Scripting Sponge Bob

One of the things we lived with long before Tate got his diagnosis of autism was Echolalia (repeating words, phrases, or whole dialogues). Although we had no idea it had a name or it was a sign of autism, we thought it odd. Tate would repeat the last word of my sentences or sometimes my whole sentences. He often repeated what he said too and sometimes the second time it was whispered.

Tate, age 3

As a toddler Tate said, “Mommy” all day long and I would usually answer with, “What?” He started calling me, “Mommy What.” He echoed my “What” right into my name for months. I thought it sounded really sweet but still had no idea why he did those strange little things that his five older siblings had never done.

When Tate was a little older he would repeat advertising jingles, lines from cartoons, or pages from picture books randomly throughout his day. I have heard others recently calling this scripting instead of echolalia. Either way it seems to be very common in kids with autism.

I follow a video blogger called Autism Hippie. Look for her on Facebook. Her son Mike scripts all day long and he starts early. He wakes his mom with a line from a movie or a video game and she hears the same line for hours at a time sometimes. One of my favorite blogs is Conversations With Casey. It is also a video blog. Casey does not script verbally much but scripts in a different way. He memorizes the movements of a musician in a video or of an actor in a scene of a movie and then repeats the actions over and over with the audio in the background. His violin “playing” fools people sometimes. His violin is silent but Casey sure looks like he is a virtuosos. I would highly recommend finding this blog on Facebook as well.

Tate has scripted for years but these days he usually only scripts with one-liners and it is not always evident to people what he is doing. He can cleverly fit lines from movies into situations where they often apply. Sometimes they are very random though, unfitting and odd. When Tate pipes up with a one-liner I can sometimes recognize it as one he has used before or I can even remember the movie it came from. Sometimes though, I cannot. Often I will hear it later in a movie he is watching and say, “Aha!”

A few days ago I got a phone call midday from Tate’s resource room teacher whom I appreciate very much. She is wonderful with Tate and she is a great communicator. She called because Tate had said something very inappropriate to his paraprofessional and she thought I should know how they handled it. Tate had randomly said, “Let’s get naked.” Of course this kind of thing could become a real problem in a public school setting! Tate’s teacher and I knew his comment was not of a sexual nature but also knew others might not be so understanding. Tate needed to realize that he could not ask people to “get naked.” She said he was very receptive when she told him that he could not say that anymore. He said he would not. I told Tate’s teacher that I was sure he probably got the line from a movie. I hung up the phone and a few minutes later it rang again. Tate’s teacher decided she would ask Tate if his offensive line had come from a movie. Without missing a beat he said, “Sponge Bob, Season 3.” I searched online immediately and up popped a scene in which Patrick said, “Let’s get naked.” to Sponge Bob.

This incident reminded of a book I had read by Sean Barron, an author with autism who has written about his experiences. He reminisces in one of his books about being young and memorizing lines in shows that were followed by canned laughter. He’d try out the line on his classmates or teacher the next day but rarely get the response he wanted. He did not understand that not all of those lines were funny when out of context. I am not sure that Tate is doing the same and delivering lines to get laughter but he is delivering lines so that he can interact with people. When Tate said, “Let’s get naked” I can be fairly certain that he had no intentions of doing so and did not expect his para too either. Sponge Bob’s answer to Patrick was “No” in the episode. I imagine Tate fully expected his para to say, “No” and then Tate would have had a “conversation” under his belt for the day.

Tate, January 2015

When you meander through life not understanding how to start a conversation, yet wanting to engage people, I can imagine that scripting would be what kids like Tate would turn to. I think Tate was just trying to “converse” with his para and this is how he tried. Of course, it could also have just been a random stim too. Tate does do a lot of stimming and scripting is a stim. I could just inquire of Tate as to why he asked his para to get naked. But Tate cannot tell me the whys. And if I did ask it would cause him anxiety because he cannot answer. If I try to have a serious conversation with Tate he usually sees it as discipline and becomes very stressed. I say it often, “I’d love to get inside that head of his for a while and see what is going on.” ha

This is a much older post, also about Echoes. You might like to read it if you want to read more about echoes or stimming. 

We have a website now! We are at www.quirksandchaos.com Or you can find us on Facebook at Quirks and Chaos. Like what you read? Want to become a follower? Click on the Google Friend Following gadget on this blog. It's over on the right side and asks you to subscribe. Or you can add the URL (the web address in your search bar) to your Reading List. You can do that by clicking the plus sign in front of the URL. Thanks! 

Locked Out

Have you ever stumbled into a situation so comical that you find yourself looking around for the cameras, wondering if you are the target of an elaborate practical joke? It happens to me quite often lately but recently a couple of my children had a funny experience I wish I had on film.

