Update on the new job

SO, it's been just over a month since I started and I have 3 cases. Without going into too much detail (confidentiality stuff), I'd like to tell you a little about each of them:

13 year old girl: She has very little language (actually, she has a lot of it, but chooses not to use it...TEENAGERS!). We work on basic life skills with her, eating properly, waiting patiently, asking nicely, etc. This week she started saying "Wissaseeyabye" (in case you didn't get that, it's..."Melissa, see ya, bye", but she says it fast like that, so it comes out as one word) about half way through our session. She gets sick of having me there and just wants to lay in her bed and do nothing so she says this OVER AND OVER. Yesterday, I wrote down the three things we had left to do in the session and then wrote "Melissa goes home" at the end so she could see what had to happen before I left. All she got from that was a new phrase: "MELISSA GO HOME". She's a character! She also loves Chic-Filet and gets a chicken sandwich every day. No joke, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

4 year old boy: I go to preschool with him and he's the cutest thing in the WORLD. When I get to school, he drops everything and runs to hug me. He's very high functioning and we just work on getting him to play with other kids. The other kids don't know the difference between me and any other teacher, so I get random kids coming up to me hugging me or asking for help throughout the session, it's SO fun. The kids eat snack every day. Usually it's crackers and cheese or fruit. Today it was rice with edemame and seaweed. It was HILARIOUS to watch the kids try to eat it, they were so messy and they all had little rice bits sticking to their hands and faces. More kids than I expected ate it all and enjoyed it, but the faces of the kids who didn't like it were hysterical. Ohhh, I love preschool!!

5 year old boy: Not much to say about this one. I've just had one session with him and will have my second tomorrow. We just play with each other and I'm encouraging more functional language. Our first session was 3 hours long and the entire thing was spent at Target since his mom had to do some shopping. So that was fun.

Anyway, that's a little update on my kids. I'm enjoying the job and I'm gaining more confidence about my skills as a therapist all the time. :)