Rayyan does have his 'off' moments whenever I have my one-to-one sessions with him. The good thing is that it usually happens near to the end of the sessions when he gets tired or bored. Sometimes, he will start stimming (flaps his arms) or he will ignore me when I try to get his attention and refuses to look at me. Sometimes he will start scratching his head or rubs his eyes. And when he's like that, it is difficult to ask him to do anything because more often than not, he is not listening to my instructions and refuses to accede to whatever I ask him to do.
I will then try my best to get his attention and will not give instructions until he looks at me because as long as he's not looking, the chances of him following instructions are only about 10%. Rayyan's eye contact has improved but still poor though. One of the tactics that I have learnt to get him to look at me before I give him any instructions is by placing an item next to my eye. I will always place the items that I want him to match or complete by placing the items next to my eye. And he will usually look at me when I do that. My aim is definitely for him to look at me without doing that but for now, I still have to use this tactic.
So in the video below, you will notice him diverting his attention away from the task in front of him and doing the things I mentioned above. But on a positive note, you will also notice that well, he recognises words!! When I found out that he recognises alphabets when he was about 2 years 6 months, we tried assessing if he recognises words a few weeks later by showing him words and asking him to identify them. First we showed him two cards, pronounced the words and got him to pick out the correct card. We were so happy when he managed to pick out the correct one!! At first we thought that he was just guessing but after many tries and he got all the words correct, well, it couldn't be guessing right?! Btw, most of the words that we initially gave him were 'animals words' because he loves animals and loves to flip the animal flashcards.
Then instead of showing him two cards, we showed three or four cards and he was able to pick out the correct words too. We then moved on to other words and we were really ecstatic when we realised he recognised quite a sizable number of words. Even his 4-year old nephew couldn't beat him! Everyone in the family was amazed when we showed them what he could do. We wouldn't say at this point of time that he can read but he definitely recognises words =D
