Iowa Stubbornness

This morning, I was able to sit in on Circle Time in Ben's classroom.  I was already planning to observe while he worked with his teacher and the speech therapist on PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) cards, but I had gone in earlier to help out Rachel's teacher, and she didn't have anything for me to do.  Ben's teacher saw me in the hallway and said I was welcome to come in sooner, so I did.

Ben did awesome during Circle Time, paying attention to the activities that they were doing (days of the week, weather, letter of the day, etc.) and enjoying the songs that were playing on the iPad as the teachers and some children sang along.  He sat for the entire time and didn't try getting up once.  Then Circle Time was over and it was time for PECS.

And I tell you what, he would not sit for anything.  He didn't want crackers, he didn't want Bugles, and he didn't want to sit.  Mostly he wanted to stare at his own reflection in the microwave and tell himself how awesome he looked, but then he wanted to just move around the room and do his own thing.  Finally he went into the quiet room (a small alcove-type room with a comfy chair that's often kept dark so that kids who have sensory overload can go in there for a break) and sat.

The speech therapist wondered if maybe he needed a break after sitting for so long during Circle Time.  They went ahead and worked with another student, and when they were done, Ben was still in the quiet room.  So the three of us moved in there with him to try again.

Cut to about a minute and a half later, and he left us in the room to go back into the classroom and again do his own thing.  Two more minutes and one brief return on his part, only to be a tease and result in him leaving once more, and I said "I wonder if I'm just too much of a distraction to him?"  I went out in the hallway and moved out of sight of the window, then waited for a minute.

Wouldn't you know it?  I peek in the window, and he's sitting at the table with his teacher and speech therapist.  They're using his fish toy as incentive, and he's picking up the card and handing it back to the speech therapist and getting back his fish.  They repeated it a number of times while I watched.  He ended up doing it 8 out of 10 times without any prompting, which was a 10% improvement from last week.

He just didn't want to work while Mom was in the classroom.

Stubborn little stinker.