Shawn wears a brain cap

I printed the morning routine checklist that I made for Shawn yesterday and put it in a plastic sleeve so it could be reused.

I don't know if it's the novelty of it or what, but he loved checking off the boxes. I looked in on him once and thought I had caught him stalling under his covers, when in fact he was half dressed already! He was just getting ready under his blankets! (Totally fine with me as long as he gets ready and doesn't fall back to sleep!) By the time I had finished getting ready, he was completely done. Raj was even able to get Shawn breakfast before he went to work. This is a first! Holy cow! (Bonus: Shawn had fun teasing me about how fast he was and that he was waaaaaaaaaiting for me!) What a great way to start the morning - no nagging & no rushing around trying to catch up.

Today is Shawn's last day of participating in BioTots this year. He was really excited to work with Evan again and earn his 'paycheck.' They did number & word games, drumming & clapping rhythm tests, cortical tests, phonological tests, and working memory tests.

Here's a copy of all of the assessments they've done during our 3 visits this year. They were busy! Some are familiar to me from my teaching days, but others are foreign. I'm sure some are unique to this study, too. (I'm hoping Evan can get me the results! I think it would be interesting to see how Shawn changes over time according to data.)

The session ended with Shawn hooked up to 36 'buttons' to study his brainwaves. Getting the cap on & having gel squirted into each of the 36 individual contact points was probably the least comfortable of the experience.  Once it was on though, it really didn't seem to bother Shawn at all. The hardest part was not moving very much while it was on while he watched a movie. Last year he was not a fan of this part, even when they used fewer buttons, because there's an earpiece whispering distractions while he watches the movie and the movie's volume isn't very loud - loud enough, but maybe not when you've got extra noises in one ear. None of that seemed to bother him this year. More mature? Better focus/ignoring skills? Male selective hearing already kicking in? I wonder...
The gel for the contact points left Shawn with an interesting hairdo when the cap came off! We joked that Raj has always wanted to put gel in his hair & give him a spiked look, but this isn't what he had in mind!

Shawn had fun, earned $30, and got a new t-shirt. It was a little disappointing that he's done for a year. Shawn's had a good time working/playing with Evan. Hopefully Shawn will be able to continue participating as the years go by.