Professional Question About Describing Spectrum Behaviors

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Hello everyone.

I am a behavior therapist and I have been working in my field for nearly a decade. Until recently, my primarily population has been children and adolescents with emotional/behavioral challenges and/or adults with chemical dependency issues.

One of my cases now is a little girl, age 5, who is diagnosed with ASD. I suppose you'd consider her to be somewhat lower functioning due to her difficulty in communicating but she is perhaps one of the sweetest and most loving children I have ever met. She is also very smart and sneaky sneaky sneaky. Even when she's acting out, you can't help but smile, she's just charming as all get-out.

Her speech is primarily echolalic in that everything she says is taken exactly from someone else however she is able to determine where and when to use these phrases in terms of context and her repertoire is quite large. The only thing off is the inflection because she copies it directly and it isn't always appropriate to the emotion she is trying to convey.

I am having an issue when it comes to my case notes. She makes certain noises and I am having trouble describing them in a way that is sensitive, accurate and clinically appropriate. I don't mean any offense but the most honest way I can describe it is to say that it's kind of a drawn-out "Woooo!" (not like a cheer, like if you were to make the ghostly "BooOOOooOO" sound but instead it's "woo"). She also goes cross-eyed and flaps her arms.

I could really use some input and I mean that in all serious as I'm finding it quite frustrating. Thank you very much.

Shouldn't you be asking your colleagues, instead of untrained strangers on a social website, which is used primarily by people with autistic spectrum disorders?

Sometimes those untrained people can give better help than people trained...

Its pretty regular for me to help my therapists, even ones who specialize in ASDs, despite me being untrained, because a special interest in ASDs + living with it is more useful than people who have gone to college and gotten certifications in this.

So I help them formulate how to they work with people who are like me on a regular basis, its part of my therapy, and it helps them too. And I help random parents in waiting rooms figure out what's going on with their children better than the autism professionals do.

If I were to do that behavior, then I would be playing. It would be something that I did for fun when I was bored. It could fall into the stimming category, I guess, but I just consider this moar like playing, if I were to do it myself now or as a kid.

It depends really on when she's making the noise; is it a stress response? Does she like the sound of it (i.e is it a verbal stim?) Is she doing it to get a reaction from you? I should think the phrase "inarticulate utterances" followed by their apparent cause as best you can discern it should suffice.

If you're describing something she says, just use quotation marks? Is the actual way she pronounces it clinically important? Maybe it's more important when she does it, why, in response to what etc, or is it echolalia? Maybe she's just seen that on a TV show or something.

I am somewhat puzzled and a little suspicious as to your motives for posting - you're asking us to help you with the pronunciation of a sound we can't hear?
Would it be because you think that is a sound we all make - along with going cross-eyed and flapping our arms?

Fnord - My thinking was pretty much alignd with Tuttle that maybe I could use a little honest insight from the real world. I've gotten my most important from feedback from parents and people simply advocating for themselves. All too easily we get lost in a clinical jargon and by talking to people who are neither colleague nor client, it keeps my mind open. If you're offended and think it's inappropriate for me to post here, well it only takes one person and I can respect that and I'll take it down. You just say the word. I was just going over my notes again late last night and I felt unsatisfied. I started thinking about books I've read that are written by people on the spectrum like "Nobody Nowhere" and how unique their voice is and I thought I'd give it a shot. Incidentally, I'm also a writer and I cannot seem to quiet that part of me even in notes where I spend a lot of time looking for the right word.

mljt - It is not clinically important to get the pronunciation in there I just thought I'd try to be as descriptive as possible here just in case.

Btbnnyr & StarTrekker- Sometimes it used as simply as a smile or a laugh during play and sometimes it is a stress response, though less frequently. It's funny though, as soon as you two said "stim" it all kind of fell into place. It is stimming behavior, usually positive but occasionally a response to negative stimuli as well. I've known it was stimming behavior, I've called it stimming behavior before yet I just kind of failed to make it click in my head. Thank you very much for turning on the lightbulb!



Thank you very much for your time and thoughts.

It appears that you are asking a respectful question that shows a passion and drive to help your patient, and I deeply respect that. Many professionals would not take this extra step.

I do not see anything wrong with exploring here.

Well, the first thing I would do is change "BooOOOooOO" to "BoowOOwoowOO!!" You did say yourself it's more like "woo," right? Then why not just write it that way? (or closer to your own perception of it if my own rendition doesn't work for you).

You're not going to be able to escape the fact that your own perception will taint however you portray it no matter what you do, and asking us, who have never met, seen or heard your patient, how to portray it sounds like an exercise in futility to me. (no offense)

To be honest, I really think if any professional with any degree of experience with autistics will get the general idea of what you've been seeing. The only way for even them to get past any or your perception related bias, is to observer her themselves. Then, of course, there will be their own bias. But there's really not much you can do to avoid that, is there?