An Easter joke

Tate’s literal thinking keeps him from getting the punch line of most jokes. Many of the funny things Tate says, he has learned from a television show or movie.  He has the ability to often use those phrases in an appropriate situation and get a laugh.  We can often identify the television character or show where the joke originated.  This week Tate keeps telling a joke that he modified from a “Sponge Bob” Xmas show.  He modified it to fit Easter, which is tomorrow.  It goes like this: “I cannot believe that anyone would celebrate a holiday where a bunny breaks into your house and leaves gifts in a basket!”  It is cute.  He does understand the joke.  He did generalize it and make it fit the occasion.  However, it is not his own original thought.  He isn’t there yet.  After Tate’s autism diagnosis, at age two and a half, we began early intervention.  We taught him to pretend, but he could then only pretend the things he had been shown.  He could not come up with anything on his own.  However, he does come up with his own sequence of events and original ideas now when pretending. 

Tate is very visual as most people with autism are and cartoons are what he laughs at the most.  Tate LOVES the movie theater and we have spent a lot of time there lately.  We have seen “The Muppet Movie,” “The Big Miracle,” “The Secret World of Arriety,” “Journey to the Mysterious Island,” and “The Lorrax.” When a preferred movie is coming to the big screen or is going to be released on dvd, he knows the date and plans an outing to go to the theater or purchase the dvd.  He can be very persuasive too.  Because he is interested in so few things and asks for almost nothing, I try to accommodate his desires in this area.  I can say “no” when I need to though.  If we see a movie at the theater and I was not happy with the language or storyline then I let him know we will not be purchasing the dvd.  A couple of conversations about it will usually convince him that I am not going to change my mind and he accepts it.    

We have seen the previews to a new release called “Pirates: Band of Misfits” that we are looking forward to.  We have also seen previews for “The Three Stooges” and I am a bit worried about that one but he sure wants to see it.  I try to steer my kids clear of the movies and shows that are crude or crass.  I especially hate bathroom humor.  I told Tate that I would NOT be taking him to see a movie about the stooges so he has asked Dad to take him.  Shawn likes the stooges.  The preview we saw showed the classic move that is used by the stooges where one of them pokes someone in the eyes with two fingers. Tate doubles up laughing, as most boys his age would.  I guess that is a good thing?  I am aiming for “age appropriate behavior.” 

anything for attention

I have been blogging about Tate and have not yet mentioned Sydney.  It is partly because I do not even know where to begin.  Sydney is eight years old and in first grade for the second time.  Sydney is very unique.  She is sweet, funny, loving, very busy, loud, maddening, demanding, and she seldom stops talking.  She is our only adopted child.  She has a diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and ADHD.  I have prayed for patience for many years and God answered those prayers with Sydney.  I almost never lose my patience with Tate.  He is quietly needy.  I lose my patience often with Sydney because she is so loud and demanding.  She will do almost anything for attention; including provoking her siblings to anger and rule breaking.  She is not always naughty.  As a matter of fact, she is doing better all the time.  We discovered medication about 3 years ago and it has made a huge difference to Sydney and the whole family.  On medication, her behaviors could almost be seen as typical much of the time.  The first hour of our day is rough.  Once the medication takes effect it is smooth sailing for us… until the middle of the evening when it begins to wear off  By 8:00 PM the medication is no longer in her system.  The most stressful times of the day for me are 7:00-8:00 AM and 8:00-10:00 PM.  During these times Sydney has no impulse control and is in constant motion.  If I can get her to sit still for a minute it is a real accomplishment. There would be no getting her to stop talking though. When Sydney wakes in the morning there is no drifting in and out of sleep or stretching and yawning and lingering in bed.  She opens her eyes, jumps out of bed and her feet hit the floor running.  We put Sydney to bed around 8:30 PM and she sings, claps, wiggles, talks to herself and finds many excuses to get out of bed until around 10:00 when her body finally surrenders to sleep.  Yesterday, I had to take a sibling to school early, before Sydney’s medications had “kicked in” and Sydney rode along.  She clucked like a chicken the whole way to town and about half the way home.  I have learned to tune her out and it did not bother me; but since the clucking did not get a reaction from me she got out of her seatbelt to dance around in the backseat.  She knew that would do it.  I had to pull over and put her back in her seatbelt.  Half an hour later, when we went to town again and her medication was working, she rode along just fine and we were able to converse quietly.  Thank goodness for the wonderful doctor that convinced me to try medications for Sydney.  She couldn’t sit and learn before and now she can.  She does not learn at the same pace as her peers and she has to work hard to learn what she does.  She is reading at grade level this year.  She makes me so proud. 

