Susan Senator
All happy families are not alike...
All happy families are not alike...
The Sweetest Thing
Blue eyed boy meets a brown-eyed girl
(oh, oh, the sweetest thing)
You can sew it up, but you still see the tear
(oh, oh, the sweetest thing)
Baby’s got blue skies up ahead
And in this I’m a raincloud
Ours is a stormy kind of love
— U2, The Sweetest Thing
My blue-eyed boy. My Sweet Guy. I want you to be happy. I want you to thrive. I love you so much.
But love alone does not always help me understand these boys of mine, it takes study. Research. And I am increasingly troubled by Nat’s growing apathy/inertia. He spends his weekends lying on the couch, or crouched on Max’s bed, or my bed (unless Ned or I insist that he take a walk, rake leaves, or offer for him to bake with me.) He wanders from room to room, his silly talk getting louder and louder when he wants something, but he does not tell me what it is. I ask him in so many different ways without actually asking him, because I want to encourage communication and yet also I want to fade his dependency on me.
How can I get Nat to initiate? How can I get him to come to me when he has a question, without waiting so long, wandering back and forth? Is he unhappy wandering back and forth, without our intervention? Or is it that it just takes him a lot longer to figure out what he wants? Can any of the auties out there who read this give me a clue? Nat is verbal, but very reluctantly/hesitatingly so. Should we be drilling him to get his communication stronger? Will that help him, or just bore him and turn him off and make him retreat? I fear the latter is true. I fear it is already happening, as a result of our home Verbal Behavior program. I think he hates the drilling and doesn’t get why he is doing it, and it makes him stimmier. Is it my job to combat the stims or to let him be? If I let him be, how will he develop the communication skills to get a job and live on his own (with some oversight by a PCA)?
Don’t tell me he can’t live on his own (with some oversight by a PCA). I am not ready to hear that. You may be wrong.
But if you can, help me figure out the communication piece with him. (By the way, no offense meant to anyone who follows these therapies, but I am not interested in any approaches that suggest I alter his nutrition, or that involve flashing lights, vibrations, listening to musical tones, certain forms of massage, injections… I am interested only in one-to-one talking, connecting, or other communicating techniques. )
I love this boy with all my heart and then some. Sometimes I want to will him to let me in, just by hugging him to me. What can I do? What can I do? I hate to see him lying around so much. Mostly, I want to see him smile more.
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Susan, have you read this book by Irma Ruiter: “Allow Me! A Guide to Promoting Communication Skills in Adults with Developmental Delays”. She’s a speech-language pathologist who specializes in working with adults with developmental delays, and wrote Allow Me! as the result of a pilot project she led at The Hanen Centre. The Hanen approach to language facilitation is based on the principle that language is learned within positive everyday interactions with those significant in the life of the autistic individual.
Stanley Greenspan/Serena Wieder’s “Floortime/DIR” method might be helpful in encouraging connection and communication. I’ve always believed, first as a matter of intuition and then as a matter of trial and (lots of) error, that my child really needs his stims when he is having trouble communicating, and one of the many things I like about Floortime/DIR is that it doesn’t focus on extinguishing the stims; rather, it allows me to meet my child exactly where he is and to incorporate the things he needs to do (such as stimming) into forms of interaction. The goal of this kind of interaction is eventually to help him communicate more effectively so that he might not need the stims as much. From having read your book and blog, I’d bet you’d be very good at implementing Floortime/DIR because it requires determination, energy and playfulness. My child is still quite small, but I see no reason that these techniques would be any less useful with your young man.
Forgive me if you’ve already looked at this method and decided it wasn’t right for your family, but I thought I’d chip in my two cents!
If you’re interested, the website is http://www.floortime.org and the relevant books are “The Child With Special Needs” and “Engaging Autism.”
It’s possible Nat might be just “vegging out” after a new therapeutic invasion into his life. I say that because any kind of change for these guys is very traumatic, and they get worked hard. It’s very common for this to happen with ANY kind of new therapy. I participated in an online conference that Donna Williams also posted comments on. She told me about a book she had written called “Exposure Anxiety – The Invisible Cage”. I haven’t started it yet, but am looking forward to reading it. She claims that there are many people on the Spectrum who have a fear of direct confrontation in therapeutic environments…it heightens their anxiety level to a really painful level. Her book should explain ways to get around this so that progress can be achieved. Personally, I feel this is a common reaction in many non-autistic people as well (myself included), but it probably is a bigger factor with very screwed up sensory systems…could be a piece of “the Nat puzzle”. Hope this helps a bit.
okay, so i might be really late in the game. i don’t know what you have done with nat, but one of my students uses a PECS board to assist her verbalization skills. she has a selection of icons for reinforcers and she chooses the one she wants, then verbalizes it (with prompting – she is pretty severe.) she does not verbalize on her own, but it seems that the pictures really help her connect what she wants with what she needs to say.
i am sure you are quite familiar with this, but if you aren’t, or need help with materials, please don’t hesitate to contact me. i teach special needs kids and have a lot of resources at my disposal.
forgive me if you’ve already decided this isn’t right for you but what about RDI? It’s been so very helpful for everyone i know who’s tried it with their child, regardless of age and language and other specifics that people sight as reasons it wouldn’t be affective. i am a huge fan of the approach. it’s all about building connecting and relationship.
Maybe Nat would feel more comfortable using text messages or some other keyboard-based form of communication.
i don’t know. how long do you wait until you initiate w/ him? i don’t know all the answers, but i just prevent mine from getting what they want until they ask for it.