A blast from the past from fieldwork

I found this in my “draft box” and it’s literally almost four years old, from when I was doing my FIRST Level II fieldwork, apparently near the very end of that first 3 month rotation. So here’s a blast from 2008 I think. I was just writing notes to myself to remember, I guess…



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Moment of the day:

Child with Aspergers says to Child with Down Syndrome and Open Trach: “Hey! What’s that hole you have there?!

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Some interesting treatment thingies:

1) Child with autism that we have discovered LOVES climbing on heavy bolster within ball bath, then jumping off it into the balls…but I’m standing right there in the balls to keep the child from just like, cracking his head open…anyway…he climbs/uses me as if I’m inanimate in the sense that he doesn’t particularly care where he holds onto me, lol, but today he kept on kind of grabbing me and having me look into his eyes…would smile…and since things were chaotic of course my attention was divided, but he repeatedly – at least 4 or 5 times – turned me slightly to look into my eyes and smile. Very unusual…and definitely not typical of him.

2) Another child with autism who was doing well today…so I pulled out the fingerpaint and painted his face in the mirror because I suddenly remembered reading somewhere about it….not like elaborately painting, just a few strokes on his face for novelty sake…and I asked him where he wanted me to put it and he actually answered (he usually has to be coaxed to answer questions or, most often, completely ignores you)…and actually wanted it…and he would look at himself in the mirror, and then I’d put some on me, and he’d look at me. Very cool.

3) Child with severe behavioral issues…used a heavy bolster for him to kick and punch some…then laid down on a mat with lights off,read some from a relaxation book for kids…did some squeeze and tightening of muscles and then relaxing into a wet noodle…I actually wasn’t thrilled with the wording of the book, I’m like, I need to make my own! So we’d squeeze everything then loosen up noodley…

4) Child with Aspergers…working on a puzzle with trusty Mr Snail…and he needs to work on frustration tolerance…Mr Snail was asking him for lessons on it…he was like…”Stop…breathe…think!”…etc.

5) COTA got a grasshopper up her scrubs while we were outside playing with bubbles, hahaha

6) I just realized I didn’t tell a single one of my older kids – ie, all the kids above, that I would not be back…yikes. I guess it just doesn’t feel like I’m leaving so it didn’t even occur to me to say anything. And I took back some of the toys I had brought in – the snail puppet that one kid loves so much, the SpongeBob Potatohead (that apparently is not easy to find) that another kid is OBSESSED WITH, the Gary the Snail blow-up that another kid loves, etc…a lot of cool toys…

Okay….augh it’s 120am…gotta be up in six hours. Better go to bed. Tomorrow I have to create an autism brochure, maybe help write up a one page proposal for a community psychosocial fieldwork or at very least set up stuff for it, set up stuff for someone else to do mileage/direction charts (or do it myself if there is time but I doubt it), finish up a few plans of cares/addendums for Medicaid, and put together all the pictures in a folder to transfer so they can deal with making a staff/kid picture wall. Gonna do the Medicaid stuff first since it involves money, then the autism brochure since that’s legitimately a project, then make sure all pictures are together, then work on those other projects. Oh yeah, and in the early afternoon I guess we’ll be doing my evals!