Little Mermaid Caitlyn Week 2

Caitlyn- week 2

It is amazing what a week will do. Caitlyn began rotating from a swim (face down) position to a float (on her back) independently on Thursday (April 29th). That is a total of 90 minutes of instruction (an hour and a half). This video is from Friday, April 30th, when she continued to practice her float some more. Also, notice she is not crying. YAY. She says a few things here and there but she is getting into the swim grove. She says the most adorable things about her lessons. This week she said "I swim in water."

Of course Bryan and I being the behaviorists that we are have been discussing the behavioral sequence that Angelee uses during lessons. We were discussing the stimulus and the prompts. This is what Angelee had to say about our discussions. Oh, this is such fun stuff. Gotta love Behavior Analysis !!!

From Angelee-

When I have Caitlyn swimming to my hand "target", my hand is the stimulus. However, when I am assiting her in the rotations to her backfloat, I am prompting her. Really, the bottom line is anytime I am touching her, I am stimulating her in some way. It just may be a primary or secondary reinforcer! Yes, when I pick Caitlyn up, I am reinforcing any small approximation of the desired target behavior. So, if I am trying to reduce the number of kicks she has in her float, or trying to get her to keep her head back, I will pick her up the moment there is any small improvement, reinforcing that she was doing the correct thing! It's amazing how children can learn these skills and don't even realize that they are in fact learning! Yes, very fun stuff!

We can't wait to see what next week will bring. Caitlyn is excited to have Nana and Papa here to watch her. :-)