Scaffolding on the Ice Again

New skating coach - first lesson this week.

An observation: My girl dislikes holding up her arms for skating. She's always disliked it. Why? Here's what I think: Her low core tone is a factor that makes holding those arms up a challenge. Her arms and core tire easily. Additionally, she has to actively *think* about holding her arms up and that takes away thinking space from other skating skills. And when she does try, she has proprioceptive challenges - knowing where her body is in space. She may think she is holding her arms up high, but she's not. Coach E. impressed me by emphasizing proper arm positions and scaffolding the concept for my girl. Instead of one arm up and the other limp/passive, my girl was trying to raise the other arm - so challenging for her - and doing it for long (for her) periods of time on the ice. No, the other arm wasn't up high enough, but she was trying - that arm was actively participating. My jaw hit the floor a few times today.

On the ice

Homeschool learn-to-skate has begun. My girl has requested time on the ice again. We went almost two years off the ice, too long. I love to watch her skate. I love to watch all of my children do the things they love. My skater's desire to return to the ice prompted me to write about the importance of movement and gross motor work and my post will be featured in my Unexpected Detour column at Homeschool Mosaics in February.

I searched the internet for autism and ice skating and found a blog post that gives me insight into perhaps why my girl is drawn to it:  http://theautisticme.blogspot.com/2012/09/skating-in-peace.html

Back on the Ice

After close to two years off the ice, I finally got the girl back on it again today in preparation for a homeschool learn-to-skate class. She remembered everything her coach taught her before we moved. ;)

Thankfulness

Random thoughts...

My newest niece was born this morning. She is named after me. ;)

Saturday was test day at Learn-to-Skate; Eldest passed Basic 3; Li'l Bit didn't. I figured Li'l Bit wouldn't care that she didn't pass; I was wrong. She cried in the car. We were able to show her the two skills she needs to work on and pass in order to move to Basic4, and she seemed to process that information, although she was still upset about it. Her upset over perceived failure is interesting to observe; I see how much progress she is making and where she still needs experience.

Fast forward to today. The girls wanted to skate today, their first official day of CHRISTmas vacation, so I took them to a different arena from the place where they Learn-to-Skate.
As she got onto the ice today, I asked Li'l Bit what two skills she needs to work on so that she can pass Basic 3, and she actually spent some time and effort on skills. I've never seen her do that. She usually does her own thing during free skate times, and refuses to work on anything she learned in lessons. I was impressed with her focus. (I realized later that she was not working on the right skills, so I have to spotlight those for her, again, but the fact that she spent time and energy on skills today still astounds me.)

There were approximately 10 people on the ice today, and two of the individuals there were brothers, younger than my girls, who were practicing hockey skills. The arena does not usually allow hockey sticks and pucks on the ice. I was worried they'd be wild and all over the place, in the way, discourteous. I had nothing to worry about. These young men took care to stay on the side or at one end and out of traffic as they tossed a puck between them.

Sidebar: Li'l Bit sometimes tries to engage kids on the ice. At Learn-to-Skate, the kids play tag during free time, and she has tried to start a game of tag in this setting, too, with kids who are strangers to us, and they sometimes make fun of her, talk about her, pick on her. I hate that. Eldest hates that, too. Helping Li'l Bit understand what is appropriate and what is not is really challenging when they're skating and I'm watching from the sidelines. (I don't skate.)

Today, one of those boys dropped his hockey stick and she was close to it and picked it up and gave it to him. Then she tried to engage them a little. I told her to give them room, that they need room to practice hockey, instead of telling her to stay away from them.

A few minutes later, the puck sailed to her, and she scooped it up and returned it to them, even when one of them said, "it's okay, I've got it".

I kept waiting for one of them to say something mean to her.

And they didn't.

They were so kind. They even waved to her when she skated past them.

I walked around the arena to tell their dad "thank you" for his generous, gracious boys.

I'm thankful for my new niece; for witnessing my girl working on skating skills; for kind strangers on the ice with my girls.

Backwards Crossovers

I have been lax in posting video snippets from private skating lessons.

