He came home with a school book catalog two days ago and brought it to me and pointed to guess what.....another Mother Goose book. He even took my hand and made me point to it. This is the first time he has ever showed me something in a catalog, flyer, etc. that he wanted me to get for him. So I went on ebay, found one and purchased it. He kept pointing to it in the catalog. Literally, I had to explain in every way I could think of about twenty times, that he had to wait for it to come in the mail, he can't have it now and that he has to wait but it is coming. This went on for about an hour. Then he pointed out another Mother Goose book in the same catalog by the same author that just had a different cover. So I went back on ebay and bought that one also. And again explained it is coming and I know he wants it but he has to wait. 
I let him go on the internet and introduced him to doing searches. He typed in mother goose all by himself except I had to show him spacing between the two words. He was in Mother Goose heaven : ) I am hoping that he will start to see that typing and writing are ways for him to communicate and from what he has been doing lately he seems to be realizing that!
Once his time was up on the computer he started pointing to the first book he showed me in the catalog again and actually got quite upset. He went up to his room and was crying : ( I then realized he had been so focused on Mother Goose since he got home from school that he hadn't had a snack or anything to eat. So I got him some popcorn and when he came downstairs to hang out he was all better : )
Do any of you with children with Autism find that they forget to eat or drink because they are so into what they are doing?
Last night he came downstairs around the time he usually gets ready for bed and said, "I need help" : ) I asked him what he needed help with and do you need help with x,y,z and when I said,"Do you need help getting ready for bed?", he went upstairs. Whenever Stephen is trying to tell us what he wants or needs through talking, gestering, etc. and we say the right one he runs or walks away and we know that is what he was trying to tell us. Or if he doesn't want something we are trying to give him he will push it away. But when we present him with something he wants he will grab it and look at. It's really amazing how much a person can communicate non-verbally.
Have any of you had these kinds of "conversations" with your child?
Last night he came over to me and took my hand and brought me to the marble race. I sat him down on the rocker ottoman (he started rocking, yeah!) and showed him where to put the marbles and he had me do it a couple more times. He has slowly been playing with all the stuff we bought him. Yippee!
2 comments:
Great job Stephen! He is taking some giants steps forward in communicating! Wooo hooo!!!
Personally, I required the kids need to say 'cheerios' after they did that 'when I get to the right answer run away' thing a few times. After learning to acknowledge it with a yes for a while, I'd have them say 'want cheerios' or whatever it was. then kept adding on words to eventually make a sentence "I want cheerios please".
The reason I had them do this was sometimes the processing time was way behind where I was in the list, so maybe cheerios was the thing they wanted but I had said 3 things after cheerios by the time they processed the word 'cheerios'. That ended up in lots of frustration. They soon learned that if they said "cherrios" they GOT what they wanted (well, maybe not soon, but eventually) and once it clicked they started using words more often.
I also make him say yes or no or the thing he wants when we are having these "conversations". Verbal communication is soooo difficult for him. He didn't speak a word until he was 5 and it is still amazing and wonderful everytime he says or sings anything! I always repeat back to him what he says to me, talk about what he is doing to give him the words or acknowledge that I understand what he is trying to communicate. He is so happy when he has communicating something to anybody. As my mother always says he is going to blow everybody away some day. But he already blows my mind everytime he does something to show me he is thinking and feeling and really in there : ) I wish more parents took the time to enjoy and get to know their children as a person with Autism not as an Autistic. They spend so much time and energy trying to make them "normal". They are really missing out : (
Post a Comment