Some subtle reminders of why his dx is what it is.

Post Reply New Topic

Its very easy sometimes to forget the reasons why J got his dx, because when things are going smoothly and to routine he appears so "normal". We have had no major dramas or meltdowns this week so far, yay. I just thought I would share some of his little reminders with others that will understand. Its hard doing this alone sometimes.

I picked him after school Monday. When we got in the car I checked the rear view mirror. J says "don't worry mum, I will tell you if your ugly" haha ha I reply " thank you J its nice to know you think I'm beautiful", "no I didn't say that, I said you weren't ugly" Lol Fair enough.

Tuesday, swimming lesson time. J has been having a hard time with lessons lately, lots of meltdowns. The only thing I could think of was, that what lane they were now swimming in had been changed (now one lane over) The swim teacher changed lanes back to the original swim lane, ha he swam beautifully no meltdowns, even managed a lap on his own without stopping. He gets out of the pool so excited, he is kinda bouncing and does a few quick hand flaps. Ha thats my boy.

Wednesday, J needs to catch up on some homework he has been avoiding. Its a maths problem involving sticks and patterns. He had been reading the question in his book and avoiding doing the work, this time I read the question to him in a slightly different way. "Ah thats to easy" he says. Problem solved in about 30 seconds Even I didn't get it that fast.

These are just a few things that stand out in my mind, of course there are more, his complete obsession with the pc (he's back on warcraft again at the moment), his unending self talking, his pacing, his failure to answer first,second third time when asked a question, his need to sit on us(not the couch) or touch us constantly, his failure to pick up the phone that can be ringing right beside him. I just thought I would share, we have had a good week (touch wood) so far.

There is always more social skill TOM and EF work for you and the school to do, but at least it sounds like you have the anxiety under control.

It is funny that you mention the responding to verbal questions issue.
I am 2/3 of the way through taking Jim Ball’s social skills streaming class and this is the issue that me and my partner in the class (also the vice principle at my sons school and his “life raft” during the time before his diagnosis and IEP) are working on before the next class (3 months away).

I am not a big ABA fan for aspergers but this system along with some adaptations we discussed with jim in the class “theoretically” could work well.

I have replaced his name with “the child”

Though you might find this interesting

We will be doing this cooperatively at school and home.

There is more to this such as teaching the intellectual basis for this social skill and working on other EF factors involved. The stream is initially don 1on 1 then is small group and then generalized. Motivators are given 1 to 1 initially and then phase out over time. This is a quick synopsis of 2 days of class so it is a little “thin”

Sorry for going a little of topic

May 5, 2008

Social Skill Development Workshop Homework

Current observable behavior: On occasion, the child ignores verbal communication. He does this by failing to redirect gaze and not verbally responding toward teacher/ peer. This behavior is generalized to situations when the child is internally focused in thought.

Goal: Communication – child will acknowledge verbal communication when it is directed at the child. When receiving verbal communication and the child is internally focused:


o The child will briefly redirect his gaze toward the “teacher”
o The child will request wait time by responding, “Can you please wait until I finish my thought?”
o The child will identify amount of time he needs
o The child will self monitor completion of thought / task
o The child will respond, “I am ready.”


I think maybe I will work on this for myself after my son is done. (never to old to learn)

I did not know you were suppose to answer the phone when you are not intested in talking ha ha

Good that you can have a laugh about the AS quirks. I do too a lot of the time, but at the moment I'm struggling with my AS son having a bad patch. The whole AS thing is so deceptive, as when things are going "normally" I have so much (false) hope, only to get brought back to reality with a series of zone-outs and meltdowns.

My son has a student teacher in his class this week, so he is all over the show and really nervous. Has zoned out four times in two days, which is probably more than the whole of last term. The work is getting harder too (he usually knows it all) and is struggling with admitting he needs help. I feel like trying to get my head around his AS is like running around with an empty bottle, trying to catch the wind in it, but not being able to make any sense of it. I'm thinking of starting a thread asking if anyone knows if there is an actual assessment that tells you to what extent your kid is, rather than playing guessing games every day.

