Learn To Be Autistic

Fortunately, increasingly many schools of thought and “therapy” are beginning to understand that in order to teach an autistic child effectively, an adult has to learn, at least a little bit, to communicate in that child’s native language. That “language” (or culture, perhaps?) is the neurology called Autism. An autistic child has automatically been thrown into a full-immersion Neurotypical classroom that we call the “normal” world. They didn’t have a choice about this. But we can choose to learn a bit more about how to make them comfortable in that unfamiliar space. We spend so much time and energy and money and research on bringing them closer to being like us. But really, in order to have a good relationship with anyone autistic, we have to meet them halfway.

NOTE: You may notice that I alternately include myself in the “us” of autistic people and the “us” of the typical world. This is because, as one of the many who grew up “passing” without a diagnosis, I have something of a dual citizenship. Depending on the context, my knowledge and experience may align more or less with one side or the other. I often find myself explaining neurotypical things that I mostly understand to autistic people. I also often find myself explaining autistic things that make perfect sense to me to neurotypical people who are utterly baffled by them. In both cases, I feel a bit like a cultural anthropologists: knowledgeable about a culture without exactly belonging to it.

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For example, neurotypical people tend to require a lot of feedback when they communicate. If you say something to me, especially if I am a child, you expect me to acknowledge your speech verbally or by looking at you, or oftentimes both. Autistic people aren’t always capable of this kind of response, nor should they have to be. It’s a waste of their time and energy to mimic a behavior that serves no purpose other than to meet societal expectations.

6-year-old Carl is carrying a big bowl of paint and soap and water across the patio. I have told him I don’t want him to bring it into the house, but I know that when he is busy having Ideas, he is likely to forget, ignore, or not even notice the rules.

“Carl, where are you taking that?” I ask. No response. I’m not offended. I know he’s not ignoring me “on purpose” or trying to be disrespectful. His mind is just too busy to process my request.

I step in front of him to make sure he’s aware of my presence.

“Where are you going with that bowl? Remember, I don’t want you to bring it into the house.” He notices the obstruction in his path (me) and turns to walk around it. It’s possible that my words haven’t yet penetrated into his conscious awareness.

I step to the side with him, not letting him past. I speak clearly and firmly.

“Carl, I need you to tell me where you are taking the bowl. Where are you taking the bowl?” He stops finally, and looks at me. I can almost see the wheels churning in his head. Now I recognize his specific dilemma. He heard and understood my request, but, although he has significant verbal abilities, he can’t tap into them right now. His brain is too busy doing something else to produce language.

Have you ever found yourself multitasking too many things at once and finally said to the person you’re talking to, “Hang on a minute, I need to ____ and then I’ll finish what I was saying to you” (or some variation on that theme)? I know I’ve it happen to plenty of neurotypical adults: they get to the tricky part of a task and pause mid-sentence because they can no longer do both things at once. It happens with competing language processes, too, such as when you try to hold a conversation while still listening to the commentators when watching the game, or when you try to speak to one person while writing a text or email to another.

So I waited patiently for Carl to be able to switch gears enough to communicate with me. He wasn’t able to verbalize, but after several seconds he nodded with his chin towards a small table. “Ok,” I said, stepping out of his way. Message successfully sent and received, he turned his full attention back to his project.

It would have been very easy for us to get frustrated with each other here. I could have considered him rude and disobedient. He could have been angry with me for interrupting him (if I had been a stranger, he probably would have gotten upset). If I had pushed him to respond faster, or insisted that he answer me verbally, I might have completely disrupted his train of thought, resulting in an even longer wait, or a confrontational response, or a meltdown. But I chose to work with the way that he works, and as a result, we both got what we wanted.

People Are Complicated

Human beings are capable of logical, rational thought. But we are not inherently logical rational beings. We are emotional. We are complicated. We are self-contradictory. We are inconsistent.

It’s easy to forget this. We expect other people to Make Sense, by which we mean that we want to be able to understand the reasons behind people’s feelings and actions. And to some extent, we often can. We have the ability to emphasize, to imagine how we would feel in a particular situation and hence understand how another person in that situation feels. But we can’t always know someone’s situation perfectly. We can’t always imagine that situation accurately. And, of course, we don’t all have identical responses to the same things. We don’t always make sense to each other. We don’t always make sense to ourselves.

So I am amazed at how often I fall into the mental trap of expecting children to make sense. Children are, in fact, less likely to make sense than adults. They are also less able to reflect on, understand, and express the reasons for their emotions and actions. But many adults get annoyed when children act in a way that the adult can’t understand. 

