Apple trees

Yesterday was a quiet one which I am finding I need on the weekends recently. My classes are just terrific, the students are all adorable! Each one with a story that, even at 3-5 years old, fills a file behind my desk. There are data sheets and graphs, anecdotal notes. From the school district's standpoint, this information is legal money in the bank against lawsuits claiming inadequate intervention. From my standpoint, I need this information to assess their progress, to see if I need to make changes to their programs: is the goal (too high/low?), the materials I'm using (too small/large/difficult to access?) Are they saturated on materials, therefore bored?, is the setting too distracting? Will a change in the time of day/person doing the intervention increase progress? Are they under the weather/poor sleep last night? Hungry? etc.

My assistants and I log each child's progress from 0/5 to 4/5 on tasks that I have chosen from a developmental hierarchy that informs roughly what a child "should" be able to do at age 3 or 4 or 5. That information leads me to design a goal targeting their particular delay in the area a child is experiencing.

Tasks such as "(Child) will independently identify a social problem he is experiencing; will suggest 2 possible solutions and will independently implement one of them to solve his problem on 4/5 opportunities given over 3 consecutive data days." We begin by teaching each possible solution; what does it look like? What do you say or do? What if the other person does X? that kind of thing, move on to choosing one and then to implementing it with support with an eye always towards independence.

That is a goal for one of my students with social delays. But my concerns are changing for this student. I am becoming increasingly concerned, and so are my staff, that he is not able to differentiate between reality and fantasy insisting, for instance, that the sun has 15 eyes and he is frightened of 14 of them.

Or another student, (whose hearing has tested as normal) whose goal is "Upon hearing his name being called by an adult within proximity of 5 feet, (Child) will independently turn his head in the direction of the speaker, demonstrating an understanding that he has been spoken to on 4/5 daily opportunities given on each of 3 consecutive data days."

That goal is for a student of mine who is 3 yet is currently operating at the level of a 6-9 month old. I just haven't quite found the formula that engages him sufficiently to sustain any eye contact allowing for shared experiences. He needs to acquire this skill before I can work on anything such as matching, object permanence or imitation for if he is not looking at me he will not see what I am doing to imitate or join in the fun. Does that make sense? And I have yet to find anything within me or without (toy, noise, tickles) that engages him sufficiently for him to indicate that he would like that repeated. Shared again.

What does this have to do with the apple tree? Nothing. But it may explain to me why I stood there for 35 minutes watching the birds use an interconnecting branch highway to walk from tree to tree instead of hopping from branch to branch. I was tired too!