The Deal

Novan has never successfully been able to drink out of an open cup. He can't seem to get the hang of holding a fork/spoon effectively (although he does feed himself, he is pretty messy at it) and he still doesn't draw things mostly because he doesn't have good motor control in his hands to be able to hold a pen/marker/crayon properly. I would say that part of the reason he can't do these things is due to his own frustration keeping him from trying but really these things are a lot harder for him than other kids. Beya can do all these things and it's not really that I taught her, she just picked it up, as most kids do. I do have a master in psychology so I find all of these little things very interesting and have been able to pinpoint exactly where his difficulties are comming from and being able to predict where his frustrations will start. Take for example drinking out of a cup. It involves the coordinated use of hand control and mouth control. Novan was a very late talker partly because he just wasn't good at mimicking. He was a very quiet baby as a result. When it comes to using his hands he isn't good at mimicking either. I see Beya actively watch adults for the proper way to hold things in her hands and then copy it. It is fascinating to watch her after having seen Novan do and learn things so differently. Novan is also an EXTREMELY picky eater. His issues are with anything that isn't bland bland bland and also with unusual textures or varying textures. I believe this is related to having such little control over his mouth movement which is due to his brain being immature of its processing of mouth motor skills. He has trouble processing nerve messages that his mouth sends to his brain resulting in oversensitivity (having too much to process when encountering rich flavor, and texture) and lack of control. These things combined with poor hand motor control result in his difficulties. It doesn't mean it is impossible to learn to do these things, it is just going to require me to take a more active role in helping him learn these skills.

So, one of the things that Novan has been asking for over and over and over is this Transformers Devastator toy that costs $90. After asking for it for the 1000th time Brad said to me "We need to find a way that Novan can get that toy." So after a while it came to me that he should learn to write his letters, all of them, by himself and then we would buy Transformers Devastator for him. When I told him what the "deal" was he seemed pretty excited at the prospect so we started last week to do this. So far we have done A's, B's, and C's but he only copies over my dotted line letters. I have yet to get him to do any of them successfully by himself from scratch. Still, I am very pleased at his continued interest. He finds it VERY difficult and if a letter doesn't turn out just right I can't convince him that it's OK and he can try again and it doesn't have to be perfect. Our short sessions go somewhat like this: I place his fingers on the marker properly (he was terrible at holding his hand in the right place even when I placed it but he is getting much better at it). Then I hold his hand and trace over the first letter with him. Then he starts the rest of them by himself. As soon as his control goes astray resulting in a messy letter he puts his head down and cries in frustration. "It's all messy!" he says. I turn my attention elsewhere while he gets the courage to try again because if I try to talk him out of being frustrated he just relishes the attention and gets more frustrated. Sometimes I try to get him to laugh about it by saying "Look Novan! That one got a little wiggly!" and then I do a little wiggle dance to make him laugh. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We repeat this process of trying and frustration over and over until both of us are shot, which usually only takes about a half hour. I pile on the praise but I notice that Novan get a lot of self-satisfaction when he does it properly even without my praise. He is so like his Dad, he doesn't require outside factors to really motivate him to succeed. You know, it's like the difference between a successful self-employed person and working a job. Most people could never be successful self-employed because they are the only ones around to drive themselves forward. Most kids really like the praise, Beya does, she relishes in it. Novan likes it, he just gets a lot more satisfaction and motivation when he sees his own accomplishments than others normally would.

Anyway, so we'll see how this little bit of bribery works. Hopefully it isn't too much of a task I have set about to do. I am totally open to suggestions. I obviously have never tried to teach any kid anything before at least not actively so even to me this is foreign territory. I like to think though that I have Novan pretty figured out, much more than any other teacher would.