon

With

You

Ride

Nickolas

I went on the rides.

Katheryn.

Ridding

At school he uses a program called WordQ. It cues what he is typing and he can use the mouse to hover over the word and it will read it out. If the correct word is there he can either click on it or pick the number with it.

March 14:

I want to grow up to be a ninja turtle.

Nickolas Ridding 

Ran

You

Will

This 

Saw 

We did the words a couple of different ways. The sight words he would pick which ones and copy down. That was working on his typing and learning where the keys were.

March 16:

I went to the museum with Jennifer, Devon, Lucas and Katheryn.

I liked the mummies.

But we also worked on sentences; what did Nick want to write about? What did he do today?

March 19:

I went to the movie theatre with Daddy, Austin, and Uncle Brad.

We saw Sponge Bob Squarepants.

Nick

He also liked writing his name, and Katheryn's name. Katheryn is one of his first words that he knew how to spell. One day I was bringing him downstairs and he just started naming off the letters of her name. I had to get him to repeat it before I realized what he was spelling.

March 20:

Soon 

He 

Into

Brown 

Out

I went to McDonalds 

As he got better at the typing I stopped helping him as much with the letters. Instead of asking him what he wanted to spell out and telling him the letters for him to find, we started sounding out his words.

March 22:

I went to grandma ridding apartment

I had an Easter egg hunt

Maddi and Austin came for dinner

I have noticed a huge improvement in his spelling with this. All day we work on spelling like this. And it works, of course, the other way around too. With his reading. Sounding out letters and words.

Our newest word to sound out... and Nick did it successfully... is Booyakasha

Therapy Progression - Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy is one area that we slacked on for a long time. Concentrating more on the big physiotherapy aspects.
But occupational therapy is coming into focus now. It is the day-to-day part of life.
The holding a pencil, putting on clothes, doing activities of daily living (like entering your house).

It is also walking and wheeling. Sure physiotherapy looks at the legs and body in the walker, but occupational therapy looks at everything else. Watching areas of pressure in the elbows and wrists, functionality of the wheelchair.
 It is using your hands and fingers. Writing, drawing, dexterity.

 Nick is having a very difficult time with that. Nick has exploded in his interest and ability (surprising how those go together) in regards to language and physiotherapy. But he could really care less about writing anything other than his name or colouring inside the line.

This is a picture that Nick drew in July. One of the first person-pictures he has drawn

 Even drawing pictures, he really doesn't have any interest in it. I have only a couple drawings of Nick's on the wall. The rest are crafts that he has done it school, usually cutting and pasting.

 When we discussed occuptional therapy last month, we talked about how to make things easier for Nick. Yes he needs to learn how to write, but he spends so much time and energy on the actual physicality of making letters that he isn't actually writing ideas. He is just copying. He just got a computer at school (that will travel with him to his new school next year).

This took Nick 7 minutes and 17 seconds to print out

The computer lets him get his ideas across in words, without the struggle to make the letters.
Using a computer makes things easier, but with actual typing, but also with a program called word-cue. With this program when you type a letter "t" it gives you choices of 5 different words "the" and you pick the number associated with that word. "the" may not be the best example. But it helps to get words out.

The computer can also be used for pictures and creativity. This picture he made on the computer for Christmas (of course a ninja turtle)

But even with a computer as a writing-aid, we still work

And we've been working on some hand exercises. Helping to distinguish between different sides of the hands. Moving little and ring finger separate from pointer and middle finger (live long and prosper... or ninja-turtle related high-three)

Nick has a computer for school right now. It will travel with him when he moves schools and has programs for him loaded on it. We are also looking at getting him a designated computer for home. I have my laptop, Kyle has a desk-top, and we have a table, but it just doesn't have what we need for Nick. So we are having a writing aid consultation to see if we can get some type of computer for Nick to use at home.

All I want for Christmas

Christmas is coming and it's time for the kids to write their wish list for Santa

Katheryn got to practice her writing

And we decided to try something new with Nickolas.
After Nick's report this month I decided that instead of making Nick spend all of his time writing out what he wants, we would type it out.

So he had to type every single word on his wish list
We spent time sounding out and looking at what was written in the flyers and then he had to find the right key on the keyboard.

 

Katheryn wanted to type out her list as well, so after she wrote it she got to type it as well.



Once that 'work' was done, it was time for play!

 

That ran around the house like this for about an hour!

Hearing the giggles and laughter from these 2 made my wishes come true!