It always amazes me how many adults seem to have completely forgotten what it was like to be a child, to have irrational fears and inexpressible longings and heartbreak over ordinary occurrences. Even though, as adults, we still have these experiences, only perhaps less often and more privately. Why does it never occur to us that a child might be crying because of the song playing on the radio, laughing at something they just imagined or remembered, or angry just because it’s been a long day rather than because of any specific event?

As with so many things, this expectation of an immediate and obvious cause for someone’s feelings is magnified in dealing with disabled children. I was at the beach with a 9-year-old nonverbal client today. We were walking along at the water’s edge when he suddenly began to cry.

I asked him what was wrong, although I knew he had no way to tell me. I asked if he was injured, hungry, cold, if he needed to go back to his Dad, if I could do anything to help… (While he doesn’t indicate yes or no, he will stop crying if I manage to figure out what he needs, so I try to list a number of possible solutions for him.)

When he simply continued to sob, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why I was assuming a concrete and proximate reason. Maybe he was thinking about something that saddened or scared or worried him. His grandmother has been ill. He has a new baby brother. And there are a million things I don’t know that could be wrong. Maybe his parents had a fight. Maybe he has a mean teacher. Maybe his best friend isn’t in his class this year. Anything could be upsetting him.

And maybe it was something more immediate, but abstract. He spent a long time tossing a ball to himself today, and then we walked past a group of kids playing a ball game. Maybe he felt left out and wished that the other kids would play with him. Maybe he felt sad about being so different from the other kids. About not even knowing how to ask to join them. Perhaps he was just disappointed that he was walking with me instead of swimming with his Dad (they did go swimming, but not for as long as he wanted).

We found a bench and sat. His Dad came over and started running through the same questions I had– did he need a snack, a sweater…? He waved Dad away, turned his back. He told him not to cry, and, at my urging, went back to his swimming. 

“Don’t cry.” I hear that a lot, from many sources. It’s usually said in a sympathetic way, not a mean way. “It’s ok, buddy, dry those tears.” “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared of.” “Aw… Cheer up, honey.” It’s a natural response, I think. We hate seeing someone in pain (there’s that empathy again). We want to fix it. We want to make it all better. And sometimes, we can. Sometimes sympathy and reassurance is enough. Love alone has dried many a child’s tears. But it can also hurt to be told that everything is ok when that just isn’t the case. So I’ve removed the phrase “don’t cry” from my vocabulary.

I put my arm around my client’s shoulder and sat with him and his tears. I spoke softly. 

I reminded him that he was loved.

I told him that everyone feels sad and cries sometimes. And that he would feel better eventually.

I told him I understand that life can be really hard, and that it was ok to feel upset about that.

I told him that I wished I knew how to help him feel better, but that sometimes it just takes time.

He reached over and gripped my hand. After a few more minutes, he stopped crying. He stood up and tugged me in the direction of the parking lot.

“Ok,” I said, “Let’s go get your Dad and tell him you’re ready to go home.” And we did. And also, I told him that he was a great kid and I love hanging out with him. I probably should have said it sooner. I’ll try to remember to say it more often.

Literal Language, Again

Anecdote from today. I was out walking with a teenage client and her BI. We’re working on teaching her to cross the street safely– stop, look, then walk. She’s not particularly interested in learning this. She’s used to having someone else take care of it for her, and she’s generally unenthusiastic about any task that requires her visual attention.

We reach an intersection, and stop. The BI prompts her to look to one side and then the other.

“Any cars?” She asks the client.

“Yes,” the client answers, although the street is completely devoid of traffic.

Now, this may well have been sheer laziness on our client’s part. “Yes” is often her default answer, and she tends to be a bit lax about yes/no questions. I have a hunch that the reason for this careless approach is that it only ever takes two tries to get a yes/no question correct, so why bother thinking about it too much? You say”yes” and then you get told “good job” or “try again.” Big deal. 

(I also suspect this client of deliberately answering wrong at times during easy tasks in order to spend more time on those tasks rather than harder ones– a metaphorical “dragging her feet” tactic. So far, I seem to be the only person who has noticed this. On the other hand, she’s tricked me a number of times into helping her with a task that I later find out she’s perfectly capable of doing on her own.)
Returning from my tangent here: there is another possible explanation for her wrong answer today, and it goes back to what I said last time about precise language. Language has a lot of subtext and context, and we process them so automatically that we don’t even consider the possibility that our assumptions may not be obvious to someone else. The BI asked the client if she saw any cars. And there were plenty of cars– parked alongside the road. Is it possible that our client simply didn’t think about the purpose of the question and so misinterpreted the connotation?

