Ok, this post might not make sense to everyone (who am I kidding, I mean my 3 readers), but I had to rant.
1. Telling an autistic child to, "Say 'bye.'" I understand why parents fall into this -- you don't want your child to seem rude, so you just prompt (still not effective, but understandable). But when I hear a speech pathologist do this, it drives me crazy. "Can you say 'bye'?" Well, yes, he can, but if it's only when you ask him then it's not really functional, is it? The behavioral approach to solving this problem is to start with a full prompt, then fade to successively lesser (ok, I just said that part cuz it sounds smart) prompts.
2. Asking an autistic child a question you don't know the answer to. If you ask, "What did you do at school today?" and they don't answer, you are reinforcing silence! I admit I've done this before, but I'm really trying not to ask anything I can't prompt. If a child already has trouble answering questions he does know the answer to, please don't give him more opportunities to practice not answering! The behavioral approach to this is much more complicated than #1, but more rewarding than looking stupid when you repeatedly ask a child questions he can't answer yet.
I have many pet peeves on this subject, but they're probably only interesting to me (and maybe Marria, who I better not ever hear is guilty of #1). :)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Death and Tornadoes
A good friend died Wednesday night. I hadn't talked to him in a few years, but we were best friends for a while when we were little. We were planning to get married when we were five, but he said that he was going to be a fireman, and he knew I wouldn't want a fire truck parked in the driveway all the time. So he broke it off. :) It's hit all of us really hard, but I have many fond, funny memories to hold onto.
After finding out about that Thursday morning, we came home Thursday night and had our subdivision surrounded by tornadoes. It was strange the way the death made me view the tornadoes. There was a total lack of fear, because it seemed impossible for two really bad things to happen in one day. Luckily, we didn't have any damage, other than being without power for the night, but we drove around this afternoon and looked at the destruction. The little airport about a mile from our house had hangars flattened and planes destroyed. We saw huge trees uprooted and thrown around. It was a strange kind of metaphor for what the day had already brought.
After finding out about that Thursday morning, we came home Thursday night and had our subdivision surrounded by tornadoes. It was strange the way the death made me view the tornadoes. There was a total lack of fear, because it seemed impossible for two really bad things to happen in one day. Luckily, we didn't have any damage, other than being without power for the night, but we drove around this afternoon and looked at the destruction. The little airport about a mile from our house had hangars flattened and planes destroyed. We saw huge trees uprooted and thrown around. It was a strange kind of metaphor for what the day had already brought.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Things that make me....
Angry:
I pulled up to the gas pump today, slid my card, and started to grab the pump. I've noticed the last few years that some gas stations have started reversing the order of the pumps so you accidentally grab plus instead of regular. So I now have to actually look... Anyway, so I noticed the one I reached for was plus, so I went to the opposite side and filled up. As I put the pump up, I realized I had ended up with premium, and they had put regular in the middle! I've never seen that before, and it's really annoying. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but it really did make me angry!
Happy:
The Flippin, AR, school district just scrolled across the bottom of the TV. They are out tomorrow. Flippin Snow Day.
I pulled up to the gas pump today, slid my card, and started to grab the pump. I've noticed the last few years that some gas stations have started reversing the order of the pumps so you accidentally grab plus instead of regular. So I now have to actually look... Anyway, so I noticed the one I reached for was plus, so I went to the opposite side and filled up. As I put the pump up, I realized I had ended up with premium, and they had put regular in the middle! I've never seen that before, and it's really annoying. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but it really did make me angry!
Happy:
The Flippin, AR, school district just scrolled across the bottom of the TV. They are out tomorrow. Flippin Snow Day.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
I've always wondered...
why they can put a man on the moon, but they can't get those sliding locks on the doors of bathroom stalls to meet together right...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Square Foot Garden
Today my mother and I constructed more boxes for our Square Foot Garden. We're planning to have 6 4'x4' grids (squash, okra, tomatoes, peas, beans, cantaloupes, and all kinds of things), 1 4'x8' grid (for corn), a 4'x2' grid (for strawberries) and 1 2'x9' grid (for watermelons). We also have a grape vine growing, and are planning to plant carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, and gourds in a separate part of the yard. We also planted some seeds to start indoors. For those of you who don't know, a square foot garden is planted in square feet (imagine!) instead of long rows. It's supposed to take 20% of the space of a conventional garden, but give 100% of the results. This is our first year, but I think it will work well. It fits my personality, because I can grid things out and have them exact! I can already taste the yummy fruits and veggies!
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