Many of the things that come out of Sydney’s mouth make me laugh.  Yesterday she asked me “Did I walk on my hind legs when I was a baby?”  When we sing hymns during worship she often gets the words wrong.  “Throw out the life line” has become “Throw out the white wine.”  Either version is a good one in my book.  Sydney often tattles on herself too.  She cannot keep a secret, even if it means she is going to get in trouble.  I could write volumes about Sydney’s antics and I probably will.  Things are definitely never boring when she is present. 

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time flies and books from heaven

We are working hard on figurative language. The phrase we are actively targeting right now is “time flies” and I think we have mastered this one. I have been saying it in appropriate situations for days now and then explaining what I mean. Tate used it himself in a sentence tonight when he told me he had played on the i-pad during recess today and “time flew” then he went on to explain that he meant time seemed to go by fast for him when he was playing on the i-pad. I love it! He is catching on to some new figurative language. We are having fun with it. He both generalized the phrase and changed the tense from “flies” to “flew.” VERY COOL!

Tate told me he had not been able to use the i-pad at school today at the time he normally does. He said that his schedule today was changed around and it would be different again tomorrow. Tate loves routine but needs to learn to be flexible so changes in his schedule are good therapy. I asked him if the changes bothered him and he said “no worries.” He has been saying “no worries” a lot lately. I think he got it from his wonderful RR teacher. I have heard her say it. It reminds me of another phrase he often uses: “No big deal.” His speech teacher from Kindergarten taught him to say that when was close to a melt down over something small. I remember being skeptical it would work but it did help him. When he says “No big deal” or “No worries” it is similar to one of us taking a deep breath or counting to ten. Sometimes, he says it and still breaks down because he cannot always control his anxieties. Self-monitoring and self control are emerging with maturity; although a few years later than his peers. 

Tate doesn’t usually share much about his day so I am very thankful for a note that comes home with him this year. It helps me to start conversations with him in the evenings about things that went on at school. However, this evening I have not needed the note to prompt anything. Tate was a regular chatter box tonight. Apparently, his para had given him some crunchy peanut butter and crackers today. Tate believes his para hung the moon (OH… I should definitely introduce that phrase to Tate soon!) and his para has been very successful at getting Tate to try some new foods. I guess crunchy peanut butter will not be going on my grocery list though. Tate said “You KNOW I only eat SMOOOOOOTH peanut butter.” Then he went on to say the only crunchy things he likes are cereal, toast and waffles.  There are a lot of sensory issues that often accompany autism. A limited diet is also often a problem for those with autism.

In Bible class this evening Tate was much more engaged than usual. He had a random question toward the end of class: “So, when is God’s birthday, anyway?” I answered, “God doesn’t have a birthday.” He continued, “Why is that?” I responded with “God does not have a mom and He wasn’t born.” Tate said “Was He created?” Why questions were not asked for years because Tate has autism. He has to start with this one? Haha. He has actually been asking why questions for a while now but they are not frequent, nor are theological questions so the whole evening was amazing. The funniest thing Tate said tonight was “Hey, do you want to read one of those books from heaven?” He meant a Bible story book.  I have a shelf full in our classroom at the church building and since they are at the church building then Tate put two and two together. They are books from heaven. 

