Fallons teacher said to me "She does whatever she wants and you need to make her do what you want!"
I thought that’s what I do every day. I do things hand over hand till she gets that she can do it then she does. If I am not holding her hand she runs and runs. I thought I was doing well getting her to do anything at all on command. No one else can even do hand over hand. I guess I am supposed to be figuring out how to make her do things without making her do things? I don’t get how to do that.

On the other hand she didn’t think Fallon could handle patterns yesterday. So she had her do matching instead. So we matched all the pics and glued them on(hand over hand) then I asked the teacher for 1 of each pic and asked Fallon which one goes next right here and I pointed at the empty spot and and layed the two options down. She picked up the proper answer flipped it over and glued it in place then tried to do the next in the pattern as well.

AAAHH I am so confused right now.

On the one hand, welcome to parenthood in general. My children are grown and I remain confused most of the time.

On the other hand, welcome to the wonderful world of autism. I got and continue to get conflicting advice regarding Katie. My best advice to you is to remember that YOU are mom and you know Fallon better than anyone else. You know Fallon’s autism and her strengths/weaknesses better. And unless the teacher has an autistic child at home, she cannot know how difficult it can be to raise an autistic child. It’s a whole ’nother ball of wax from having them in a classroom and then sending them home.

Stay strong, Mom and trust your instincts.

And if you ever figure out how to get a child (any child, pick one) to do what you want them to do without a fight, please clue me in. I’m tempted to resort to the Vulcan Mind Meld to make mine do right. And they are 23, 22 and 20.

((((((((((((Hugs)))))))))))

They need to fade out the prompts (if im reading this correctly).



They can START w/ a full physical Hand over hand prompt, but then fade it out.

Go to partial physical at just the wrist, the elbow, the just a gesture prompt, then sure enough she can get it independently!


and remember, differentail reinforcment.


if she needs prompting, she still gets reinforced but not as highly (or w/ the high reinforcer) until she does it independently.


and for the patterns, thats another fading technique.


have her start matching the patterns, then once she does that fade out the last one so for example:

if she is matching up to 5 patterns:


red circle, blue circle, red, blue, red

^^^ have the pic/shape drawn out and have her match THEN once she does that, just have the first 4 matched and leave the outline (no color) so she has to pick the correct one next (so in the field is a red AND blue circle and she has to choose which comes next)



good luck!

Jules ☯ wrote:
They need to fade out the prompts (if im reading this correctly).







They can START w/ a full physical Hand over hand prompt, but then fade it out.



Go to partial physical at just the wrist, the elbow, the just a gesture prompt, then sure enough she can get it independently!





and remember, differentail reinforcment.





if she needs prompting, she still gets reinforced but not as highly (or w/ the high reinforcer) until she does it independently.





and for the patterns, thats another fading technique.





have her start matching the patterns, then once she does that fade out the last one so for example:



if she is matching up to 5 patterns:





red circle, blue circle, red, blue, red



^^^ have the pic/shape drawn out and have her match THEN once she does that, just have the first 4 matched and leave the outline (no color) so she has to pick the correct one next (so in the field is a red AND blue circle and she has to choose which comes next)







good luck!

Thank you Jules
Acutaly the teacher was unhappy Fallon was not standing in line with her hands behind her back quietly at the time of her comment. I am on my own pulling back the contact as she understands what to do.

As for the pattern she only wanted her to match objects. She did not even want to try patterns. On my own I offered Fallon the chance to do the pattern. (I watch her line up patterns on her own everyday.) It was Pumpkin turnup pumkin (black and white)

Jules ☯ wrote:
They need to fade out the prompts (if im reading this correctly).







They can START w/ a full physical Hand over hand prompt, but then fade it out.



Go to partial physical at just the wrist, the elbow, the just a gesture prompt, then sure enough she can get it independently!





and remember, differentail reinforcment.





if she needs prompting, she still gets reinforced but not as highly (or w/ the high reinforcer) until she does it independently.

As I was reading the OP my very first thought was "you need to fade the prompts" then I read your response and you were RIGHT ON with my thoughts. If you never fade your hand over hand she will have no reason to do it herself. If I were to do your laundry for you why the heck would you make an effort as long as I’m going to do it? For instance, one of my son’s goals is to be independent with his hand washing. we’ve been working for months. started full hand over hand for every step. then we did hand over hand with everything except 1 step (turning water on-he did that) now it’s been months and I was excited when I could just hold his wrist and he knew to wash the top of that hand. His ABA therapist asked me if I’ve tried just pointing to that hand to see if he would do it. I said no, she said that’s where we need to go next and by golly we did it yesterday and HE GOT IT!! By fading the prompts slowly you may learn (as you did with the pattern) she knows what she’s doing more than ppl are giving her credit for. I applaud you going further than the teacher was willing to see if she could do it. A lot of people would have just done the minimum or LESS! Good job!