Friday, February 5, 2010

Bubble Obsessions

Finding a new reinforcer for your child with autism is like finding gold!  Yesterday we discovered bubbles are the bee's knees.  Alanna loves bubbles.  So much so that when she sees the bubbles PEC on her PEC board (a PEC is a picture she can exchange for something she wants) she immediately brings it.  We used this to get her to switch to a verbal request, and all day yesterday we heard "ba ba", "bubbles" and "gubbles".  She will now request without the PEC; she'll even bring you the bubble vial and dip the bubble wand in for you!  She knows she has to bring it to her mouth to blow but isn't quite sure how yet.

I love that she is talking and has converted a PEC into a very close verbal approximation in less than a day.  But now our world is "gubbles, gubbles, gubbles!!"  We have to hide them and distract her.  Good thing children with autism don't have fixations... not.

3 comments:

  1. are you kidding? This is major. No one knows how to make bubbles until at least age 3. Have you tried those wind up toys - they are little toys that have a little key - were very popular with my kid at that age. And a balloon. Blow, let go makes farting sound and flies everywhere. We also started with just one or two reinforcers for the longest time.

    You can get windy toys in a fascinating shop called Mastermind toys. They have branches all over.

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  2. its posts like these that make me wish blogs had a 'like' button! Bubbles are a big hit in our home too. have you looked into a bubble machine? They are marketed as tub toys but I've been known to use ours in the living room for added bubble fun.

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  3. Yup- "bubbles" was my son's first word and mand.

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