Perhaps you were becoming bored with them.

I am not. ;)

Maybe our relatives are the only ones peeking at my clips.

I've said it before; I'll say it again:

I wish I could find the thing for me that does what skating does for my girl.

These short clips show a progression from this week's lesson.

Backwards crossovers take motor planning and resilience along with shared attention, coordination, cooperation, co-regulation.

LOOK AT THIS SMILE:

changing gears; something different:

Accomplishments

Today was the big TEST DAY at Learn-to-Skate. Eldest has been skating for not quite two months. Little Bit has been skating a year-and-a-half, taking private lessons until September, when I enrolled her in her first group class. THEY BOTH PASSED!!!!!!!!
I'm so proud of both of my girls! LOOK at how far Eldest has come in such a *short* time. And watch Little Bit handle her first group test without missing a beat! :)

Going backwards creates a lot of uncertainty for my girl. One OT told me that going backwards for a child who uses her vision to tell her where she is in space (as opposed to her proprioception) may feel as if she's backing into the Grand Canyon when you ask her to walk backwards on a strip of masking tape on the floor, on a balance beam, or on skates. Little Bit sometimes protests (loudly) when asked to skate backwards.

Coach (not her private coach) is testing my girl's ability to do something she does not like to do:

I have a bad head cold and getting the girls to the ice this morning was a bit of a chore because of my illness. I am soooooooo glad I took them. I didn't want to miss the accomplishments.

Bilateral Movement

At learn-to-skate, I met the parents of a little boy on the autism spectrum. (A God-incidence. Out of all the parents at learn-to-skate in the bleachers, this mom and I found one another right away.) The little boy amazes me in so many ways. At a pre-school level, his facial referencing is nothing short of amazing to me. If my girl could have referenced like that at five or six, I think we'd be in a different place today.

He is absolutely adorable. Precious. His smile lights up the ice. ;) He's quite resilient. And quite the creative problem solver: He likes to fall on purpose, probably for the combination of proprioceptive input he gets from it and the attention he gets from the coach on the ice with the skaters.

I've been thinking about bilateral movement ever since I noticed this boy in learn-to-skate using his right side while his left side kind of limps along behind. According to this document, bilateral movement is is the ability to execute movements on both sides of the body, clockwise and counterclockwise, forward and backward.

Here's what I want to show you, to point out to you, in case you haven't thought about this. His mother gave me permission to tape this for my blog. Watch how he is moving his right side purposefully, and most of the time, his left side simply comes along for the ride, not actively participating. He amazes me that he's able to compensate for the super-strong right side, probably using his vision, to keep himself from traveling in circles. Do you see it, too? Look at how hard he works! And he's got to learn to feel, to use that left side:

He takes a few steps where he's intentionally moving that left side, but not many - there's quite a contrast between the two. The occupational therapist at school has not noticed this yet. And the more we watch him on the ice, we see why he is not yet skating like the other children in his class. He's mostly using just one side.

Is your child with autism or sensory processing disorder using both sides of his/her body to his/her full advantage? Or is one side limping along? I'm watching my own girl more closely, now.

One of my soap boxes: I don't think that we parents and professionals notice stuff like this often enough. We fail to recognize how hard a child must work in order to maintain posture, to walk across the room, to write with a pencil, to cut with scissors, to do all the things we take for granted when our neurology is not challenged. This little boy falls on the ice on purpose and he usually asks his mom for a bathroom break or two. I suspect he may be working a lot harder than most of the other kids on the ice and he needs the little break. (I could be wrong.)

In kids with autism, I sometimes see kids acting out, and labeled a behavior problem or non-compliant or trying to escape a task when, in fact, they do not have their neurology working for them. And professionals and school staff tend to lump all of that under an umbrella of "autism" instead of addressing this bilateral movement issue as a separate piece by viewing behavior through a lens that understands the difficulties involved when a child's neurology is not working the way a typical child's is.

Food for thought.

New skates

Open skate at the nearby private school is a good time to a) have homeschool P.E. and b) try out brand new skates. No complaints that her skates hurt her feet today!

