A guide to Jake Blovits. . .

Jake is 10 years old. Jake has a clinical diagnosis of Angelman’s Syndrome. (http://www.angelman.org/ for more info). He has low muscle tone, and is non-verbal and developmentally delayed. He has a seizure disorder and takes Depakote. His seizures have been under control of the medication and he has not had any for quite some time. He has recently started taking a small dose of Risperdal as well, and has had some renewed seizure activity during the transition into this medication, so we want to be wary of drop seizures and any other seizure-like activity. He also takes Melatonin in the evening to allow him to slow down and get to sleep more easily. He has also recently begun taking a medication to help reduce his drooling.

Family

• Mom – Terri
• Papa – Jack
• Sister – Samantha
• Brother – Eric

Likes

• Jake can be very focused on what he likes and wants to do. He can be stubborn and keep going back to what he wants and try a variety of ways to get it.
• Jake likes to be challenged and kept busy. He’s happiest when he gets a good amount of stimulation.
• When he’s happy or excited, Jake will flap his arms quickly, and laugh. He can get into laughing jags every once in a while when he is in a good mood.
• Winnie the Pooh
• Barney the Dinosaur
• Tellytubbies – Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa, and Po.
• Snacks: M&Ms, Funyons & onion rings, Cream Cheese & Crackers, Peanut Butter, Lollipops
• Doing puzzles
• Putting almost any like things in a row, lining things up.
• Watching movies, and controlling them with the remote control. Loves to watch moves fast forward or fast rewind, and will go back to favorite parts. Has learned how to control the remotes that he is familiar with.
• Songs
• Winnie the Pooh
• Old MacDonald Had A Farm
• I Love You – Barney
• The Wheels On The Bus
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider
• Twinkle, Twinkle
• The ABC Song – Jake has recently begun to sing this too himself on his own!

Communication

• Jake is mostly non-verbal. When he is paying attention, he understands almost everything that is said to him, but has limited ability to communicate verbally. He uses a combination of sounds, expressions, hand movements, and signs to communicate. Once you get to know him, it becomes pretty easy to understand what he is trying to say. Because he is a pretty smart guy, he can sometimes get frustrated by not being understood. Jake responds best to people who do occasionally get down at his level to look in his eyes and talk directly to him. It’s important to make a real connection with him so he sees you as an individual person interested in him.
• Jake uses a Dynamo in class. It’s a small portable computer that holds kind of a personal web page that can talk for Jake. He can navigate through different link pages that give him access to press buttons to say specific words or phrases, and to put together sentences. This or a device like it will be his voice in the future.
• Jake also has the IntelliTalker software loaded on our PC at home and we’ve begun working with it to give him a tool to communicate with. The software can allow Jake to click on pictures to “speak”. He has the computer in his room, and can recognize words and type words. He also is beginning to use the computer to put words together in sentences. He will choose “I’, “want” “to watch”, and then choose a picture of a favorite movie.
• Jake knows how to type and read a growing list of words. See the section on Writing/Reading later in this document.

Jake can say:

• Yeah or yuh (for yes)
• Uh Uh (for no)
• Mama
• Papa
• Foot
• Eric
• Blue
• Cheese
• Eat
• Pool (“Pooh”) depends on context
• Pooh
• Poo Poo
• Water (“wa-bay”)

• Starting to say “Puh ih”, which we believe is “put in”.
• Says “ne-ka” for necklace, as he is fascinated with necklaces.
• Approximations of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La La, and Po. If you sing the first name of their theme song, he will do the second (Dipsy); you do La La, and he will do Po.
• Approximations of numbers 1 – 25, though you have to listen hard, and he has to be trying. Loves to count to 10 on his fingers, and will show you. Jake can put the numbers 1 – 50 in the correct order, and is working on the rest of them. His teachers say he can do pretty good up to 100!
• Approximations of the Alphabet. Favorites are A, B, C, D, E, I, O, Q, R, T, V, Z. Jake can put the letters of the alphabet in the correct order, and tries to do approximate sounds of all of them. He just recently has begun to start signing the alphabet song to himself! He will also alternate the letters with you to go through the alphabet. A little while ago he started challenging himself by trying to do the alphabet backwards on the computer, and will try to do this verbally with prompting as well.

Signs Jake uses:

• Yes – shake right hand up and down
• No – shakes head and says, uh-uh
• More – puts hands together and says “Ma”
• Please – pulls his hand across his chest
• Thank You – brings hand to mouth and then brings it out.
• Pointing to specific things, or taking your hand to take you to something.
• “All gone” or “not here” – jake does a modified “all done” sign for both of these. Instead of putting two hands together and bringing them apart to the side, Jake does a one handed version. He will put his right hand in front of him face down, and then move it out to the right, face up, usually with a a questioning “uh?” sound.

Potty Training (sorry to be gross, but blunt is better)

• Jake is making slow progress with potty training. At school, he changes from pull up diapers to underwear, and the teacher and aides take him regular to the bathroom to see if he needs to go. He is pretty good at going #1 on command, but cannot go #2 very easily. We think he may not have the muscle control to do this very well yet. Unfortunately this means he too often will reach into his diaper and take some presents out to show/give to people or drop on the floor. He understands that he doesn’t want to go in his diaper, but not to go sit on the potty, though he will sometimes go put it into the potty.

Writing/Reading: Jake has been starting to use the typing keyboard at school to work on typing words. He also spells words by putting his letter toys or cards together. We are very excited about teaching Jake more and more words to spell, and his growing understanding of letters and words. He can definitely read more words than he spells, and keeps suprising us by picking out the correct word in multiple choice situations, though I think a lot of times these may be guesses based on the recognizing the first letter of a word.

Jake can spell:

• Jake
• Red
• Blue
• Green
• Yellow
• Jack
• Terri
• Eric
• Linda – sometimes
• Mama
• Papa
• Cow
• Dog
• Shannon
• Mark
• Gary
• Dawn
• Chrissy
• Anthony
• Kayla
• Owl
• Rabbit
• Pooh
• Car
• Store
• Park
• House
• Go
• And more . . . .

How to get Jake to do things:

• If he is saying no to something, like taking his medicine, pretend to offer and give it to someone else who really enjoys it.
• If he is being stubborn and insisting on getting something that he can’t have, try to change his focus by, bring up something different. Offering to do another activity, asking him to help you with something, singing songs, pretend sneezing.

Bad Behavior:

Jake when stubborn and angry will flop to the ground to refuse to go somewhere. Pick him up and make him go, so that he doesn’t “win”. If this is not possible, give him a timeout and restrict him from doing something he likes to do.

We will add more to this document as we go along, and we think of more things to help you. Please let us know if there is more that you observe that we should add as well, so that this can be an effective tool for anyone who will be working with Jake.

Contact Info

Jack and Terri Blovits

3771 Textile Road

Saline, MI 48176

734-944-5632

jblovits@versyss.com

tblovits@comcast.net

Fax: 508-256-0255