San Francisco trip, 2014

A couple of months ago, my husband and I had the opportunity to take a three-day vacation with some friends, and no kids. I love my kids. I love spending time with my kids. My world revolves around my kids. But I REALLY loved the idea of having a three-day-long date with their dad. Getting a sitter and going out without children was a rare occurrence for a lot of years and being gone overnight was nonexistent. However, these last few years, our oldest daughter has been able to return home on a few occasions and stay with our younger children so we can get away for a few days at a time. Even though our daughter knows all the younger kids’ routines and her siblings are content to stay with her, I still get nervous and leave lots of lists and instructions. I know it is hard for most moms to leave their kids but I definitely got a double portion of that trait somehow.

Levi, Tate, and Sydney, 2008

So, this past trip, we were supposed to be at the airport at 5:30 AM and the airport is over an hour from our home so we decided we would say bedtime prayers with the little ones, put them to bed and start our vacation one night early in a hotel next to the airport. As we drove away, heading for the airport, I remember feeling almost guilty because I was not as anxious about leaving the kids as I usually am.

The Smith household, Dec. 2014

And this is the part I wish I had on film. It turns out before we had gotten more than a few miles from home our daughter had locked herself out of the house. She stepped into the garage to put a cat out and the door shut, locking her out. But she did not panic. She knew her 16-year-old brother Levi was still awake. She was able to get his attention through his upstairs bedroom window. He came down to let her back in through the garage door but he also stepped out into the garage and the door shut. Now they were both locked out. The two left inside, the two I blog about with special needs no less, were both in bed. Levi went into the backyard and began hollering Tate’s name. Tate was in bed but not yet asleep and he heard Levi through his upstairs bedroom window. Tate came down and let them both in.

Tate and Regan, 2012

So when I talked to my daughter less than an hour after I’d left home, she was able to tell me this humorous story about being locked out of the house TWICE ALREADY! Thus my peace of mind about getting on that plane the next day was reinforced. NOT! The next day when his older sister picked him up at school, Tate greeted her with “Lock yourself out of the house today?” If we mention the experience now in Tate’s hearing he gets a big smile on his face and wants to tell us how he saved the day. Tate got such a kick out of coming to the rescue and his siblings’ blunder that I’m sort of glad they had the whole experience. I just wish there would have been cameras.

This is another one of those times that I wish I'd have caught on tape:  Stinkin' Dogs and a Traumatized Rabbit. 

We have a website now! We are at www.quirksandchaos.com Or you can find us on Facebook at Quirks and Chaos. Like what you read? Want to become a follower? Click on the Google Friend Following gadget on this blog. It's over on the right side and asks you to subscribe. Or you can add the URL (the web address in your search bar) to your Reading List. You can do that by clicking the plus sign in front of the URL. Thanks! 

Tate's iPad, Both a Blessing and a Curse

My son Tate is 13 years old. Tate has autism. When Tate was about nine years old my husband brought home our first ipad and our life was forever changed, in some ways for the better and in other ways…. not so much. That first ipad was something the whole family enjoyed and used. It is a mystery to me that Tate knew how to use it from day one. There was no learning curve or need to give him any instruction. I, the grown up, had no idea how to do anything with it, including turning it on. Yet Tate could take pictures and videos, get online, draw pictures, watch movies, and all kinds of amazing things from the beginning. Time with the ipad was coveted and the kids fought for their turn. About the same time we got our first ipad, those wonderful tablets began showing up in our children’s classrooms so Tate had the opportunity to use an ipad there occasionally. It was used both as a teaching tool and as a reward very successfully. Tate had been struggling to master two-digit addition for quite some time and he was making no progress. The day Tate’s paraprofessional pulled up a chalkboard on the ipad, and they wrote with their fingers on the ipad instead of using pencil and paper, was the day Tate caught on to double digit addition and regrouping. Math lessons were suddenly very interesting to Tate and he became motivated to learn. There were some great apps available for the ipad too. There were math games, spelling and vocabulary games, and even social skills lessons available. I loved that he was learning so much on the iPad!

Tate's ipad

So naturally, we bought Tate his own ipad. More time with the iPad could only result in more learning, right? After all, it is the going thing in the autism community now. Kids with autism need an ipad. The big drawback for us was how attached Tate got to it. If you know much about autism then you know that kids with autism often become attached to favorite objects or they can become obsessed with certain items or activities. Tate had to have his ipad under his arm at all times. He needed it right next to him every minute of the day; and at night… he slept with it. He lost sleep because he never wanted to turn it off. Taking it away from him meant he’d lose even more sleep due to anxiety and then be anxious and angry the next day too. Then there was the charger. Tate became obsessed with the charger. If the ipad charge fell much below one hundred percent then Tate insisted it was “low on battery” and needed to be plugged in. The charger and the iPad controlled Tate's anxiety and Tate's anxiety controls our home much of the time. 

And then... something even more detrimental ensued. Tate learned there were other kinds of games. You know, really fun games, the non-educational kind. Once Tate discovered those games, the educational games were no longer appreciated. And next came you-tube videos and the educational value of the ipad hit rock bottom.

