Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Reading Interventions

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before or not but I love the fact that one of my dear friends is a special education teacher. Though she has the summer off from kids she is busy taking a lot of courses for her continuing education credits.  One of the courses she is taking is on reading interventions for children with moderate-to-severe disabilities.

One of her assignments was to video herself giving a lesson to a child.  She asked me if she could use Brian and then continued to thank me profusely.  Hey, don't thank me!  We got free intervention out of the deal!  I was super excited!

This video is longer than those that I typically post on the blog.  Yet, I wanted to share it for many reasons.

One- maybe it will give other parents ideas of how to approach the literacy piece with their children.

Two- I love sharing what Brian can do.

Three- I love to show what autism really is.

If you don't have fifteen minutes to watch, I've listed the highlights under the video.



1:13: Brian is suppose to be saying the sounds each letter makes.  Yet, when the "Z" card comes out all he will say is "zebra".  I find it cute.  Maybe, it's just because I love him so much.

2:55: When the song comes on the computer you see Brian hide under the table and then hide his eyes.  He does this a lot with favorite parts in movies too.  It's like it's going to excite him too much so he needs to filter it.

5:24: I swear he says "Look at that. Oh geesh."

6:17: Brian accidently uses a "U" instead of a "Y" in "my" and Amy doesn't catch it and says "Good job"- he then exchanges it so it's right and does this laugh like, "Oh you silly adult, you don't even know how to spell 'my'".

7:28-10:49: Just skip right through this part, if you want.  It's pretty much dead air as we try to get starfall.com to load!!

12:16: A teeny glimpse of a tantrum- thankfully not a full-blown one.

12:25:  After he's done with his tantrum he starts to growl.  Yes, growl.  That was a new one.

12:33:  Finished growling and you can see him look at me (I'm filming) and smile.  He thinks he's pretty funny.

7 comments:

Kelly Hafer said...

Brian sure is a cutie patootie! I loved this. Very interesting for me to see another child with autism. Many similarities between our boyos. Your son is roughly the same age, I think (Ted is 4-1/2), right? Is Brian about 5-6? Anyway, great video! :)

Heather said...

Thanks I think he is cute too :)  He actually turned 7 in May- he's a peanut though, both my boys are.  They are both often mistaken for younger. 

And I really like seeing videos of spectrummy kids on other blogs for the same reason- it's neat to see and think "Oh, Brian isn't the only one that does that".

Þorgerður Jörundsdóttir said...

Nice to see... we just started to teach reading as well ..my son will be six in three months

Tessa said...

He's so cute!  I was noticing how he holds his hand, like an ok sign?  My Tugboat does that, and I never even noticed until the evaluator pointed it out as one of those autism motor stereotypes that he shouldn't possess at such a young age.  I'm sorry.  I'm a little crazy right now with not knowing what's gonna happen with Tug, but Brian is awfully cute!

Heather said...

Yes, Brian has always had very weird finger positioning- to the point where it seems like he is double-jointed, but he's not.  Big hugs to you and Tug!  It's a scary place to be in- "not knowing".

Christina said...

Wow I am so far behind on your blog!  I did already watched this video though and I'm always struck by his big personality! 

Heather said...

He definitely has a winning personality :)