Finally Skating Again!

A entire month has passed since my Skating Princess was last on the ice. Travel, illness, the coach's vacation, transporting a sib to camp have kept us away from the arena.

I didn't know if the Skating Princess's legs would tremble and wobble today or not.

She amazes me! She had a fantastic session today!

This exercise sometimes has her screeching in protest.

Check out this scaffold:

Being off the ice for a month meant my girl needed a little practice on some skills to remember how they work:

See Me Skate So Straight And Tall...

I have been video recording snippets from recent lessons, but have not had time to upload them. (hanging my head in shame)

These clips are from today's lesson.

My skating princess needs to work on her skating posture.

Coach had an idea.

It reminded me of a blast from the past, a song from the local tv show Romper Room and Miss Kay Roedemeier.

"See me walk so straight and tall;

I won't let my basket fall;

Eyes ahead;

And don't look down;

Keep that basket off the ground!"

SKATING: ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

One year ago today, my skating princess stepped onto the ice for the first time.

MARCH 17, 2009:

ONE YEAR LATER:

VERY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO A FIGURE 8 TODAY
(and a rare fall - she caught her toe pick in the ice and fell hard)

She's FINE. See?!!!
(looked like a hard fall to Mom,
yet the princess got right up and skated away!)

More new skating foundations

More hard work today.

Video snippets from today's lesson:

No screeching in protest, even when asked to go backwards, something she has always disliked:

Skating - learning something new

Coach began something new today.

Not sure I could do this in flat shoes on the ground.

Figure Skating Lessons / Catching Up

I haven't added skating snippets lately.

Here's one from last week.

They make it look so easy.

(Of course,
I was watching instead of video recording,
and missed capturing an incredible clip.)

This venue is always cold. I've heard folks from other rinks say that this place is the coldest place they ever skated. They're right -- it is COLD. I'm thankful that we weren't sent to skate in the red rink that day. The red rink is colder than a well-digger's lunch. I can see my breath in there. *shiver*

Hard Work Despite Frustration

Some days are real boogers at home. My homeschooled princess is moody and her frustation tolerance ceases to exist. Today was one of those days. I don't know what, exactly, was going on with her.

She's had "those" kinds of days days (like today) on a skating day, where she begged to go to her lesson. And I took her. And she excelled on the ice. (Go figure. -- Maybe I should say, "go figure skate!". I crack myself up.) Anyway, today was a skating day, too, in addition to being a no-to-low frustration tolerance kind of day, where she gets to the ice and excels kind of days.

There are other skaters and coaches on the ice when we are there. We see them every week and they see us. They have watched my princess's progress over time. This week, some of them stopped by my front row seat on the sidelines to comment about how much improvement they're seeing.

The princess worked hard today. Here's a snippet from the lesson. I think it's nothing short of amazing, especially considering the whole issue children w/ motor planning challenges have in crossing the midline.

Skating for a bigger audience

Dad saw his princess skate today for the first time. He is impressed.

CHECK OUT THESE CROSSOVERS!

Skating - Productive Uncertainty

We had an "adopted" family member along for the skating lesson today, one of our long-term CLS/respite workers is back after taking a college semester off. She had not seen the princess skate since late August/early September. She was amazed at the progress she saw today.

My skating princess's coach has added some uncertainty to figure skating lessons. Coach is coaching in street shoes from the sidelines because of an injury to her ankle, and she's not able to use guided demonstration as she has in the past.

One of the early terms I heard as I was learning about RDI(r) (Relationship Development Intervention) is "productive uncertainty". Learning and growth depend on tension and uncertainty. Life without a certain amount of tension and uncertainty is boring. Dr. Gutstein explains that individuals with autism don't manage uncertainty with competence, and we see rituals and repetitive behaviors, rigiditity, strict rule-following as an attempt to keep everything the same while avoiding change and uncertainty.

RDI(r) helps parents us themselves in new ways to offer tiny challenges and little bits of uncertainty, small changes, "just noticeable differences" to their children w/ asd. Flexibility grows from these experiences.

