Tate's a Winner, at Pictionary and More

Tate recently decided he'd heard enough
from his sister and silenced her. 

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to the home of friends for dinner. They have a pond behind their home and we all planned to do some fishing after dinner. Some of us were looking very forward to the fishing. One of us was not. Tate does not like to fish. He was not excited to be going on this outing at all, but that is not unusual. As luck would have it though a storm rolled in just after we arrived and we were stuck inside for the evening, fishing out of the question. This was quite okay with Tate. He goes everywhere prepared, with his tablet and his iPod. So Tate settled into a corner on a cushioned chair for the evening, pulled up a YouTube video and put in his headphones, shutting us all out. There were seven adults, two small children, and five teens present. The little ones ran off to play and the rest of us decided to play a game. We settled on Pictionary on the Nintendo Wii. We split up into three teams and someone asked Tate if he wanted to play. I was sure he would say, “No.” I’d have bet on it. He said, “Yes.” I was shocked and a bit apprehensive. I thought the team that got Tate would have a definite handicap and they would have to be awfully patient. After all, without much “theory of mind” he would not be a lot of help guessing at what others were drawing. Drawing has never been a strength for TateTa either…. But, no one was worried about winning or losing. We were all just a bunch of friends having fun.

Can you guess what Tate drew here?
The answer is in a note at the bottom of the post.
See if you guessed correctly. 

Each time it was Tate’s turn to draw we asked him to pick from the “Junior” words while the rest of us played using the “Adult” words. One person from a different team always looked at the word Tate was to illustrate to make sure he knew what it was and then that person would excuse himself from guessing. As it turned out Tate needed very little help. Once he forgot he was not supposed to read the word out loud and had to choose again. A couple of times he gave verbal clues. I kept reminding him that no words were allowed but he got a little confused when everyone was yelling out answers and asking him, “Is it a ____?” So, wanting to please them, he would forget he was not supposed to talk and answer them in words. I thought the funniest part of the evening was when Tate was to illustrate the word, “coal.” In addition to drawing a blob that no one could identify, he said, “It’s what Santa Claus gives to kids who have been naughty.” Of course that was in violation of the rules but we all cracked up. No one really cared the rules had been violated. They understood. They understood that Tate was a kid who not too many years ago could not define words. He would have been unable to give a clue verbally at all. He could not have defined the word “coal” or much of any other word. And that night he was doing that and so much more.

When Tate was small we invested every dollar we could scrape together into therapies to teach him. We put all our eggs into one basket. We used ABA therapy and did as many hours of discrete trial as we could fit into a day. If you do not know what ABA or discrete trial is, click here.

At age three Tate did not understand that an item could actually have more than one name. For example, He called cows, “cows.” When we tried to teach him that cows are also called “animals” he had a lot of trouble reconciling that in his mind. When we finally convinced him a cow is an animal, he would no longer call it a cow. We worked on a discrete trial program for a long time called “categories.” Another program was to teach synonyms as he was having so much trouble with the idea. I tried to convince him that sticks and twigs were the same. Bugs and Insects were also the same. It was so hard for him to accept. When Tate had mastered those simple programs we moved onto much harder things. Word definition had never gone very well. It required a lot more language than Tate had mastered for a long time. Hearing Tate describe “coal” I was reminded of all the hard work and how well it has paid off.

Another highlight of the evening for me was watching Tate interact with those around him. He watched the rest of us laughing and bragging about our successes during the evening. He heard us all teasing each other, claiming the other teams must be cheating when they pulled ahead. He wanted in on the fun. Tate began to “trash talk” and was very good at it. He looked to a friend next to him who was playing on another team and said, “I wonder what it will feel like when I win?” We laughed twice as hard at that comment since it had come from Tate. As it turned out, Tate did not have to wonder long. His team did win. He’s a winner in more ways than one.

Note: In the picture above, Tate was drawing a king. We all knew as soon as we saw the crown. I was very impressed. Tate's sister snapped a photo of the television screen as she was also quite impressed at how well he was doing. 

If you enjoyed this post you might like to read another. Executive Function and Al Capone

A Look Inside a Black and White Mind

If you know me very well you have probably heard me say that I believe I could almost get an Asperger diagnosis (or DSM Level 4 as it is now called). I have a lot of the characteristics. I was painfully shy as a small child and have never been a people person, although I have taught myself how to behave in most social situations, I still find it very difficult to interact sometimes. I am a visual thinker, thinking in pictures and categories. Ironically, being a visual thinker does not help me in the area of facial recognition. I do not recognize people’s faces until I have seen them several times. I am also a black and white thinker. By that I mean I have a lot of trouble with gray areas. In other words things are right or wrong and there is no in-between.

