Getting dressed alone
I want my son (age 12, classic autism) to get dressed on his own. As it is, I hand him the articles of clothing in the correct order and he may put them on or he may not if he's not in the mood to do it. That's more of a compliance issue, but what he doesn't do is pick out his own clothes. It's not so much that I want him making choices (I mean I do want that, but that's secondary). What I want is for him to do a task on his own. He has a majorly fleeting attention span for things that he doesn't care about, and getting dressed is definitely in that category (he still doesn't understand why he must wear clothes at all).
He's good with visual things like a schedule or a list of tasks he has to do at school and he's even starting to follow pictures for baking familiar things (I get him to help me bake things, and I made instructions with photos, and he does sort of follow). But none of these things he can do if you just leave (certainly not baking ). Like I said, I'm trying to get him to do something without someone standing over him prompting him every 2 seconds. He CAN physically get dressed on his own, but he needs me handing him clothes (a)to keep him on-task and (b) so he doesn't have to pay much attention to what he's doing.
So what I did was get a teddy bear and get clothes for it (including underwear and socks!). I put the clothes in shoe boxes and labelled the lid of each box with PECS of the article of clothing (shirts, pants, etc.). Then I used the same PECS cards on his drawers where his clothes are, and I made instructions with the order of getting dressed with the same PECS. That is on a laminated thing with the velcro so he can take off the card once he's completed that step (we use this method for many things so he's familiar with this).
Then in the morning, I get him to dress the bear. At first it required a lot of prompting, but now he knows what I'm expecting and he can do it quite well, using the instructions to remind himself (only occasionally does he miss a step). This has been our routine for 3 weeks. That's why he's getting this concept. But also for 3 weeks, I've been then leaving the room after instructing him to dress himself. I show him the instructions and say "your turn" (he knows that phrase)... but he's not doing it.
I don't know if it's a compliance problem, but I feel like it's not. ONE time, a few days ago, when I came in, he had put on his underpants on top of his pyjamas. So then from there, I had the bear wearing pyjamas, and we have to undress the bear first, then dress him (and I added to the instructions also). But since then he hasn't even put underwear on over pyjamas- he does nothing towards getting dressed. When I come in, he's running (when he stims he runs back and forth). When I come, I still make a big deal of consulting the list of instructions as I'm helping him dress himself.
When we're dressing the bear, he does look at the instructions, match the picture to the bear's clothes and put it on. I feel like he does understand that. But he's not doing it alone. I'm there to prompt him... and then I'm not when he does it alone (that's the whole point). But then if I leave him to dress the bear alone, he doesn't, so then I'm fighting 2 battles, and one is dressing a teddy bear, so that's pretty pointless.
Sorry this is so long. Does anyone have any ideas? Stop this crazy dressing-a-bear nonsense? Give up on this entirely? Try a different task instead of dressing? Other suggestions?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
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Mum to two awesome kids on the spectrum (16 and 13 years old).
I don't know if this would be problematic to do with photographs, but maybe with drawings.... Like, draw a boy with underwear on and label it as step 1, followed with a drawing of step 2 with pants on...etc.? You could also have something with layers like those human body books have with the various systems, only use layers of clothes or something on sheets of plastic over a picture of a boy?
Yeah, I was about to and then thought about it. I don't know if they have a home photo printer, and I don't know if I would want to send that to anyone to print.
The bear has different outfits (not as many as my son, obviously, but he does have a few to choose from).
Originally what I was going to do was make a paper boy with paper clothes, laminated with Velcro instead of the bear, and have photographs of him at each step in the instructions. I can print them myself, but they'd have to be sent somewhere to be laminated and struck me as kind of weird. Also, I wanted the instructions to be universal. The reason is I feel like sometimes we make it harder for him to generalise by making everything really specific. He's used to PECS and he knows what to do with each article of clothing so I feel like he should be able to generalise. But maybe that is the problem. Him with the PECS as well might be a nice bridge and then we could work up to just PECS maybe.
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Mum to two awesome kids on the spectrum (16 and 13 years old).
I've seen self-stick lamination sheets at Target and Staples that don't require a machine. Just open the plastic, slip in the picture, and stick it back together. About $2 for an 8x11 page. If you're doing a lot of PECS yourself, you can get a laminating machine from amazon for about $30. (I don't know if they are as durable as sending them off somewhere, so that may be a factor.)
Thanks. I do have a laminating machine but it only laminates small card-sized things. I opted for that because if you laminate a full sheet and then cut the cards out, the edges are sharp, and I use it primarily for making cards (the pecs). I don't think I have enough use for a big laminating machine. The self-laminating things don't really work.
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Mum to two awesome kids on the spectrum (16 and 13 years old).
Can you maybe break the dressing down into steps? Like, just put on his own underwear for a certain amount of time (with tons of praise or something that's motivating for him as a reward), then graduate to underwear and pants. Add shirt after that. Could it be that the enormity of the entire process at once could be too much for him to process?
I had the same feeling. Getting entirely dressed in one turn maybe it's too much...
Small update:
While he's still not getting dressed alone, we had an IEP meeting this aft, and the teachers mentioned that they were impressed with his improvement in independence this year from last year. They said he's following some school routines with minimal prompting, which never used to be the case. So basically I'm thinking it's a reminder to chill out. He's still not doing all the steps of dressing alone, however all hope is not lost. At home, we're having success with doing laundry. He's always loved watching the washing machine (front-loader) so he's "helped" me sort clothes for years, but now I'm getting him to really "do laundry" and I guess because he's motivated to see it spin, he's been attentive. He's starting to do it with minimal prompting. I'm excited about that, although I don't think I'll ever trust him alone with the detergent as he also enjoys dumping it over his head .
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Mum to two awesome kids on the spectrum (16 and 13 years old).
That sounds like good progress. They aren't necessarily going to do it all at once, and school skills are more important b/c they will get less scaffolding there. It may also be that he wants to hold onto a little bit of the help at home, right now, to counterbalance what is expected at school.