Fluctuating abilities?

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NT mom of AS son. He's 12 and home schooled. I thought it was just me but I heard my husband say something to him tonight that made me think it might be a spectrum thing. He seems to have certain skills one day and then not the next. It's very frustrating because it seems like he's pretending he can't do something that we've all seen him do many times. I can't find any motivation for it though. It seems it is related to motor control, and Cognititve things, like speed on a facts test or remembering information. Sometimes it's mood too, but other times it just seems random skills disappear for a while. Oh, and he sometimes has a rapid increase in food aversions.

I am not officially diagnosed with an ASD but I can have fluctuating abilities. It tends to vary depending on how I am feeling (ie mood), how stressed out I am, whether or not I got any sleep, whether or not I have a bug or virus (ie cold or the flu) and so on. I think many people can vary in terms of their level of ability at times.

Fluctuating abilities are common in autistic people. Abilities, or the ability to display abilities in the moment or to others, fluctuate due to fluctuations in a person's state of mind. Autistic people often suffer from sensory overload, which can diminish their abilities to low levels in many areas. Even small changes in sensory stimuli, imperceptible to NTs, can push an autistic person into sensory overload, shutdown, and temporary loss of abilities.

I'm sure that my abilities fluctuate wildly with my level of overload. I vary really wildly dependent on state of mood, my environment, and various things like that.

So, what do I do in response? Simply lower the expectations? Try to help him identify and reduce the overload? Work on coping skills?

Yesterday, I approached him and asked for insight. He mentioned several things that were at issue, so we spent 90 minutes creating a task list system that made the work seem possible to him. I wrote the words big because he said that makes it seem less intimidating. I got rid of the old schedule. We made an envelope of fun tasks and an envelope of expectations. Finally, he was satisfied and then he asked me for the old schedule (which included the same tasks) because the new one made him nervous. But then it seemed overwhelming to have the freedom to choose between the two options.

Is that the kind of day where he just isn't going to get anything on the list done? I don't want to be unreasonable. But I also don't want to be an enabler. His high anxiety forces him to shut down even more and withdraw and he won't try anything academic without knowing it HAS to be done. But maybe it doesn't HAVE to be done. I'm really trying to understand.

There are times I try to actually give him what he wants but he doesn't even know. And when he gets what he asks for, he's very disappointed and blames me for forcing the thing upon him.

Fluctuations are hard to manage. For me, whatever sense if most stimulated at the moment "takes over" to the point of muting all my senses.

Perhaps a rearrangement of the task format would be appropriate?

One coping technique I have employed to counter this is to have multiple projects in the works at all times, but only one per "Sense". For example, I cannot guarantee that I will be in a continuous visual state for the 30 hours required for a drawing. So In one area, I will leave my drawing-in-progress accessible (for visual), while also having access to a book (for abstract verbal,) my guitar (for tonal audio,) food to cook (taste and smell), and a construction project (for touch / heavy physical).

When I finish one project in any of these sensory categories, I begin a new one to replace it. One project at a time, per sensory focus. I have many visual skills, so it's either-or with visual projects. Either I'm working on a drawing for a screen print, printing it, or sewing. I finish the drawing before starting a sewing project. Otherwise, when I went visual, I'd be lost as to whether to work on the drawing or sewing. Having only one visual project in the works means that visual project will get done.

If I have to put these things away and clean them up after every use, I cannot get anything done. This makes for a very messy space (yet clean in the sense of sterilized) that is hard on room mates. But I do get things done this way. I can be insanely productive in this manner. Much more so than my NT counterparts.

The dishes, cleaning the bathroom and other chores, I don't have much problems keeping up with. But the way I do projects is comparable to a child's school work. 5 different subjects for 1 hour each every was completely incompatible with my focus ability as a child, so I would only excel in one or two classes at a time. Ace those, fail the rest. Whereas studying 5 different subjects, once a week each in an intensive 5 hour burst, I do very well. I learned to work with, instead of against, my abilities.

Hope this helps.

Oh, I should add that if your child is anything like me, then weekly deadlines will be more effective than an hourly task schedule. I can nail weekly deadlines like "read 500 pages, finish 2 drawings", no problems, but I cannot to choose to "read from 4:30-5pm, draw from 5-6pm, have dinner from 6-7pm" and so forth.

Before getting him to do tasks try to lower the anxiety. Just pushing on will just increase it.

My abilities definitely fluctuate. Yesterday I was following my routine, ticking off task I'd done. Today I've been cooped in my room and it took hours to go down stairs to eat. I was so weak I had to eat something before I fainted. The reason was high anxiety in me too. But hey, at least I did my grocery shopping so I didn't feel completely useless.

Question: does your son go out of his way to avoid doing something? If so, I may have a link for you. Although it just sounds like he's overwhemled. Maybe he needs to take a short rest. That's what I do when I become so stressed it affects my functioning.