But there is more. About a year after we got Tate his own iPad, I got a phone call from my credit card company. This experience is something we now refer to as the iTunes fiasco. You know those games that Tate had fallen in love with? The non-educational ones? I carefully monitored them, making sure they contained no foul language, were not violent, appropriate for his level of understanding, and above all else FREE for downloading. If I approved the game then I’d let him type in the iTunes password and download a new game quite often. Tate could not easily memorize his spelling words but he remembered that password, the placing of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and all. It never occurred to me that my sweet and innocent ten-year old son would turn to a life of crime: identity theft. (Ha!) The customer service representative from Visa reported that they had seen some “unusual activity” on my account and they wanted to review some charges with me over the phone. Someone (guess who) had tried to purchase a game for $53.64 and Visa had denied it. In going over my credit card charges with me though, we discovered they had allowed dozens of smaller charges to be accumulated. Those charges added up to over $100.00. Tate has some savvy computer skills but is completely clueless in many areas. He does not understand the value of money. In Tate’s mind a one dollar bill or a one hundred dollar bill just mean he can buy a package of m&ms. And if you want money you just pull up to a bank and ask for it in the drive thru. So explaining credit cards to Tate would be like trying to explain how electricity works to someone like me…. You could try but it is not going to be possible. It was an expensive lesson but one I needed to learn I suppose. I had a talk with Tate about the password on iTunes. I explained that he could not use it without permission and all of those sorts of things. I thought he understood. He really seemed to understand and I think he did. Maybe. Sort of. He did not buy any additional games. He knew he did not have permission unless he asked and I okayed it. But did you know that some free games offer purchases within the game for things like adding more time to a mission or buying more accessories for your little avatars to use? Well, I did not and I certainly had not forbidden him from buying more time in a game or cute little decorations. He had no idea the money he was spending was not part of the game anyway. And although I felt like I was monitoring his games and spending an appropriate amount of time checking up on him and his iPad use, I did not really have a clue how things worked within those games. I had no idea that some games limit time and if you want to purchase more time then you can buy it: One. Dollar. At. A. Time. Tate did this over a three-day period: One. Thousand. Times. And I had no idea he was not just spending pretend money from the game to purchase things. 

Did you know there is a three-day delay sometimes between making an iTunes charge and you getting an email alert? Did you know that it sometimes takes three days for a charge to appear on your credit card?  By the time I got the call and all the alerts started pinging me. I was over twelve hundred dollars in debt to Visa for iTunes charges. My credit card company told me that I would be responsible for every single dollar and they would make no exception. I thought I was stuck. I called iTunes. It is hard to find but there is a phone number for iTunes. I explained my dilemma to the nice young man on the other end of the line and he ran off to find a supervisor. It seems I was not the first mother from the autism community they had ever heard from. They backed every single charge off my credit card but it had to be done one transaction at a time while I was on the phone line. Keep in mind most of those charges were for $1.00. It was a very long phone call and a very long evening. Before we hung up the phone, that nice young man walked me through rigging Tate’s ipad so he could no longer make “in app” purchases. This was a very good thing because the young man’s supervisor had warned me that they would not forgive charges like this a second time. In the future we would be responsible for those. For even doing this for us once, I would have hugged that guy right through the phone if I could have.

You think that is the happy ending to the story? Think again. We changed our iTunes password to make sure that there would not be an issue again. Not knowing the password stressed Tate for six months. SIX MONTHS! And stressed is not a strong enough word. It did not just upset him a little bit. It ruled his days and nights for six months. Six whole months. He talked about it constantly. He complained about it. He asked about it. He tried to guess it. He asked other people to ask me for it. He tried to trick me into giving it to him. He prayed about it in our bedtime prayers. He begged me for it. He lost sleep over it. No amount of explaining, talking, or even consoling Tate helped. It took about six months before he could come to terms with the fact that he would no longer know the password for iTunes.

Yes, he even uses it upside down

So, this is why I see Tate's iPad as both a blessing and a curse. We can’t live without it at this point. Oh we could survive but that six month spell of anxiety over the password would look like a walk in the park compared to losing the iPad. I recently suggested to Tate that he will someday need a new iPad because all his memory is used up on this one. He cannot find anything at all he wants to delete to free up some memory either. His battery is shot, probably from being plugged in sixteen hours a day while he obsesses about keeping the charge up. When I made the suggestion that we think about a new iPad, Tate went into panic mode. He does NOT want a new iPad even if it means he could have two. Honestly, if I could roll back the clock I’m not sure if we would have gotten Tate his own iPad. There are huge benefits, yes, but there are so many drawbacks. Before the messages start pouring in giving me all kinds of advice about how to limit Tate’s time with the iPad, I seriously doubt you have any ideas we have not tried. We’ve been there and done that. This ain’t our first rodeo. (Insert any other cliché you want to add here.) We have taken things away from Tate before. Read about his Blue’s Clues notebook phase: Unusual Attachments Of course if the battle (scratch that- I mean war) were worth fighting then we would fight it and not back down. Remember I did not cave on the new iTunes’ password. But at this time we are not choosing to make any changes. And if you have a young child with autism who has a history of becoming attached to things... learn from my mistakes. haha