Many of the people in my life, even those who know me best, say I hide my insecurities in social situations very well. The story of how I learned to “fake it” goes back to my teen years. I had very few friends in grade school. I was in a large school district and very few of the same kids were grouped together year after year thus making it hard for a shy kid to form relationships. I had one friend in second and third grade that I was close to but the school boundaries changed after that and we were sent to different schools.

In the fourth grade I became friends with a girl who I truly loved. A lot of my childhood memories revolve around her. She moved away when I was in seventh grade and I spent the next year in a depressed state. There were two girls that year that got their kicks by bullying me and I had no idea how to defend myself. Then, at age 14, a couple things happened that changed my life. We moved. We moved from a VERY large school district to a VERY small school district. AND, my brother who was five years older than I, and the coolest, funniest guy who was always “the life of the party” told me something that forever changed my life. I told him how afraid I was to start at my new school. I told him how hard it was for me to meet new people. My cool brother, who had dozens and dozens of friends, told me that he was just as introverted as I was. He told me that I had to go into that school and ACT the way I wanted people to perceive me to be. I had to think of it as a play and I was an actor. I remember him saying that I had been a little fish in a big pond at my old school and I would have the chance to be a big fish in a little pond at my new school. I could totally change who I was by how I acted. I had the chance to redefine myself. I looked up to my brother like no one else I knew and I trusted him. I did what he told me to do. Within days at the new school I had made more friends than I’d had in years at the old one. Of course it helped tremendously that everyone at the new school was so welcoming and friendly. Those four years of school were amazing and because of those four years I went off to college well-practiced at making friends and maintaining friendships. I had mastered the art of social relationships, much later than my peers, but I had done it.

I am a visual thinker and categorize everything I learn or see. I had no idea that I think differently than the general population until I read Temple Grandin’s book “Thinking in Pictures.” I read her book when Tate was diagnosed with autism and I learned so much about myself. I knew and had always known I was “different” than a lot of people but had no idea why. I think differently. I did not know that everyone else did not think in pictures. I would still not know this had Tate not been born with autism and had I not needed to educate myself about it. Knowing that I think differently has helped me to understand so many things I had always considered a mystery.

Temple Grandin likened the way she thinks to a video player with clips of video she can pull from files. I would describe the way I think this way: I place the pictures I have and the “rules” I’ve learned in a sort of list and categorize them in a filing system, like a rolodex. I can think quickly through my files and find a picture or a rule that applies in most situations. When I was young my list of rules was shorter and I didn’t have a lot of “files” to draw from so I didn’t know how to act in a lot of situations. Consequently, I appeared socially awkward in new places and around new people. Now that I am older and I’ve had a lot more experiences, my list of rules and how to act in almost any situation that occurs is quite extensive. Everyone learns from their past experiences I know but apparently I am different in that I visualize my list or quickly run through my list of rules so that I can decide what responses will be socially appropriate. It doesn’t just come naturally for me. As a young adult I sometimes misjudged and came up with an inappropriate reaction occasionally. I rarely do that anymore because I have memorized and know how to use most social cues and respond appropriately. Thus, I appear very “normal” to the world. Don’t get me wrong, I feel very “normal” all of the time. This way of thinking and my rolodex works for me. It may be different than the way you think but it works for me. I get by just fine and up until a few years ago I had no idea that my way of thinking was not universal with human beings. HA

It makes no sense to me that a person who thinks in pictures like I do has such a hard time with facial recognition. I am what some call face blind. I recently read almost two percent of people have this issue. I have to meet someone more than once, and usually several times, before I can memorize a face. Then, when I see them in a different setting than I met them in, I am unable to identify how I know them. I often recognize people by their voices though so sometimes if they speak to me that can save me. Sometimes I can tell who a person is by the way they walk. If I see them walking toward me or away from me I might be able to identify them but if I walk up on them then I struggle for to place them. This inability to recognize faces is a real handicap for me and I appear to be a snob often as I walk right past people that I should be stopping to speak to. I honestly do not understand how everyone else DOES seem to recognize a face after one encounter. Unlike people with autism, I do not have any trouble with eye contact so that is not the issue. I think it is that people basically all look similar to me. Oh, there are differences, like hair length, body shape and size, and color too. So that all helps but I see maybe one of a dozen different faces when I meet someone. Weird, I know. If there is something very unusual about a person then I will recognize them after one meeting but otherwise, it is not going to happen. Most of the time when I meet someone I think, “She looks so much like ______.” However, when I mention to someone else that I think the two look similar they usually will not agree. I volunteer one day a week with a teacher friend in our local school and it takes me all year to match the kids' faces to their names. Some I never learn. That is just not "normal." Movies, especially old ones, are a real big part of our family life but I can rarely tell the actors and actresses apart. I take a lot of teasing over that.

