Week 11

Hey Bloggers
For my shadowing assignment I decided to follow a typical day in the life of a habilitator, Tracy. Tuesday morning started early at 8 AM at the home of a set of 4 year-old twins with autism (boy & girl - who'll remain nameless for the sake of privacy). My job for the day was to film Tracy doing what she does best for the AZA United Habilitation Training Video, so essentially I was a fly on the wall for the day. the morning started with breakfast for the children (and coffee for the adults - I'm not used to waking up so early!) Since one of the habilitators called in sick, Tracy was in charge of both children for the day. We took the children into the playroom after breakfast to start the habilitating. While one child worked, the other played; the children would only work in 5-10 minute increments then go play, then work, and so forth. Tracy worked on people/photo recognition, one part/two part commands, emotion recognition, symbolic play, and sharing with the use of note/photo cards and objects. Despite a tantrum or two, the children were focused for the most part. When tantrums happened, it was important to ignore the behavior until crying/yelling ceased in order to teach the child that adults respond when people ask questions nicely. After the working portion was over, we took the kids downstairs to play and have a snack. I observed a lot of positive/negative reinforcement being implemented which really helps the children make certain behaviors habitual. After a few hours, their mother was back from work and we were done habilitating for the day. The shadowing was a great informative and fun experience that I hope to do more of before I graduate.