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when a rock is not a stone

I am currently looking for ideas and teaching materials to help me teach Tate figurative language: idioms, synonyms, antonyms, metaphors, and analogies. I am hitting this hard right now as I have just come from a conference about social communication and it has made me more determined than ever to help Tate with the nuts and bolts of everyday language.  Sometimes I target a specific area or lesson and work on it harder than anything else.  I always work on language but I am specifically going to work hard on figurative language over the summer.

Children with autism have to be taught things systematically.  They do not absorb things from their environment, as do typically developing children.   We have to teach Tate that one word can mean multiple things, different words can stand for the same thing and different words can have opposite meanings.  I've actually been working on these things for years. 

One of the first discrete trial programs we did with Tate in early intervention was teaching "categories."  He had to be taught language very systematically.  We had pictures of animals and pictures of clothing, as well as other categories.  He had to sort these things into the correct piles, thus teaching him that pants and shirts were both items of clothing, and dogs, squirrels and cows were all called animals.  This was a hard concept for him.  He didn't mind matching cows to cows or dogs to dogs, no matter what the breed or color.  That made sense to him.  But when we tried to get him to put the dogs and cows and rodents all into the same pile, he balked.  He finally gave in and did what we asked but he then changed his word for "cow" to "animal" because if a cow wasn't just a cow then it was an animal.  It could not be both.  In his mind, each animal had its own category and he couldn't see the bigger  picture.  We have run into this over and over throughout the years.  We've had discrete trial programs that taught him that an insect could also be called a bug and a stick was also called a twig.  He memorizes these things and retains them eventually with repetitive teaching.  

Rocky

We no longer do discrete trial at a table and the teaching methods are not as rigid as they were when he was a preschooler.  Now we do a lot of our teaching incidentally, throughout the day.  Example:  a few days ago I used the word stone and could tell he drew a blank.  I said "a stone is like a rock.  You can use either word when you are talking about a rock."  His reply was "Rocky is not a stone."  People who  know Tate will know exactly what that meant.  Tate has a rock; a pet rock, named Rocky.  He has had Rocky for about 3 years I think.  I have no real memory of where Rocky came from but one day... there was Rocky.  He is about the size of a baseball and he is a member of the family.  He sits on the shelf at the head of  Tate's bed. We go for periods of time without hearing anything about Rocky but we also have days that he is right here with us, watching and participating in our activities.  I personally think that Rocky has autism.  He is awfully quiet.  haha  Tate always seems to know what Rocky is thinking though.  One morning, a year or two ago, Tate announced at the breakfast table that it was Rocky's birthday.  Rocky expected a cake that evening for dinner.  Of course, I could not disappoint the guy.  We had cake and Tate blew out the candles.  Tate had also expected Rocky to get a new dvd for his birthday but I had no idea so there were no gifts.  Luckily, Tate and Rocky were forgiving.  

Last week, one of Tate's siblings went into his room and Tate was sitting on the bed with an umbrella open and he and Rocky were huddled under it.  Tate was pretending.  Pretending is always celebrated as Tate's imagination is very limited.  Tonight, as Shawn was putting Tate to bed, Tate was holding Rocky.  Shawn told Tate that we hadn't been seeing much of Rocky lately.  Tate's reply?  "Rocky does not like being called a stone."  Apparently, I have hurt Rocky's feelings by trying to teach a synonym for the word "rock" a few days ago.  ha!  I love my boy.

Rocky's birthday: 
Rocky is the one on the table. 
Tate is the one in the chair.

Routine, Routine, Routine

Autism, as rigid as it is, doesn't have such a firm hold on our lives that we can never be flexible. However, we do have to plan for routine changes if we want them to go smoothly.

This week Tate had a substitute teacher and para, both in the same day. It was planned and he was prepared for it. A couple of years ago this would have been very stressful for him, planned or not. He has come so far. On Wednesday he commented to me several times that he would have substitutes at school on Thursday, but he didn't stim, tear up, or pace the floor, as is his habit when he is stressed. On Thursday morning he talked about it a lot but did not seem stressed at all. Thursday evening he reminded me a couple of times that he would have his para and teacher back the next day and Friday morning he was very happy to report to me that things would be back to normal.