I always dread hearing the words “gray area” because I know there is going to be a conflict my mind will have to wrestle with. There are almost no gray areas for me. Gray areas do not fit in file folders. There is no place on the rolodex for gray areas. You see, when you are a concrete thinker like myself, issues are black and white, right or wrong. I recently heard a doctor refer to concrete thinking as “rigidity of thinking.” I thought that was a pretty good way to describe the way I think. There isn’t much flexibility. There is a right way to do things and anything other than that one way, is wrong. And THAT folks, is the reason I can sometimes come off as self-righteous, calloused, or uncaring. My patient husband has taught me to rewrite many of the rules on my mental rolodex. I now can accept that there is more than one way to do some jobs and still get satisfactory results. He has taught me that people who do not do things exactly the way I do are not always “bad guys.” My rolodex continues to expand. So, why don’t I just accept all gray and expand every day? It is not that easy when you are a concrete thinker. Each bit of gray has to make sense. It has to be tried in the courtroom of my mind. If it doesn’t make sense and cannot hold up then it will NOT be added to the rolodex. Many, possibly even most, of the gray things I am asked to consider do not even get a trial date. HA. I am being a bit facetious but this  is sort of how it works for me.

I do not have autism. I have a great imagination, a sense of humor, super eye contact, and no problems with communication, empathy or theory of mind. I do not have any stereotypic behaviors or a lot of sensory issues. I do not perseverate (obsess) on things (although around election time, some might argue about that one.) HA Oftentimes, relatives of a person with autism have some of the characteristics of autism. That would be me.

I am 51 years old and still adding to some of the “rules” I probably should have known for a long time. Moral issues, biblical principals, and God’s commands are extremely easy for me to believe and obey because God’s word is very cut and dried on most issues. It is the social rules and relationships that have always been harder for me. If I wrong someone then it is very hard for me to forgive myself. I spoke in anger to a friend several months ago, apologized, and was forgiven yet I am still ashamed of myself over it. If someone wrongs me or betrays a trust then I will probably never be able to confide in them again. My respect for them is gone. I can forgive them. I can love them. I can be nice to them, but I will not ever trust them again. 

I illustrate my thoughts and feelings with pictures all the time. It is how I think. Following is an example of how I pictured it recently when someone I love did something that hurt me, and others. My mind saw a clean, steel kitchen sink, full of clear water. There was a drain in the bottom of the sink and a stopper in the drain. When my friend did the horrible thing he did, the stopper popped out of the drain and all the water quickly ran out. The water was my respect (not my love, just my respect). It is gone. The sink is dry. I have tried to refill the sink but the stopper just will not hold. Can I try and visualize another stopper and fixing the sink? Oh, I can try; and try; and try again; but there is only so much a concrete thinker can do. Can I change? I've been trying for at least forty years and praying about it daily. If anyone can soften concrete God can so I will keep praying and trying. 

You might wonder why would I want to write a blog post like this? People will think I am “weird” now. I have a couple of reasons. The first being the usual: to raise awareness and tolerance for people with autism. Sharing some of the same characteristics with Tate, perhaps does give me some insight into how he thinks and feels. Secondly, I have tried to describe some of these things to my family and close friends before and wanted to get some organized thoughts on paper. Hopefully, this will explain a few things.

If you liked this post then these two would be recommended for your reading pleasure: Why does Tate act that way? and Look into my eyes.

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Look What I Can Do!

“Watch me!  Look what I can do!”  How many times have you heard it from a preschooler as they build a block tower or crash their cars together?  It is something I had heard a thousand times from my other children but never from Tate.  Why? 

