My son is developmentally delayed and by second grade he did not know the days of the week. On one particular day I was drilling him about what day it was. At one point he said to me," Is it still Wednesday?" That's when this idea hit me. All days seem the same to him no matter what he was doing or had done. I noticed that even after we ate breakfast he did not know what meal he would eat next. Everything was all mixed up for him. Nothing made sense. I decided to color code the days on an apron. Monday, for example, was a blue day. I would wear that blue apron everywhere, all day. But I took it one more step; I added icons that included what we were going to do that day, including therapies. The icons fit sequentially in the front of the apron in a clear sleeve so that he could see all three of them. (As he got better at it I added more icons.) But initially I only had three; breakfast, lunch and dinner. The icons were very bright and colorful. As each activity was completed the icon was turned over to reveal a black and white icon of that activity. It was NOT removed but rather it stayed there as a reminder that we had done that activity that day. Each day was a different color. At first I did not call a day by its given name but I would call it that color day. As he learned what a "day" was then I paired it with its name. Such as" Today is our blue day, we call that day Monday." And so on. My son would see me first thing in the morning with this apron and soon he was able to see the apron and know what he needed to do for the day. Three years later my son still knows those colors but now he knows them by name and sequence. And to emphasize the color of the day he would write in marker of that color on all of his papers. This is an excellent tool to be used by both parent and teacher to help the child know what is expected from him and what and where he will be going.
Before my son understood the days of the week he seemed to flutter from day to day. Now my son will wake up and let me know what he is doing that day. It has grounded him and has made him more of a person with us not a person commanded by us.
You can order the Communication Apron, shown above, from Abilitation, Speech Bin catalog : 800-850-8602, the item number is 11320373-506. Or you can visit the site:
This is a $30.00 investment and worth every penny!
When you find a therapy or a program that works universally as a mom with a child with a child with special needs you just want to share it with everyone. This really changed my son's life. I still get very happy when he knows what is going on. He is thirteen and it makes me so happy that now he even knows that next month is Halloween and he can't wait to dress up.
Good luck with the information you were able to get from our experience.
my son has no concept of the days of the week either. he refers to a year ago as being yesterday. I will tell him we are going shopping on a certain day and he will ask how many times does he have to wake up.
How old is your son? Once I used this apron for 6 months he started to put life in perspective. The key to using this apron is that after an activity is done you turn it around to black and white. It lets them know that they did the activity but still on that day. I found that if I removed the icon he did not know he had done it. It let him get an idea of past. I also paired it with an color coded calendar and did the same thing on the calendar. It really did work and I highly advice using it. I have another mom that I work with and wish so much that she would use the apron. This other child is going on 14 and still does not know the days of the week or the months of the year. Just starting off with learning the days really let Jake put it all together. One other question can your child do patterning, especially a growing pattern. That is also key to learning about the days.
I wore my apron to Jakes Soccer game and a mother with a child with Autism loved it. She wants to order one. It made me feel so good that I could help another mom.
full time ABA clinic looking to open in Corpus Christi,Texas?
- suz123
on Sep. 6, 2009 at 12:10 PM