Next Tuesday, April 3rd is Ben & Jerry's FREE Cone Day. This year, the Ben & Jerry's at Gateway has chosen our dear friends at the Carmen B. Pingree Center for Children with Autism as their charity! So go, get some free ice cream, and leave a generous tip. :) It will go to benefit the 170 kids, like Bertrand, who are helped by the school every year. Oh, and the tips (up to $1000) will be matched by Cyprus Credit Union!
Showing posts with label carmen b pingree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carmen b pingree. Show all posts
March 29, 2012
Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day
Next Tuesday, April 3rd is Ben & Jerry's FREE Cone Day. This year, the Ben & Jerry's at Gateway has chosen our dear friends at the Carmen B. Pingree Center for Children with Autism as their charity! So go, get some free ice cream, and leave a generous tip. :) It will go to benefit the 170 kids, like Bertrand, who are helped by the school every year. Oh, and the tips (up to $1000) will be matched by Cyprus Credit Union!
January 27, 2011
Last Day at Pingree
Bertrand fell asleep so he wouldn't have to say goodbye to his wonderful teacher and aides.
Today was Bertrand's last day at the Carmen B. Pingree Center for Children with Autism. We are going to miss Pingree so much! The staff, facilities, and kids there are fantastic. In the future, we'll be stopping by for old times' sake, conferences and different events.
Mama let Bertrand eat a few bites of his "farewell" cupcake at the class party.
We found the perfect thank you card for Bertrand's teachers there:
"Some people only know one way of giving - with both hands, with all their hearts, without a second thought. Thank you for being those people."
These were the first people I felt safe sending my most precious baby to.
Any child in their care is fortunate to be with them.
Bertrand's classmates made him a thoughtful farewell card.
We'll miss you too, Room 1137!
Thank you for everything!
January 19, 2011
The Path to Assistive Technology
The Judy Ann Buffmire Rehabilitation Service Center
Matthew and I went into the meeting looking to get ideas on how to make the most out of Bertrand's iPad. We expected to get the names of appropriate apps and test drive them--which we did. But, some of the most useful information from the meeting came in the form of brain storming ways to gauge the effects of Bertrand's motor issues/movement disorder versus the effects of his cognitive abilities. And, how to capitalize on some of Bertrand's motor strengths such as spinning objects with his hands and his ability to stare pointedly at items. Bottomline, before even delving into the iPad, there are a lot of old school analog techniques which are very concrete that may set Bertrand up for immediate success.
For example, using actual objects to choose from, as opposed to using drawings or even photos of the objects in an iPad app, would be a great way to start systemetizing his communication. We do this already when having him choose between books or toys but, as one of the speech therapists pointed out, an even better test is the choice between a bottle/food and something uninteresting, like a gardening glove. This way we know the choice is actually his and not ours.
So both Daddy and Mama came away with homework from this meeting. (Daddy can have fun writing up his plans in an independent post when he isn't so swamped with work.) I am going to start off with buying a bunch of plain-colored, plastic placemats and putting a line of electrical tape down the center of each. Bertrand's will have one of these new "choosing mats" for his wheelchair, highchair, both schools, and one on every floor of our house. We'll start using the mats to present tests, choices, dichotomies... first using objects and then maybe photos, and get to know what Bertrand thinks. Give him a voice--some power. That alone could make for a much happier young man!
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January 13, 2011
Movin' On Up!
Bertrand's time "actively engaged" has been steadily increasing!
Bertrand's goal review was today at the Carmen B. Pingree Center for Children with Autism.
On February 2, 2010, a care plan meeting was scheduled with Bertrand's parents. At that meeting, they identified the following goals for their son: "According to the parents, Bertrand will develop more communication. He will tolerate changes in the environment. He will improve his social awareness, including eye contact." The parents and team members reviewed this goal in August 2010 and determined it was still appropriate for Bertrand. While Bertrand has faced many medically related difficulties in reaching his goal, he still has shown progress. He is able to remain regulated in the classroom for longer periods of time. He is showing improvement in his ability to use eye gaze to communicate with others. He shows more enjoyment in the classroom through increased eye contact, laughter and smiling. His parents note that he is doing many of the same things both at home and in other environments. This progress cannot always be captured through developmental assessments. However, developmental assessments have been completed with Bertrand using the Early Learning Accomplishment Profile (ELAP). The results from his assessment are provided below:
ELAP (3/15/10) ELAP (new) Gross Motor 5 months 6 months Fine Motor 1 month 3 months Cognition less than 1 month 3 months Language 1 month 5 months Self-Help unscorable 6 months Personal/Social 3 months 6 months
This is only the first section of the goal review, but you get the idea. Bertrand has recovered a lot of from his developmental regression in 2009 and early 2010. He is creeping back into the 6 month range developmentally and is happier overall--which is the most important thing. :)
February 22, 2010
Carmen B. Pingree Training and the Scientific Method
Today, Cristina and I went to Carmen B. Pingree and had a training session while Bertrand was in preschool. (Bertrand did well again!)
I really enjoyed the training because it's grounded in the sound psychological and scientific principles. The Pingree approach aggressively adapts and tests methods shown to work in the research literature. The bulk of their approach is based on well-known techniques from operant conditioning. (They don't use the term operant conditioning, but that's what it was called when I took psychology.)
The high-level approach is straightforward: when a child does something good, you reinforce that behavior with a reward; when a child does something bad, you negatively reinforce that behavior to deter it. Honestly, it's not unlike training a dog. (Cristina and I trained our Chihuahuas to use litter boxes when we lived in an apartment.)
It's also important to emphasize that negative reinforcement need not be a painful punishment. With children--even autistic children--depriving a child of your attention is a much more effective negative reinforcement than something like a spanking. In fact, an instinctive reaction to misbehavior--yelling at the child--may positively reinforce them with precisely the attention they craved.
