Included: Rewards at School

At the beginning of the school year, before the craptacular spectacular transition issues, we'd discussed with Joy's teacher his system for rewarding good behavior. Each child has a star-chart, and during the course of the day he publicly awards stars when he "catches" a child behaving well. The charts live in the children's lockers, and when they fill a chart, they get to go "shopping" at the special reward-shelves for a book to take home.

We'd originally contributed some board books (more expensive than the usual paperback rewards) for Joy to take part in the system. But then with Joy not in the classroom much at all, and having the reward so far removed from the good behavior, on top of the rough way she treats books... she ended up getting more immediate small rewards instead, and just not participating in the classroom's system for the first weeks.

Until I was volunteering in the classroom one Monday. One dear little girl went out of her way to tell me that Joy was doing well (bless her heart!) But a young fellow at the same table wanted to make sure that the record was set straight -- or maybe he just liked "telling"? Anyway, he swiftly pointed out that maybe it wasn't so great after all, because Joy never got to go book-shopping.

So I took this perspective to Joy's team -- that, even if the reward system is not perfectly set up to be meaningful to Joy, the other kids are noticing and her participation (or lack thereof) has meaning to her classmates. They immediately agreed to make a change. Now Joy gets stars like the other kids, no matter what level of meaning they may or may not have for her. And if she's not in the room much that day, her aides make a point of coming to the teacher and announcing audibly that Joy should get stars for thus-and-such she's done OUT of the room.

The first full star-chart that came home with a board book brought tears to my eyes. Her teacher had signed it with the message, "I'm so proud of you!"

Unexpected, Times Four

More so than usual, we're having to expect the unexpected around here.

Last night we had FOUR verbal "unexpecteds" from Joy, just between supper and bed.

First was during the meal, when I was coaxing her to eat some sweet red pepper. "Peh-puh!" she imitated me, unasked. And then gave a great big grin, apparently loving the way the word felt, exploding through her lips. Lots of "peh-puh"s and giggles for the rest of the meal, and ate the whole helping!

Then a little ways into her evening therapy session, she led her barista-dude over to the gate by the basement stairs and signed "open". "Oh, do you want to go downstairs?" he asked. I don't know as how I can properly represent the version of "downstairs" that she echoed, but it was definitely an unsolicited imitation.

Then after the session was over and she & I were hanging out on the living room couch, she reached for the buttons on the fleece cardigan that I wear around the house. She's fascinated with those buttons, but had never named them for me. I said nothing, she said "buh-buh"!

And last but not least, we had a spectacular unexpected while getting ready for the bath. Joy has been on an anti-potty kick lately, preferring to throw herself to the ground or anything else but sitting on the seat -- and here we'd been planning a big potty-training push over the summer. So I did a little experiment. Brought in a candy treat, and when she threw herself to the floor I caught her eyes and told her, "First potty, then candy." And she let herself be led to the toilet to sit. Then I told her, "We'll count to ten!" And I counted out slowly, "One, two, three..." and when I hit "nine," she finished up for me with a great big "TEH!"

This is even more amazing in that we almost NEVER count all the way to ten with her. Most often we'll go to three, in a one-two-three-GO context.

What else does Joy know, that I don't know she knows? (Or should I say, what Elvis does she know?)