Thank you! Yes, I like the weekly task idea, although I have some fear that seeing a week's worth of activities may overwhelm him even more. The choices are part of the problem. But I'm loving the idea that there are days where one sense is the focus. Maybe I make 25 slots of work and he just picks five a day and if they are in the same subject, so be it. I really wanted to be an unschooler but he seems to require a bit more routine.

Yes, Pensieve, he does got out of his way to avoid things. I'm always happy to read another link. What do you mean by a short rest? Like laying down and maybe sleeping? Or escape into video games or movies? The problem with the video games is that he cannot transition back to anything else once he's given freedom to just play at will.

We had a big heart to heart this morning. We talked about some of his super human abilities and how in any super hero story there is always a teacher who helps them learn to control it. One of his amazing abilities is to absorb the emotions of the people around him and magnify them. I have to remember to step back and think if there is something he could be picking up on. Unfortunately, he doesn't communicate to us what is going on, if he is even aware at the time. So, yes, yesterday part of the problem was an emotion absorbance issue. So much for non-existant empathy, eh?

We discussed how he hates to do new things but we agreed there were things I've made him do that were new that he is extremely grateful for now. It's hard for me. I don't want to force him to do anything, but if, afterwards, he says that he is glad I did, how do I handle that kind of authority on his person? It's actually overwhelming to me. He told me that he doesn't want to do the work to get to the new skill. He wants to magically be able to do it without learning, but he understands that the little steps have to happen.

We both know I'm his best translator, even though I don't speak his language very well. I just speak it better than the other people he knows.

It seems to me, basing off myself and your descriptions, that making him make decisions doesn't work well, but letting him make decisions at times (and not forcing it), and not requiring him to at other times might help. Have you tried giving him specific tasks that he can approach in different directions and seeing where he takes it?

However, helping him identify his triggers and figuring out together how to reduce them is a big thing. That's a good task to work on together, yet also expect that it'll be a stressful one for him (it may not be, but its better to be safe there because it could be a really stressful, yet important thing to do).

For an example for a rest - what I do is that if I'm getting particularly stressed out, I fill up the bath with hot water, take my kindle in its waterproof case into the bath, and read until I would be more comfortable outside of the bath. At the point that I get out of the bath I need to go back to doing productive things.

The trick with unschooling is that even in that, forcing decisions is a problem for many of us. Managing to get it into a comfortable environment where you're guiding but not forcing can be a big challenge, yet one that people like us would often need for unschooling. I've heard of unschooling working for some aspies, and not for others though, so it may or may not be the right move for him.

I too get fluctuations in my abilities. One day I will draw a really good piece of art. The next day I draw terribly, yet I can sit down and write a piece. The next day I suck at writing, but I sure do get into cleaning the house or mowing the lawn. It's kind of not so fun to be able to do something one day but not the next.

I drink coffee all the time. I'm already an insomniac. Sleep deprivation and coffee give me my greatest ideas.

Does your son have totally OFF days when he cannot get anything done? And other days when he is in hyperdrive and does well at all kinds of activities? Instead of conforming him to the evenness of an unfluctuating schedule, you might want to let him have his OFF and ON days to balance each other out. That is one of the advantages of homeschool (is it also called unschool?) that you might as well exploit. Conforming him to a schedule of activities that he must get done regardless of his state of mind eliminates this advantage and makes homeschool more like normal school.

For autistic children, the learning process is not necessarily as linear as it is for NT children. On his OFF days, your son might appear to be doing nothing, but his brain is probably still processing everything that he has learned recently, so there may be a big jump in his abilities on his next ON day. Or there may be a period of not getting something at all, followed by getting it and running with it to become very good in that area. This kind of thing has happened to me a lot.

My abilities fluctuate greatly. This includes all aspects of me. My autism and sensory overload also fluctuates. Some days I don't even rock back and forth and sounds don't bother me as much. They still bother me but like I said not as much. Sometimes even my symptoms of other things vary. Sometimes I am able to speak as well as the keynote at conferences but other times I am all disorganized. Some days I don't appear autistic at all and can pass for normal. Other days I am more severe but still not as bad as when I was a child. Some days I constantly hallucinate and others I don't have a single hallucination. So yeah.

Whoa, great idea. He loves baths!! !!

Btbnnyr, yes, he definitely has off and on days. When I go with it, he ends up miserable and fighting getting back into anything productive for weeks. When he hasn't tackled tougher things, even a little, his anxiety about that thing grows. So I try to tone down the intensity of work while still helping him apply a similar effort. Some days it just takes a ton of effort to do something that other days he wouldn't think was quite that hard.

We are already very different than regular schooling but unschooling is more of a concept about children learning based completely on their own desires and interests. I love the concept and I think it works with many kids. But his anxiety actually prevents him from trying things he actually wants to try. So I have to direct it to a certain extent. I thought maybe I was being too rigid by dictating the order he worked through subjects. but giving him the subjects and allowing hime to pick which order and to take breaks to play a board game or have a snack, causes him to panic that he might not be picking the best path. If I pick, he gets to blame me for the stupid schedule without the crippling inability to decide.

Btw, he does social skills each day and recently that has consisted of reading here and watching Autism Talk TV.