When Coach told me she'd have to guide my skating princess from the sidelines in street shoes for a couple of weeks, both of us wondered how the princess would handle it. Had we allowed the princess to become dependent on Coach for demonstration? We could either try it in order to observe the reaction or wait a couple of weeks until Coach could return to the ice in skates.

Coach said that sometimes a student relies too much on the Coach for that demonstration, and having the Coach on the sidelines puts the student in more of a thinking position. But she's not referring to students on the autism spectrum.

Would this be productive uncertainty? Or UNproductive?

I am pleased to see that my skating princess understands every term. She knows the difference between a pump and a stroke and a swizzle. That helps. Coach taught her the proper terms from the beginning.

The princess has been working on crossovers.

I somehow managed to get still shot of one:

Working on two-foot jumps:

I see some resilience growing. She does not like backwards *anything*:

Watching her makes me want to learn to skate!

Skating Update

I have been lazy about getting skating video up on the blog. We missed three sessions due to illness, and still I have still photos and video from several sessions that are in the camera but not up on the blog.

I continue to be amazed at the hard work that goes into learning to skate.

My skating princess has been working on CROSSOVERS lately -- involving a whole lotta motor planning and crossing the midline with her feet while maintaining her balance on blades that lift her off the ice.

Her face, her affect is so full of glowing smiles when she is on the ice! Yesterday's lesson had her coming to me with a few "TA-DA!" moments. Here's one:

A CROSSOVER:

Skating lesson updates

I snapped a few pictures and shot a little video last week and just never took the time to upload any of it. I continue to watch in amazement as my princess struggles with a new skill as it is introduced, and soon masters it. Pumping has suddenly become much easier for her. I always see some new gross motor experience and motor planning experience when she's on the ice -- concepts that do not feel like "work" there.

Today, I put the camera down and watched a lot. I've never seen my princess smile so much--she worked very hard today and she knew it -- and she enjoyed it, too!

Thanks for sharing the fun with us!

The first three clips are from a week ago:

Coach spotted a challenge--something to ask the OT about. Going backwards, the skating princess is moving one leg more than the other one, which interferes with skating in a straight line:

I managed to capture a bit of video from today's session, but mostly I just enjoyed the "show". She worked her tushie off and smiled all the way through it. I LOVE THAT! :)

(check out the new, better fitting helmet!)

Here's the one-leg-working-harder-than-the-other thing again --
is it a bilateral something issue?
Hmmmm...
She hangs in there with the backward pumps, even though they feel challenging.

Building Resilience

My firstborn princess asked me yesterday why I put so much of the younger princess's skating on my blog. My answer: I love to see the skating princess stretching herself in new ways. That's exciting to me!

Figure skating lessons have given my skating princess a lot of experiences for making new discoveries. The introduction of a new skills and expectations is scary for her, and she's learning that she can handle the both the feelings and the challenge. That's a huge discovery! Those of you who are RDI(r) moms and dads understand the concept of resilience, because Dr. Gutstein talks about it so much.

I continue to be amazed at the motor planning, gross motor coordination and proprioceptive work that happens in each lesson. Each lesson builds on a previous lesson, and I see how lessons stretch and grow her in new ways.

Last week, we saw some bumps on the ice. The skills that coach was teaching her were too difficult, from the perception of my princess, and for the first time since she began taking lessons six months ago, she began asking for breaks during lessons. She began screeching a little, protesting, and even begged to go to the bathroom, something she'd not done during a lesson as an escape before.

So, Coach S. and I brainstormed. We talked about different reasons why those particular skills were sending the skating princess into retreat.

And Coach S. decided to retreat and regroup so that she could set aside for now the skills that were contributing to the bumps.

My princess does not like going backwards -- she's never liked doing anything backwards. Every OT she's had has made her walk backwards on a balance beam. She lets us know how much she hates that (and she can be *loud*!). Today, she handled skating backwards like a pro. The video I shot is too big for the blog. You'll have to trust me -- she's making some discoveries during her skating lessons.