6.09.2008

Does Your Autistic Child Have a Daily Record?

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: We keep a daily record of important variables in Leelo's life, to track explanatory underlying patterns if and when things go awry. Or well! The record is online as a Google docs spreadsheet, which we share with his entire team as well as with interested family and friends.

It only takes a few minutes each day to fill out the record. It has been an invaluable tool for information sharing amongst Leelo's team and fans, and also for providing fast, hard evidence of how well he learns and how much progress he's made when I start fretting that things aren't going so well. And, best of all, a daily record on Google Docs is free. I heartily recommend setting one up, if you haven't already.

Here are the factors we track for Leelo, with examples from yesterday:
ROUTINE
Haircut which went well, Therapist A 1 - 4, swimming with dad, Dinner with mom & dad at Sewerage (favorite restaurant), late evening play at friend's yard with jumpy house.

HEALTH
Loose tooth bothering him, skinned his knee badly. Otherwise healthy.

SLEEP
Up at 7, to bed at 10 PM. In general has been getting up very early and going to be late for the past week. Tooth pain?

DIET
cod liver oil, Naan bread, veggie booty, croissant, PB&J, lassi, stolen soy yogurt, cheerios

MEDICATION
claritin, tylenol meltaways for his toothache

LANGUAGE
I want more lassi, please. Mommy, put it in my hand, please. Get off the couch, Mom. Squid Q: Where do we get naan bread? Leelo A: Sewerage! I need to go to the potty (in the middle of eating naan!)

BEHAVIOR
Girls were gone most of the day [bless you, Jennyalice & Descartes], Leelo demonstrated that he would be a very content only child. Fantastic happy swimming with dad in the afternoon, best possible boy at Sewerage with only mom and dad. Good playing at a friend's house [Jennyalice again] in the afternoon when picking up girls until he fell and badly skinned his knee; it bled a lot and he was very upset but eventually tolerated wearing a bandaid for the very first time! Not hitting girls as much.

TOILETING
Interrupted meal of favorite food in world (naan) to announce that he needed to go to the toilet, and did so successfully -- pee and poop. One pee accident in a friend's jumpy house (overstimulated, understandable), but even so ran to their potty spontaneously and not only finished peeing there but was able to hold his poop for the potty and put it all there.
We also include categories for SCHOOL and HOME NOTES. I fill out the SCHOOL category from the daily communication notebook his teachers send home, and his therapists fill out the HOME NOTES section.

If you'd like to set up a daily record but need more specifics, feel free to contact me. (I finally put Email and About links over there on the left.)

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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:52 PM

    that's funny I JUST started one and called it a "daily record" - same wavelength!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:26 PM

    So I got this fabulous tip from that in Google Docs you can create a super simple web form that inputs directly into your spreadsheet!!

    I am going to write up how to do it right now and will send you the link.

    It seems like it might be quite useful for your team of people who help with Leo's program.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:27 PM

    So I got this fabulous tip, from Jenny of Three Kid Circus, that in Google Docs you can create a super simple web form that inputs directly into your spreadsheet!!

    I am going to write up how to do it right now and will send you the link.

    It seems like it might be quite useful for your team of people who help with Leo's program.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:03 AM

    Sorry about the messed up link in the comment above - can you delete it?

    Here is my writeup of how to do that thing with web forms in Google Docs. It's super easy but you might not have noticed it - I didn't until today.

    http://liz-henry.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-create-web-form-to-talk-with.html

    ReplyDelete

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