2011

2011 is off to a good start. Hopefully 2011 will also see the end of NR. I think we are just doing some fiune tuning now, as I don't have a huge list that I go through at each re-eval. I've been composing our graduation post to the group, since I want it concise but all inclusive. A bit premature you may be thinking, but I think it's important to remember all the progress we've made. It's been hard to convince people that the NR is reponsible since we started so young. S would be advancing and progressing no matter what. I think that attachment had a lot to do with her holding back. The other day she told me something that happened a year ago. She remembered the sequence of events. From what I remember, I wasn't even sure what she could comprehend at that point. She had us all fooled. I had thought that could be a possibility all along, because she would never let on that she knew anything. That was actually a pretty clever method of self protection. Now that she is feeling safer, she is willing to open up and reciprocate with conversation. She always talked a lot, but it was just monologue or asking questions or making comments about something. She would still prefer not to answer direct questions. I still think there could be auditory processing problems going on. Sometimes I have to rephrase things to get an answer. Is it my presistence that gets her to answer, or is it the different presentation that makes her answer. She is going through some speech 'difficulties' right now. Difficulties isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what to call it. She'll repeat a word over and over in a sentence because it seems like she can't speak as fast as her brain is producing words. She'll say, "Can I, can I, can I, and then what she wants. It's not stuttering, because she can form the word, it's just she can't get it all out fast enough. Not long ago, she would just repeat your question when you asked it. Now we get answers. She is very guarded, especially emotionally. She is most sensitive to her 13 year old sister. If M doesn't want her in the room or rejects her in any way, she comes out complaining and saying that her feelings are hurt. She's pretty much the only person who can make her cry. The one remarkable thing that is now effective is punnishment or threat of punnishment. Consequenses never worked before. You could take away all of her possesions or threaten anything and it had no meaning to her. Now, I can ask her if she wants to go in time out and she'll usually do what I want. She is also very concerned if I am happy or not. She wants to make sure I'm happy all of the time. I can also tell her she'll make me sad and she'll comply with the request. I don't use it often because this probably has some detrimental effect on attachment. We go back for another re-eval in a few weeks. Hopefully we'll get an endpoint by that time. I need that to keep going.