As soon as I got the tentative diagnosis of autism from Tate’s pediatrician I was reading books that told me “early intervention is the key.”  I jumped on the phone trying to find help for Tate.  It seemed the developmental pediatricians, all qualified to give the final and necessary diagnosis and recommended treatments, had waiting lists of six months or more.  How can a parent wait six months when all the books say “move quickly” and I knew time was wasting?  There was one developmental pediatrician in my area I found who had a waiting list of ONLY three months.  I made an appointment but I also insisted I must talk to his nurse immediately.  I would not take “no” for an answer from the receptionist.  The nurse had mercy on me and called me back.  I had lists of questions written down to ask, and as the nurse and I talked, I began to sob.  The compassionate nurse told me she would have the busy doctor call me and I specifically remember her telling me not to waste my precious phone call with him crying.  I would have a very few minutes of his time to ask for his advice and then I would have to wait three months for our appointment.  He called me between his appointments that same day.  He was in his car on his cell phone and he told me he was very pressed for time.  I will never forget that call.  He was kind but he did not candy-coat anything.  He asked me some really hard questions.  He asked me if Tate had ever pointed out an airplane in the sky to me.  I had to think for a few seconds and answer “no” but was immediately horrified that I had never noticed this on my own. He asked if Tate had ever pretended to talk on a phone. He asked me if Tate had any relatives (especially older brothers or cousins) without empathy for others.  He asked me if Tate’s siblings or cousins ever got caught up in repetitive behaviors or had poor social skills, anxieties or odd habits.  He asked me if Tate could follow my point; meaning: could his eyes follow my finger to see what I was pointing at?  I was not sure.  I remember thinking: “How could I not know?  What kind of mother was I?”  He asked me if Tate had ever said “watch me” or “look what I can do” and I had to say that he had not.  It was one of my first lessons in joint attention and what that means.  Tate had no joint attention.  Joint attention is “the shared focus of two or more individuals on an object.”  People draw attention to things through eye gaze, pointing, or commenting.  Joint attention is essential for the development of communication.  Joint attention is one of the earliest noticeable differences in the typically developing child and the child with autism.  If I had known these things, perhaps I could have helped Tate much sooner.  Know an infant?  Watch for the developing joint attention.  Early intervention is the key.

That phone call from that doctor opened my eyes to so many things. He had asked me if Tate had relatives with characteristics similar to his.  I had said that he did not but later that evening, when talking with my husband, I realized I had answered some questions incorrectly.  After giving it all more thought I remembered a lot of things that had not occurred to me while visiting with that doctor.  There was a little boy in my family who had entertained himself with repetitive behaviors for long periods of time, although he had outgrown it.  Tate did and does have relatives who suffer from anxieties.  There were little boys in my family who had not developed empathy skills appropriate for their age and there were little boys in my family who had very poor social skills.  Many of those things have been overcome with age, teaching and maturity.  I, myself, had been a very anxious child, shy to an extreme, with some of the characteristics of autism. The difference between Tate and those with a few quirks is joint attention.  None of us could ever be diagnosed with autism.  We had “enough” joint attention.  We have “enough” theory of mind.  Have an infant?  Watch for the development of joint attention.  Early intervention is the key.   No one can say it often enough or loud enough.  Early intervention is the key.

seeing ghosts

Tate, age 3 ½ 

Tate thinks very literally and this often causes him to misunderstand the world around him. People with autism also struggle with separating reality from fantasy. One of the first times I realized how handicapped this made Tate was when he was around three or four years old. Tate and I were walking in a building on Kansas University’s campus and we came face-to-face with a woman wearing a hijab with a veil covering everything except her eyes. As we walked by her, Tate nonchalantly said “oh, a ghost.” He didn’t ask any questions. There was no alarm in his voice, no double-take, or any kind of disbelief at all. He called it like he saw it. He saw a ghost walking down a hall. End of story. 

A few days ago, we were driving through our small town and Tate saw a black sports car trimmed in lime green parked in a drive way. Tate said, matter-of-factly, “The Green Lantern lives there.” No big deal. A super hero lives in our town. One plus one equals two, after all. Like that “ghost” and the Green Lantern, many other costumed characters have been accepted by Tate as true to life personalities. I think this, and a lot of the other difficulties Tate has interpreting his world, can be traced back to the theory of mind issue. Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have thoughts and feelings too and people are not always thinking and feeling the same way you are. It takes theory of mind to be able to empathize with others, read body language, pretend, and understand a lot of humor. Tate cannot see why anyone would have a motive to pretend to be anything they are not. This is the part that can get a person with autism in a lot of trouble when mom is not there to watch out for them anymore. Typically developing children gain some street smarts at a fairly young age. They learn to “read between the lines.” They learn that sometimes people tell lies, pretend to be things they are not, and manipulate others so they can get what they want. Typically developing kids also learn to see some gray between all the black and white rules we live by.  Kids with autism don’t often learn all the exceptions to rules and gain the street smarts. People with autism can be taken advantage of very easily. 

Seeing a ghost and believing a car in town belongs to a super hero are things I can chuckle about but it makes me wonder how far it could go. We see wildlife in the yard quite often. A whole flock of turkeys walked across our yard today.  If a tiger sauntered across the yard while Tate was outside swinging I wonder if he would come inside to tell me or just casually say “hmmm, a tiger” and keep on swinging.

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