I am a lab assistant for the Adapted Physical Education class (PED 356). I do this for two different classes, and I sometimes am thrown into helping Cortland students with their participants, as their lessons sometimes fail very quickly.
This week I helped with a student from the BOCES program. He generally gives his instructor a hard time as he is young, non-verbal, non-visual, and is developmentally delayed. I worked with the instructor and gave him some suggestions of things that will work in the sensory lab. I had him hold different texture objects in his student's hand and ask for his student to give something other than verbal acknowledgment of the object. For example, if he likes how the object feels tell the student to smile and if he does not like the feeling of the object then frown. Often we know quickly when this student does not like an activity or a certain part of an activity as he will begin to cry right away.
I also spoke with this students aide at the beginning of the lab hour to see if she had any ideas for the Cortland student. She told me that she thinks he needs to not let the student just cry, he needs to work on keeping control. She explained that the student often will calm down quickly with different types of pressure on his back. I used this with the student when he began crying near the end of the lesson. I used my thumbs to apply pressure around the outline of the shoulder blades of the student, and he stopped crying faster than we had seen before. I instructed the Cortland student to do the same thing next time he sees his student begin crying, and sure enough he did as the student was walking back to meet to get on the bus, and he had the same result I did. He seemed to be excited to be able to take control of the lesson, and seems to be more confident now.
Extra Hours: 1
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