“Are there any cars coming towards us?” I clarified. The BI laughed as she realized the possible misunderstanding. Unfortunately, our client’s attention had already moved on to other things, so I didn’t get a chance to find out if my rephrasing of the question was useful. 

This is one of many reasons that I really wish ABA practitioners would give their clients brief explanations of tasks and their purposes before starting each task. It doesn’t do much good to teach someone to look both ways and report on the presence or absence of cars if they don’t understand that the purpose of this activity is to decide whether or not it’s safe to cross the street. 

I might as well take a moment to point out that there are valid arguments on both sides here. Reasons to explain a task briefly beforehand include: 

• The client might be able to judge how important this particular activity is for them (eg., they might be more attentive if they understand that the purpose is to keep them safe); 
• The client might be less frustrated with a seemingly meaningless task if they can see that it is a step towards a larger goal;
• Offering an explanation is a form of courtesy and respect, of treating the client as an intelligent human being and presuming competence. If they can’t understand the explanation, there’s really no harm done, while if they can understand it, it seems rather rude not to offer one.

Reasons against include:

• Letting the client decide how important they consider a task can backfire, as children’s priorities are not always the most sensible;
• There is the possibility that the way the explanation is phrased will create misunderstandings that interfere with learning the task;
• On a related note, having the end goal in mind from the beginning might lead to the client skipping important steps in their haste to reach the result;
• Caregivers and therapists have to be more vigilant about laying blame on a client who fails at a task despite having had it explained. It’s very hard to remember that understanding the rules/steps and following them are separate skills. Also that being able to repeat the reason for something doesn’t necessarily mean understanding that reason. (I am reminded here of an anecdote in the memoir “Following Ezra” that goes something like this: the boy steals something from a classmate. To discourage this, his father tells him that when he steals, he disappoints both his father and God. The boy memorizes this lesson… and comes home the next day to cheerfully report, “Hey Dad, guess what? Today I disappointed you and God!” He had learned the words of the lesson but not the meaning, or at least not the implication, obvious to most people, that disappointing dad and God is not a good thing. He wasn’t a malicious kid, just an oblivious one. Fortunately, his father understood this and tried explaining it a different way.)

So, this post got a lot longer than I intended, and now I can’t think of a clever way to wrap it up. I hope I’ve given you something to laugh about and something to think about.

We Need to Talk About Appropriate Language

This paragraph was originally at the end of the post, but I think I should start with it instead. The purpose of this essay isn’t to “dump on” ABA people, teachers, or anyone else who has a disabled child in their lives. I’ve made dozens of mistakes I know about, and even more that I don’t, and I suspect I will continue to make mistakes. That’s why I want to remind you all to think critically about what you do and say and how you do and say it. Think about the words you use and the messages you give without words. Try to imagine the perspective of your students or clients or children, and if you can’t imagine it, read more stuff written by adults with disabilities.

***

It was a minor thing that got me thinking about language. I was watching a middle-school level nutrition lesson for a profoundly autistic boy, and overall it was a good lesson. But it contained the following line: “I am lactose intolerant, so I should stay away from dairy.” Although I  understand figures of speech very easily, I also often notice when the logical meaning of words is not the same as the intended meaning. So I thought, “No, he doesn’t need to ‘stay away from’ dairy, he needs to not eat it.”  There’s a difference. This isn’t a food he has a contact allergy to; it’s just something that will upset his digestion.

I’m sure this strikes most people as a ridiculously small thing to fuss over. But so often, even non-autistic children misunderstand what adults tell them. Most of us can remember being unreasonably afraid of something– or hoping for something impossible — because an adult said something we misinterpreted, took too literally, or didn’t realize was a joke. Sometimes we hold these misconceptions for years. For an autistic child, who tends to take language very literally, this probably happens far more often. Even the phrase I just used — to “take language” a certain way — can be confusing, as it uses the verb “take” in a sense that only exists in idioms (I am indebted to Judy Endow’s book “Make Lemonade” for this particular example, although in her case she was confused by the phrase “take care”). Often, the context corrects the confusion, and academic misunderstandings are rarely critical. But when a child is learning about their own healthcare, the language must be as accurate and precise as possible.

***

I’m also not sure how I feel about lessons given in the first person. When a client or student reads a social story designed to give instructions, it makes sense to think this way, as in: “I will put on my shoes before going outside,” or “When I have a question for the teacher, I raise my hand and wait until the teacher says my name.” Non-autistic people also use these kind of internal instructions. Examples include internal “pep talks,” meditation mantras, and self-reminders during a busy day (e.g. reciting “I have to go to the bank and then buy cat food”).

