Swimming with no meltdowns!

Hi everylittlehelps here!!

For a few weeks now I have wanted to go swimming but my anxieties have always got in the way and time after time it's been cancelled

I decided if I was going to swim then I would plan it and plan it well.

First I had to plan a page on proloquo2go so I could communicate while I swam avoiding any frustration or meltdowns from not being able to say or express what I wanted. Normally I would have pre written anything I wanted to say on the app in each button making it so it was simple, avoided huge anxiety and I would just have to point to 1 button. However I decided to be brave, I decided I would use the intermediate vocal for the first time!!! Which meant 2 new things in one day - swimming and vocab where I would have to point to several buttons to construct a sentence.

Seeing as I was swimming having my iPad wasn't obviously possible so I got it printed and laminated so that I could stick it to a float and take it in the water with me! Great idea given to me by bouncypony!

I coped with the face I wouldn't have twinkle (comfort rabbit) or my comfort blanket - both things that go with me everywhere! What helped that whole situation was that I could communicate avoiding any frustration! I constructed several long sentences with no help from my carer! I said what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, what was wrong all of which were things that wouldn't be possible without proloquo2go.

Smoothie making the autism way!

Last week I tried making a smoothie at a centre I go to it wasn't without its challenges due to my sensory processing disorder I find loud noises really hard to tolerate and even with my ear defenders on the noise of the machine can be too much!! I did as much as I could to prepare for it

I made a smoothie page with choices of fruit on and also included fruit I don't like so I could say what I didn't want which is something I'm trying to work on instead of making my no noises im trying to verbally tell my carers what I don't want 

This is what I chose in my smoothie oh and kiwi but I pointed to that

Talking whilst making it to add more ingredients to my list! I wanted pineapple too! 

This is me making my smoothie easiest way I found around making it was to press the button in very small burst of noise but it wasn't mixing properly so my carer took over and pressed it continued for a few seconds what seemed hours to me and I hit her because I couldn't tolerate the noise but I really did want to do it! So it was one of them moment she had to take the chance of me hitting out but I wanted to make a smoothie and this was the only way!

It tasted lovely in the end wasn't without challenges I had HUGE sensory overload from it and really got upset but lesson learnt next time I'll go out the room when others are making them so to minimise the amount of time I have to hear it!!

Home-School Story Sharing with P2Go

I love the idea of school and home sharing pictures and stories of what the child has been doing via P2Go.  It makes communication so real and meaningful.  I suspect that a lot of children with autism and/or learning disabilities would rather read stories about themselves: they can connect the pictures to concrete events, people and places they remember.  It's also great for inclusion: my son is in a school where there are also children without disabilities, and they have no way to know that he's actually a little boy who does interesting things at the weekend and during holidays unless he has a way to tell them!

So I was really pleased when his teacher suggested a 'news'-type folder for him to share in this way.  Yesterday I made a 'weekend' folder for him to share news.  I created a huge 1x2 grid so it looks a bit like an open storybook with two pages.  I then wrote some very simple sentences about what he did that weekend and added photos.  It was well received and school enjoyed helping him to share it - I can see from his user history that he did!  As I replace it each week I'm going to keep a kind of 'archive' of old stories too because I'm sure he will enjoy revisiting them.

His school are keen to try and make this a two-way process by sending home a little story of his week at school for me to read at the weekend with him - we're going to meet to plan this soon.  Fingers crossed ....

Keeping the set up appropriate for the environment. One size doesn't fit all.....

Bluebell has selective mutism as well as autism. The selective mutism causes extreme anxiety, it's not through choice, it's huge and stops her doing so much. After our slt appointment, the slt said bluebell could use the advanced core set up. Yes, no problem.......at home........but take her out of our environment and she NEEDS basic, complete basic. We have decided to work on asking for a hot chocolate in our regular tea rooms every week. (Poor me eh!!) I'm pleased to say she did it.....we've been twice now, and today she was far less anxious than last time. 

As you can see this set up is extremely easy. It needs to be to help with Bluebells anxiety. Bluebell didn't want to press the 'speak' box, but that's fine, she turned the iPhone around so staff could read the sentence.