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Unsettling realizations of Sammys future
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 109028" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Sammy's only three. And with our kids, you can't make them live to standards of "most kids". Although I know that seeing the discrepancy here is worrying you, understandably. But direct your management of Sammy to his abilities, not external standards of "he should understand."</p><p></p><p>If his receptive language is not up to par, then he won't understand. And he will only remember stuff that is important (and relevant) to him, in his frame of reference. For example, how many babies can remember their first birthday party? And yet skills they are clearly learning at that age, such as walking, stay with them. The answer is, for a one year old the party is entirely incidental. Not important, to them.</p><p></p><p>What you need to focus on is communication. Encourage Sammy to communicate his wants and needs. He's just not ready for political commentary, so keep it very simple and basic. Use Compics if you have to, if spoken words are not 'clicking'. It's still communication using abstract representation.</p><p></p><p>Read books to Sammy. Picture books, baby books, big text with lots of pictures - try to engage Sammy as much as possible but don't force it too hard. Maybe pick a time when he's more inclined to cuddle.</p><p></p><p>Write "Sammy stories", or stories about Sammy in picture book form. Write about a typical day for Sammy, or maybe a special time you had on an outing he enjoyed. Take lots of photos and put the photos into the book. I used photo albums to display the books, because the pages are easy for little hands to turn without wrecking them. We used a book like this to teach difficult child 3 to remember his name and address. He listened to us read his book to him and memorised the text (relevant, because it was about HIM).</p><p></p><p>If your current discipline method (probably perfectly OK for most kids) is not working, then don't do it. Sammy isn't 'most kids'. You need to develop your own, Sammy-friendly methods. From his point of view, he hears you making sounds from your mouth, then you come back and make more sounds with your mouth, then you take his toy away. He can't connect, so clearly he's not learning anything.</p><p>The best way to handle it - if he is, say, poking a fork into a power socket, you remove him from the power socket and give him a more appropriate (and safer) toy to play with. Distraction. If he's making loud noises and you can't heat the TV, then either move him to another room or take yourself to another room. Or tape the TV program to watch later.</p><p>When difficult child 3 began to crash our computer in order to bypass our password protection, he was about as non-verbal as you describe Sammy. It took a while of banning him from the computer and subsequent careful watching, for him to learn that crashing the computer was wrong. We eventually got him his own computer - we never banned him from that one. </p><p></p><p>The word "No" does get learned fairly quickly, if you use body language and physically removing him at the same time. That helped us a lot. But you don't want to be saying no all the time, it's not helpful. We used reward a lot, distraction a lot, stimulation a lot. </p><p></p><p>Early intervention is wonderful. We got too little too late. One morning a week at age 4. Just enough to disrupt his routine, nowhere near enough to be useful.</p><p></p><p>Keep stimulating him and surrounding him with the things he likes and can do, and follow your instincts. Use what resources seem to work and fingers crossed.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 109028, member: 1991"] Sammy's only three. And with our kids, you can't make them live to standards of "most kids". Although I know that seeing the discrepancy here is worrying you, understandably. But direct your management of Sammy to his abilities, not external standards of "he should understand." If his receptive language is not up to par, then he won't understand. And he will only remember stuff that is important (and relevant) to him, in his frame of reference. For example, how many babies can remember their first birthday party? And yet skills they are clearly learning at that age, such as walking, stay with them. The answer is, for a one year old the party is entirely incidental. Not important, to them. What you need to focus on is communication. Encourage Sammy to communicate his wants and needs. He's just not ready for political commentary, so keep it very simple and basic. Use Compics if you have to, if spoken words are not 'clicking'. It's still communication using abstract representation. Read books to Sammy. Picture books, baby books, big text with lots of pictures - try to engage Sammy as much as possible but don't force it too hard. Maybe pick a time when he's more inclined to cuddle. Write "Sammy stories", or stories about Sammy in picture book form. Write about a typical day for Sammy, or maybe a special time you had on an outing he enjoyed. Take lots of photos and put the photos into the book. I used photo albums to display the books, because the pages are easy for little hands to turn without wrecking them. We used a book like this to teach difficult child 3 to remember his name and address. He listened to us read his book to him and memorised the text (relevant, because it was about HIM). If your current discipline method (probably perfectly OK for most kids) is not working, then don't do it. Sammy isn't 'most kids'. You need to develop your own, Sammy-friendly methods. From his point of view, he hears you making sounds from your mouth, then you come back and make more sounds with your mouth, then you take his toy away. He can't connect, so clearly he's not learning anything. The best way to handle it - if he is, say, poking a fork into a power socket, you remove him from the power socket and give him a more appropriate (and safer) toy to play with. Distraction. If he's making loud noises and you can't heat the TV, then either move him to another room or take yourself to another room. Or tape the TV program to watch later. When difficult child 3 began to crash our computer in order to bypass our password protection, he was about as non-verbal as you describe Sammy. It took a while of banning him from the computer and subsequent careful watching, for him to learn that crashing the computer was wrong. We eventually got him his own computer - we never banned him from that one. The word "No" does get learned fairly quickly, if you use body language and physically removing him at the same time. That helped us a lot. But you don't want to be saying no all the time, it's not helpful. We used reward a lot, distraction a lot, stimulation a lot. Early intervention is wonderful. We got too little too late. One morning a week at age 4. Just enough to disrupt his routine, nowhere near enough to be useful. Keep stimulating him and surrounding him with the things he likes and can do, and follow your instincts. Use what resources seem to work and fingers crossed. Marg [/QUOTE]
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