SALT: Mr Goodguess anyone?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

They are using this with ds' school. Was just wondering what it was. From the description is sounds great.

Never heard of it!
Off to google...

Ah.
Black Sheep Press.
They do some lovely stuff.
Are they measuring progress?

Course not. It will be the usual method of flinging it at the child and hoping some sticks.

Parent's evening was interesting. All the teachers talked about 'the boys are doing this, doing that, progressing with x,y,z'. I wonder if anyone even notices whether ds individually has grasped the point of anything.

Still, he's had a mad language explosion, learned to play the piano amazingly fast which gives him an alternative to flapping, joins in with a few group action 'in-jokes' with the other 5 in his class and has learned how to play minecraft and sing current pop hits.

Overall he's doing well and I have my little homeschool to rest my anxieties, which he and dd love.

Ah well.
Good and not so good news there then.
I find now that it is reasonably easy to take a good programme and to tweak it to get some measurement in there. Then what is good becomes even better.

Iv'e just sorted out a score sheet for Getting the Picture but have yet to trial it as LFT is keeping everyone very busy (and happy!)

Let me know if you want to be a guinea pig anytime. Costs less than £20.

This looks good moondog, I have a child we are teaching inference skills to at present and have been using Mr.Goodguess. I have been looking at Siobhan Boyce's work as well. Would be great to see your scoring sheet for the book you've recommended, going to order it now.

We have done Mr Goodguess and it was quite an interesting intro to get DS thinking about inference skills but we then put it in to practice out and about which was quite fun. I'm not at all convinced that the artificiality of group work at school is the right context for learning these things.

I was interested in Boyce too and my SLT spoke to her and got her book but she is producing a work book with it which is not available until next year.

She was also seemed to think children not eating tea with parents every day had led to the downfall of civilisation which I thought was a bit - meh! I can see that has a point in some extreme circumstances where this is the only times families interact and when its gone, its gone, but most of us spend alot of time with kids all bloody day, every bloody day!

Its not as if in the 70s, stay at home mums constantly interacted with kids in some kind of Mary Poppins way. Seriously, prams left outside shops while you went in for a gossip was more likely.

But I digress....

I'll send it to you PS. You can be the first to give it a whirl!
(Saw mention of you in SEN Magazine this month.)

Thanks IE, I think I'll let the school have this one without interfering, though I might ask if it is possible to have some material to generalise the skills (though the SALT currently hates me since I put a copy of the Cochrane quote in ds' book bag, an honest mistake believe it or not). She's also the one most put out by the schools agreement to allow a BCBA in for a visit (recommended by PS actually). Blardy precious SALTs

Moondog, I'd love to give your work a trial. Woukd you want me to video?

Yes moondog, they ring regularly wanting us to advertise but we are busy, and I usually advertise in AutismEye as have written a few articles on ABA for them, but SEN rang with a much cheaper price than usual so thought we would give it a shot.

Didn't know Boyce's thinking was like that IE, I have seen the package that is being published next year by her, it does look quite good for somethings. It does look quite systematic.

Yes I agree Pleasant. It does look good and there is a dearth of good materials for non verbal communication and it does look like this Boyce package could be very useful.

Star think its pretty harmless and could be quite a useful starting point.

'I'm not at all convinced that the artificiality of group work at school is the right context for learning these things.'

Me neither. A minecraft appreciation group would probably get ds interacting more readily tbh.

I do wonder about social skills groups to teach social skills. Far better a mutual interest group that requires social skills to take part etc. surely.

I guess that is why lego therapy is effective. Little foot-hurting-when-you-step-on-them bricks are hardly going to improve social skills all by themselves.

I'll keep an eye out for Boyce. Thanks.

Nope, can't rely on hurty-foot-Lego now aversives are out of fashion

(before anyone calls SS, )

lol