Setting the Goals: Advance I Can

In my last blog, I talked about John's goals at Casa Colina. Today, I am going to show you the goals set up through the in-home program, Advance I CAN.

John currently receives 5 hours a week in the home through the I CAN program. The ADVANCE I can program is a home-based early intervention program that serves children birth to three years who demonstrate behaviors or concerns relating and communicating OR who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. They have a play-based therapy program that includes floortime teaching approaches and have individualized plans. Parents and families are encouraged to participate in the sessions at home to maximize the development of the toddler.

These goals were set about 1 month after the Casa Colina goals were set, so you will see the growth he had made just by the difference in the goals, as well as the crossover in certain areas that were seen.

You will also see the scattered skills he has, where he may have a 12 month old skill goal and a 30 month skill goal in the same category because he has some very advanced skills, but is missing some basic skills---especially with language.

Because of his age, once language has appeared, he has excelled fast through the age range goals. It has sort of shown us that he was talking before, as we thought, but was unable to move his mouth correctly to make the sounds. With speech therapy, he quickly learned many of the techniques of speech and his words just got clearer. Because of this, we couldn't say one way or another whether he was using two or three word phrases or if he knew who people were by name, or if he used pronouns, etc. because everything he said was unclear. Now that they are becoming more intelligible, we are able to say for certain he can and does understand, knows object names, uses some pronouns, etc. So, his goals, which originally started at an 11 month skill level have jumped dramatically over the last 2-3 months.

Again, John is currently 33 months old

COGNITIVE GOALS

1. John will listen to stories for 5 minutes (27-30 month skill)
2. John will demonstrate an understanding for action verbs (by doing them on request or by pointing to pictures describing action verbs) (25-30 month skill)
3. , John will compete a puzzle of 3-4 related pieces (30-36 month skill)

LANGUAGE GOALS
1. John will spontaneously say "dada" or "mama" specifically (11-14 month)

• John does this now and I would say has met this goal

2. John will spontaneously use intelligible two-word sentences (20-24 month skill)

• John is doing this and 3-4 word phrases, but getting them clearer and even more intelligible is the goal; I understand him about 80% of the time, but most people understand him about 30-40% of the time. Increasing the pronunciation is key.
  

3. John will give full name on request (both first and last) (30-33 month skill)

• He usually says "Ja" for "John" and "ho" for "Hoge" , so we are slowly getting "Ja Ho" :)

GROSS MOTOR GOALS

1. John will throw a small ball into a box while standing a distance (18-20 month skill)

• John can do this with prompting, but he'd rather dunk it and it is a struggle to keep him at a distance

2. John will jump backwards with both feet lifting off the floor landing at the same time (27-29 month skill)

• he bounces up and down but does not jump in any direction

3. John will catch an 8 inch ball from 2 feet away (35 month skill)

• John can do this when he is focused, but most of the time it is a fight to get him to want to play ball or focus on the ball
  

FINE MOTOR GOALS

1. John will build a tower using 6 1" cubes (22-24 month skill)

• The idea here is getting his fingers to release the block without knocking the tower down by pushing too hard as he releases

2. John will string 3 beads on a heavy cord without assistance (23-25 month skill)

• John has met this goal

3. John will fold a paper in half making a crease without crumpling the paper (24-26 month skill)

SOCIAL GOALS

1. John will defend possessions using the word "mine" (23-24 month skill)
2. John will begin to obey and respect simple rules (30 month skill)
3. John will participate in circle and interactive games (30 month skill)

SELF HELP

1. John will demonstrate an understanding of common dangers by staying away from them on request (24-30 month skill)
2. John will help bathing self (30 month +)
3. John will help dress with supervision requiring assistance with fastenings (30-33 month)

*John's self help skills dramatically changed once language increased. At home, he undresses and dresses himself with a little bit of assistance, he brushes his own teeth, will clean himself in the bathtub, etc. I would say that he is pretty close to his own age range in this category.