di: How to teach snapping a snap

[Joe Kuhn]

I've been reading "Teaching Needy Kids", by Zig and appreciate his candid
stories, particularly those about teaching kids.  The insights are so
valuable for those of us who teach either in school or at hoome.  So I
thought I share a story of my own in case somebody else can use it.

I worked with a kid during my college days who couldn't talk much.  To mix
things up a little I asked his mother if there was anything else we could
work on besides speech, which was really hard for this boy.  She said he
couldn't snap his pants.  I had her bring in an extra pair of pants to our
next session.

Next time we met, we did a piece of paper tug of war.  I won the game and
gave myself a point on the tally on the chalk board.  Next try he clamped
onto that piece of paper like a vice and won easily.  He won a couple more
times and I was sad because I was loosing the game.

Then we substituted the extra pair of pants for the piece of paper.  I held
onto the legs and he held onto the snap part with just his one hand.  I had
to help him get positioned correctly, said "go", he pulled and the snap
snapped.  I pointed directly to the snap and said, "Good job, you snapped
your pants.". I unsnapped them and gave them back and said, "Snap your
pants."  He did it easily.  His mother was quite happy.

Note we did a pretest where I had his mother unsnap his pants and asked him
to snap them for us.  He put his hands around the snaps and bent over like
he had seen other kid do at his preschool.  When he stoop up, his pants
were still not snapped.

I suppose someday snaps will work by putting your fingers on both sides of
a pants fastener and they will hold, but not now with our current tech.  I
realized in between sessions that he hadn't seen that pressure was being
applied by the pointer finger and the thumb, so that is what I set out to
teach him.  When you look at someone snapping a snap, you can't tell if
pressure is being applied or not.  At least he couldn't.

We extended the skill to putting on his socks because he couldn't do that
either.  I held onto the toe and he pulled on both sides of the sock to win
the tug of war.  Then we got his toes down by the opening of the sock and
he pulled it right on.  I may have tugged on the toe a tad.  Do it again,
done.  Good job.  Getting smart!

We also went out to the car and got him opening the door lock of the car.
This was back when door locks were a post by the corner of the window.

I also have a story about getting rid of tantrums with this same student,
if there's any interest.

Teach well.

Joe
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