January 10, 12, and 17

January 17, 2006
What: Music Therapy
1pm-3pm

Ketchel - We've been doing the same things with him weekly, now, just making a list of things we're doing, the list says:
1)Get paper (x amount of sheets, Ketchel's choice)
2)Make book about ______
3) Sing the book
4) Clean up
5) Ketchel's choice of things to do

So we make a book with Ketchel, this time it was things he didn't like. Then we sing the book. Intermittently, Ketchel wanders off into a corner. The highlight of this day's adventure was his proclamation that a phtograph of Brooke Shields was "mommy". I think they want to move him into a special class at BOCES, because apparently he doesn't pay enough attention to BE implemented into a normal classroom.

Adam - He is adorable. We've been doing the same thing every week with him, basically. We make index cards of some sort, and then we sing some sort of song with them and he has to guess them. This week, it was "Things I like to do", so the cards read:
I
Like
To
Play
Outside
Play with
My Gameboy
Play Upstairs
Play With
Joshua

And we had to put them into a puzzle and "solve" it. It worked on his memory skills, and Chris's as well, considering he had to sing the song about 10 times altogether.

Aiden - he's saying more, and you can see more of his personality - he's spending less time inside of himself. He's not retarded, he was just slow to get speaking, if that makes sense. He understands, or seems to understand a lot, but he just isn't able to communicate. I wrestled with him a lot through this session - he loves to try to turn the lights off. I swear, the kid tried every route except *through* me to get to the light switch. Same thing each week with Aiden - just trying to get him to speak.

Evan - He has a good memory and understanding too! He told me as I walked him back to the room that I shouldn't be doing it, because I had to go to work. I usually go to work right after Evan almost every time. That'll change now, unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to stay the entire time with Evan because of the class I signed up for. We worked on the bells and rhythms again. He couldn't even get left to right vs. right to left correct. Chris and I are wondering if its a neurological problem, because he's intelligent - he just has a very hard time with sequencing, he needs a lot of prompting and guidance.




January 12, 2006
Time: 10:30-12:30
Physical Therapy

I met...I don't remember his name, I think it starts with a B. He's a funny guy, like AJ, they both have great senses of humor and they're fun to be around. I repeat - its pretty boring in there, but that's just because I can't really do anything but watch the therapists. I am learning about some of the tools they use. Part of the system for reviewing and diagnosing injuries involves a range of motion detector - its like a big protractor that measures how far someone can bend a joint. Another tool they use is one to test the ability to resist pressure - I saw someone use that (it was like a big button) on an injured ankle. And during the physical therapy, at the end of the session, people with knee injuries have their knee tendons stretched out with a piece of equipment that looks like a medieval torture device. It has several pulleys on it, attached to the floor that extends the knee. Another thing they use commonly is the tinge unit - the thing that shocks, relaxes and strengthens muscles (They attach electrodes to certain spots and turn it on. Fun stuff).



January 10
Music Therapy
1pm-3pm

This session I had to leave after Aiden to go back to school for a music audition.

Ketchel - We did the list and the song book thing. This time, we did "Things I like to do" which included running, running with dad, and playing with mom. And games. I explained in greater detail above, so I won't repeat myself.

Adam - We did the cards and numbers, up to twenty one. He kept mixing up 12 and 21, he had a *Really* hard time with those two numbers.

Aiden - Justin, the kid that usually goes with Aiden now, wasn't there today, so we just sang with him. He actually said "Bye" in tune with the guitar, which was awesome. He also can recognize rhythms and play along to the beat of a song for four-five times(About eight seconds).

January 5, 2006

Physical Therapy
10:30 to 12:30

It wasn't quite as boring today. I stayed in the main room a little bit more. I watched an old lady's body language as she waited for someone to pay attention to her; I watched Sheri and AJ take range of motion measurements for ankles and knees, and then I hung out in the pool area for the rest of the day, watching the people with hip and back problems. I met one patient, Chuck - he was in a car accident, but he was born and raised in Florida. I knew he was without asking because he had a heavy accent (I bet you didn't know Florida people had accents!) and the accent was the same as my boyfriend's. Granted, my boyfriend's only comes out when he's extremely tired or trying to amuse me - he knows I'll make fun of him too much if he uses it excessively. So Sheri and I spoke to Chuck about all sorts of interesting things - cooking(Do you know what the backstrap of a cow is? I do.), cleaning, differences between down there and up here - while he was doing his back exercises. I left at 12:30 because
a) I was hungry
b) I had work to do on the website, listed below.

Website Work: 2.5 hours throughout the day (9:25-9:55,1-3)

I spoke to the "client", Mrs Jaccarino, today on the status of the website, and showed her how to navigate the part of the site that I have completed. I explained how to get into the administration area, and how it was secure. I led her through the differences between the student area and her area, and explained how she could do it from the comfort of her own home. In return, we worked out several changes. She wanted me to

-Change "Short stories" to two categories: "Creative Fiction" and "Creative Non-Fiction"; I didn't have to add another table, but I did have to go through and change four or five different pages in order to make sure all the necessary changes were complete.

-I also made the "Anonymous" choice easier for students submitting work, before I had them typing in a 0 somewhere, now I just have them marking a checkbox. I still have to testrun that and make sure it works ok.

-I altered an image for the person who is making the t-shirt for the quill, and sent that to the librarian so she could get it to the person(I think her name is Amber.)

-I changed some of the text to make it easier to understand.

-Tomorrow morning I have to give the link to the technical person at the school so he can change the link on the school website. Fun stuff.

January 3, 2006

What: Website Building
When: 11:30-12:30

What I did: I finished working out the administrator password interface, which I designed myself; and I also began to work on the general layout of the administrator interface. I decided to use two secure features - one, the password interface, and two, randomly generated page names to prevent people from guessing, because the 'inside' pages are not protected like the interface page. I ended up writing the password script myself because I couldn't find any that seemed appropriate - they were all too complex for what I needed.

What: Music Therapy
When: 1-3:30
Where: Barclay, Ginther Schools

Ketchel - We made out a schedule - he wasn't that good, but he wasn't horrible either. He was wired from vacation. After we made out the schedule, we followed it - we drew pictures of Ketchel and things he wanted, and then sang about it. This worked on his communication and focusing skills.

Adam - Adam is so adorable! We played teacher-student today, getting him to read and identify simple words, such as "With" "Sit" "One" "Won" "This" "That" etc, as well as numbers. We shut the lights off at the end and sang about what we did for Christmas.

Aidan - We worked on speech with him, and focusing. The aide's new idea for getting him to remove his fingers from his mouth is, everytime that he does it, remove his fingers and rub them on a velcro patch on the weighted vest that he wears. At least then he will associate that with whatever feeling causes him to suck on his fingers, which is less abrasive.

Evan - We worked on rhythms again with him, he was doing better today, he actually stayed focused and attentive through most of it instead of trying to change the subject

I never realized until I worked with these kids how we're not really that different. When you feel challenged or in trouble, you try to avoid the topic because it makes you feel nervous. Evan and Adam both today showed that characteristic; I see many teenagers also doing that. I also see how "Group dynamics" fall into place - you sit where you feel comfortable. It shows in small children, and it shows in larger ones. Take a look at our classroom. We all sit in the same spots. And finally, everyone has a nervous habit. Evan's is covering his face. Adam is looking away, shyly. Ketchel's is saying "No!" repetitively. Aidan's is sucking on his fingers. I chew on my nails, although that's partly out of boredom...

that's all for now, folks :-)