If you want to turn a behavior into a habit, then you use three phases of conditioning: (1) continuous reward, (2) fixed ratio reward and (3) variable ratio reward.
With continuous reward, if the child does something good, you reward immediately each time.
With fixed-ratio reward, you reward every nth action.
And, with variable-ratio reward, you reward every nth action on average.
Continuous reward makes it easy for the child to realize what a good behavior is. The ratio-based systems make the good behavior more difficult to "extinct." That is, if a child is trained only on continuous rewards, they'll stop doing the good behavior when the rewards stop. However, if a child is trained with ratio rewards, it takes longer for them to stop doing the good behavior in the absence of rewards. Research has shown that children (or animals) trained on variable ratio rewards take the longest to extinct their training when the reward is taken away. Over time, you can gradually increase the average ratio between rewards to strengthen the habit.
The other half of the Pingree approach is data. The Pingree staff collect data as meticulously as Cristina and I do. In some cases, they make a note of a child's behavior every 30 seconds. The goal of all this data collection is to allow an unbiased judgment of what really works for a child. They look for statistical trends in a child's progress associated with specific methods they've been using in the classroom. In this way, they can find out what works best for each child.
We know data collection is critical, because Cristina has data on every seizure Bertrand has had since entering the ketogenic diet. But she has more than that; she records every event of his life. She records the time of every event down to the minute; the amount and type of every food down to the milliliter; the calories by fat, protein and carbohydrate of each meal; the length of time and type of each activity (napping, in stander, reading etc.); the composition of each bowel movement; the amount of each medication taken; the type and duration of every seizure; his height and weight each day; and his ketone (and now glucose) levels with each urination.
Plotting data like this, clear trends emerge. First, the number of seizures have fallen from perhaps hundreds each day before the diet, to dozens after initiation, to no more than five on a bad day. We can also see strong clusters of seizure activity. Almost all of Bertrand's seizures now happen during feedings. Most of the rest are clustered around times when he's exhausted. The remaining few are scattered around stressful events like bumps, blood draws and bruises (and broken arms). Hardly any seizure occurs without a triggering event.
We're hopeful that the Pingree method and the decades of combined expertise on their staff will reveal what works and what doesn't when it comes to getting Bertrand to learn, to communicate and to interact. Stay tuned for the results!
I really enjoyed the training because it's grounded in the sound psychological and scientific principles. The Pingree approach aggressively adapts and tests methods shown to work in the research literature. The bulk of their approach is based on well-known techniques from operant conditioning. (They don't use the term operant conditioning, but that's what it was called when I took psychology.)
The high-level approach is straightforward: when a child does something good, you reinforce that behavior with a reward; when a child does something bad, you negatively reinforce that behavior to deter it. Honestly, it's not unlike training a dog. (Cristina and I trained our Chihuahuas to use litter boxes when we lived in an apartment.)
It's also important to emphasize that negative reinforcement need not be a painful punishment. With children--even autistic children--depriving a child of your attention is a much more effective negative reinforcement than something like a spanking. In fact, an instinctive reaction to misbehavior--yelling at the child--may positively reinforce them with precisely the attention they craved.
If you want to turn a behavior into a habit, then you use three phases of conditioning: (1) continuous reward, (2) fixed ratio reward and (3) variable ratio reward.
With continuous reward, if the child does something good, you reward immediately each time.
With fixed-ratio reward, you reward every nth action.
And, with variable-ratio reward, you reward every nth action on average.
Continuous reward makes it easy for the child to realize what a good behavior is. The ratio-based systems make the good behavior more difficult to "extinct." That is, if a child is trained only on continuous rewards, they'll stop doing the good behavior when the rewards stop. However, if a child is trained with ratio rewards, it takes longer for them to stop doing the good behavior in the absence of rewards. Research has shown that children (or animals) trained on variable ratio rewards take the longest to extinct their training when the reward is taken away. Over time, you can gradually increase the average ratio between rewards to strengthen the habit.
The other half of the Pingree approach is data. The Pingree staff collect data as meticulously as Cristina and I do. In some cases, they make a note of a child's behavior every 30 seconds. The goal of all this data collection is to allow an unbiased judgment of what really works for a child. They look for statistical trends in a child's progress associated with specific methods they've been using in the classroom. In this way, they can find out what works best for each child.
We know data collection is critical, because Cristina has data on every seizure Bertrand has had since entering the ketogenic diet. But she has more than that; she records every event of his life. She records the time of every event down to the minute; the amount and type of every food down to the milliliter; the calories by fat, protein and carbohydrate of each meal; the length of time and type of each activity (napping, in stander, reading etc.); the composition of each bowel movement; the amount of each medication taken; the type and duration of every seizure; his height and weight each day; and his ketone (and now glucose) levels with each urination.
Plotting data like this, clear trends emerge. First, the number of seizures have fallen from perhaps hundreds each day before the diet, to dozens after initiation, to no more than five on a bad day. We can also see strong clusters of seizure activity. Almost all of Bertrand's seizures now happen during feedings. Most of the rest are clustered around times when he's exhausted. The remaining few are scattered around stressful events like bumps, blood draws and bruises (and broken arms). Hardly any seizure occurs without a triggering event.
We're hopeful that the Pingree method and the decades of combined expertise on their staff will reveal what works and what doesn't when it comes to getting Bertrand to learn, to communicate and to interact. Stay tuned for the results!
February 8, 2010
First day of school pictures!
Bertrand did amazingly well for his first day of pre-school at the Carmen B. Pingree center!
On the "school bus."
Not quite ready to start school.
Bertrand's locker.
Little Nemo backpack.
Exhausted after a long and successful (3-hour) day at school.
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