Annie2

Change, particularly when not prepared for is almost always a recipe for a difficult time. Did his school prepare him for the fact that there would be a new “person” in the classroom? Did they provide adequate training/briefing to the student teacher so she could interact with your child appropriately?

It is really not that complicated, just difficult to get the schools to do what is needed.

bookwormde

Yeah, I think the teacher forgot or has not cottoned onto the importance of this. Also, she took Day 2 as a realease day to have some time to work with the student teacher, so that meant another relief teacher in the class too. She worked out on Day 4 that a timetable showing who is teaching what would help, however, I would've known to have done that on Day 1. I didn't know about student teacher . . . so hard to pre-empt anything myself if you don't know what is happening.

That sounds like something my sons would say.

I get what you're saying about forgetting they're Aspie during a good week. We are also having a great week. No meltdowns or tears; kids getting themselves ready for school.

Bliss!

I've spoken to parents of adult Aspies. They tell me there are always cycles - good patches, bad patches. They tell me it's a matter of hanging in there during a bad patch.

I met an 18 year old Aspie: studying at university, working part-time, girlfriend, lecturing to teachers about Asperger's etc. He told me he'd had a rotten year last year - was in a psych hospital after a suicide attempt when broke up with a former girlfriend.

So during the bad times, it's important to remember the good times.

Helen

Haha, a sense of humour will take you far!

It seems rather cyclical with our son, as well. He'll go for days and days being so SWEET and good and doesn't drive anyone up the wall and his behavior report from school comes home decently (not stellar, but decent - which we'll happily take!), and even though we still go through the routine of giving him his meds each day, we do almost, for a day or two, forget what it can be like.

Because one moment he can be a LOVE, and the next, seemingly over nothing, he can turn into a snotty, pouty, whiny MESS. Nothing we do or say helps - or maybe it does help some, but we're all still going to be locked into at least half an hour of this even if he DOES get past it. He demands justifications for every little thing we ask/tell him to do, when it's the SAME tasks and the SAME reasons we've given him for years. He will often wail, "But I FORGOT!! !" and it's really hard to always believe he really did/could just "forget" some of the stuff he claims to. Also, we don't want to prepare him for a world where "I forgot" immediately absolves you from any unpleasant consequences - because that world does not exist.

It can be maddening, if you've gone through a week or two where you haven't been getting calls from the school, and the homework seems to be going okay, and he's been generally "a good kid" and you've even had a few laughs, and he actually brushed his teeth without a meltdown every night...you start to breathe slightly easier, and think, "Wow, maybe things are starting to come together, finally, and we're hitting a stride here, or something, and things are finally WORKING..." and then sure as god made little green apples, the phone will ring. Or he'll wake up one morning and just be falling apart over EVERYTHING and nothing at all, all at once. I feel for the kid, I do...I want to help him. I'm not totally unlike him. But/and I can only listen to so much screaming and crying and repetitive questions before...I have to Get Away From There. Like a horse in a barn afire - Must Get Out, Must Get Away. How? or Where to? don't even enter into it. Thank god my husband is usually able to step in at this point.

Now that I sound like a horrible parent, I'll go clean something...

Sinagua, you don't sound like a horrible parent...you sound honest.

Hmmmm...my husband and I were just talking about that cycle thing the other day. I wonder if the cycles of highs and lows is a common Aspie thing? The strange and really lucky and wonderful thing is that our sons are usually on opposite cycles, one is Jekyll while the other is Hyde and then they switch at around the same times.

This week they've both had a really good week, but we got our own little reminder of why we have the dx we do after school. I stopped to talk to the neighbour for just a moment on my way in the house (I do not usually do this). One of my sons interrupted the conversation with a long, long, long monologue about Bionicles (neighbour looked very confused ). The other had a meltdown as soon as we got in the house, because, you guessed it, we were not supposed to stop and chat, we were supposed to go straight into the house like usual.

Sinaqua, You sound very normal to me. If your horrible then I guess I am to

Alice, How dare you disrupt their agenda . Fancy your neighbour not understanding the need to know all there is to know about bionicles. I was under the impression that everyone needs to know about bionicles, at least according to my own son this is the case.