Routine is Tate's friend and unscheduled events are not. Sometimes the routine is one that we adults don't even know has been established. He makes up rules and doesn't understand why we don't follow them. He doesn't know that we cannot read his mind. This "theory of mind" is something that typically developing children learn naturally but kids with autism have to be taught. Example: After school on Friday Tate complained to me because they did not get to watch Ghostwriter in school. They "ALWAYS" watch Ghostwriter on Fridays, according to him. As he got out of the car Friday morning he told me "We are going to see Ghostwriter today because it is Friday." His routine is Ghostwriter and movies are a preferred activity so once he had seen Ghostwriter a couple of times on a Friday, it was in "permanent ink" in his schedule. Sometimes a practice is set in Tate's mind after just one small event and we do not even know the precedent has been set for him. Watching Ghostwriter two Fridays in a row to him meant that Ghostwriter would be watched every Friday for the rest of his school year. Don't mess with his schedule. HA

Autism or not, Tate has to learn to deal with the occasional wrinkle in his world and he finally seems to be dealing with some of them without a lot of anxieties. Having said this, just when I think I can predict how he will behave in a situation, he surprises me; sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

It was suggested to Tate that we invite a friend to see a movie with us this weekend. He seemed fine with it at first but got pretty anxious about it last night and gave me a lot of excuses about why he couldn't bring a friend to a movie. Tate does not have a lot of real friendships but there is a boy that has been especially friendly and helpful to him this year at school and Tate seems to enjoy his company. Tate likes to keep things very compartmentalized. School is school and he doesn't like to mix school with home. I can only imagine what Tate is thinking but I believe he has issues with mixing school persons with family time. Who really knows? Tate sure cannot tell me what he is thinking.

Also this week, we began an organized effort to teach some figurative language. Example…Tate noticed a moth in the house and was obsessing about it. Shawn (Dad) got him a flyswatter and said “Here keep this handy.” Me: “Tate, do you know what it means to keep something handy?” Tate: “Kill that moth.” Me: “To keep something handy means to keep it close by so you can... grab it. What if I said that I need to blow my nose and the Kleenex were handy?” Tate: “You can’t kill a moth with a Kleenex.” Me: “Tate, don’t think about the moth. We’re talking about the word HANDY. It means to keep something close by so you can use it.” (I inserted two more examples of ‘handy’ in a sentence.) Tate: “Will you kill that moth?”

On the plus side, after using "handy" a few more times, he does seem to understand it now when I use it in a sentence and ask him what I meant. One lesson down.... thousands to go. Time flies is the next lesson. You can read about that lesson here: time flies and books from heaven.

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Getting started... My story

I live a dream. I am married to the most wonderful guy. He loves me and always puts my wants and needs above his own. We have seven children. They are all good kids. Our oldest is married now. Two are in college. We have one in high school and one in junior high. They would not appreciate me sharing anything about them or their lives and I will not be doing that. I will mainly be blogging about my two youngest children and the joy and challenges they bring.

Tate is ten years old. He has autism. The doctors call it "high-functioning" autism. He is verbal and has a lot of strengths. However, autism is autism. It means he thinks with a concrete mind and has few social skills and a lot of trouble processing information. Too much language that comes at him too fast keeps him from learning much in a group setting. Most of what he knows, he has learned one-on-one. He has trouble remembering that others have feelings, wants, needs, or thoughts. This keeps him from making and maintaining friendships. Autism also means that Tate wrestles with some obsessions and behaviors that are stereotypic of autism. My world revolves around Tate. He holds my heart in his hands.

Sydney is eight. She is our only adopted child. She was born in Russia. Sydney has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder. Medications have helped tremendously. Sydney is in first grade for the second time this year and is doing so much better the second time. She makes me proud and she keeps me laughing, as almost everything that comes out of her mouth is funny.