But it often feels weird to me when teachers or therapists write and read these sorts of instructions. Perhaps some of my objection comes from the fact that these writings often make statements about the client/student’s feelings or thoughts in a way that an outside observer cannot possibly know. Or they try to tell the student/client how to feel.

I ran into trouble with this recently. A preteen client was having difficulty waiting in line for the slide at the playground. If other children were ahead of him, he would often shove them roughly aside, and then had to be removed from the situation. Having witnessed this several times, I developed some thoughts about why this particular circumstance was so hard for him.

First, the playground we always went to was usually quiet, so there was rarely a need to wait for the slide. He didn’t expect the waiting, so he didn’t handle it well. The other problem was a conflict with another social rule he knew: saying “excuse me” when he needed to walk past someone.  This skill had been very heavily reinforced at home, where he otherwise tended to crash into people while running around the house. Generally, when he said “excuse me,” someone would step aside and let him pass. At the slide, however, he would say “excuse me” to the child in front of him, but they would not let him pass, and he would become upset. I suspect that he was angry: as far as he was concerned, he was doing the right thing, and it was the other kids who weren’t following the rules.

I brought these points up to his ABA team and suggested that he needed a social script about waiting for the slide (and then had to explain that a “social script” wasn’t necessarily a verbal script but could also mean an internal set of rules for handling a situation). I was happy to see, next time I arrived, that they had put together a little social story for him. I half-listened to them read it to him before one playground trip, and planned to read it to him myself next time. When I did, however, I discovered a few problems. The script went something like this:

“My name is Joshua. I love to go to the playground and go down the slide. The slide is my favorite thing at the playground. Sometimes I have to wait for my turn at the slide. Sometimes there are other kids waiting ahead of me, and they won’t let me pass them. That is ok. It’s important to wait for my turn even if I am excited. I will wait for my turn nicely. Here are some things I can do while I wait:

I can have quiet hands

I can count to 100

I can leave the line and come back later

When I wait nicely, my mommy and daddy will be so happy. I like making mommy and daddy happy. The other kids will be happy, and I will be happy, too! I am a big boy who knows how to wait for the slide!”

Yeesh. “Quiet hands” is the first problem, but I won’t dwell on it, as others have critiqued it far better than I can (and at least in this family I’ve only ever heard it as a response to hitting or pushing people). The counting idea is an excellent one. But when I got to the last paragraph, I couldn’t bring myself to read past the first sentence. What is this, “Brave New World”? It’s one thing to point out that waiting nicely pleases people; it’s another thing entirely to tell someone how they feel about this. And “I’m a big boy” — Seriously?? He may have a moderate-to-severe cognitive disability, but he’s still almost 13, not almost 3. This kind of language is downright insulting.

When his BI (ABA person) first read it to him, I didn’t pay much attention to the words, but was bothered by the sing-songy overly cheerful voice she used– again, appropriate only for an infant or very young child. I should mention that, on the whole, I love his ABA team. They are flexible, patient, focused largely on practical skills, and generally sensible. He adores them, adores his sessions, and is learning skills that make his life easier and more independent. They are also very fond of the term “age appropriate.” They want him to have “age appropriate” self-care skills, do “age appropriate” chores around the home, and be able to participate in “age appropriate” social activities (he is a very social person, and loves to be included in games and outings, so I’m not against this goal, although I do point out that he also has the right to play in a more “babyish” way when he wants to). They even talk about getting the rest of the family to treat him more like someone his age!

So, with all this focus on age appropriate everything, how about using age appropriate language and tone of voice with him? I use simple sentences and a limited vocabulary, and sometimes I use funny voices for his amusement, but I sure hope I never talk to him like he’s in preschool. So I go off-script and finish his social story with “When you wait nicely, we’ll all be proud of you, and you can be proud of yourself.” And I say it just like I’m talking to any other person.

I have no way of knowing whether this particular client is sensitive to these nuances of language and tone. For all I know, he may be perfectly ok with it. But I’ve heard from enough adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities to know that some disabled kids will definitely notice being talked down to. And that means it’s not ok to do it to anyone.

It’s a Dog’s World

Here’s an extended metaphor. Imagine a world where the only possible pet is a dog. Dogs are everywhere, and people know a lot about them, but they’ve never heard of any other kind of pet.

Imagine a family going out and getting a puppy, a cute little furry puppy to love and care for and play with and take on long walks. But they soon begin to have concerns that something is wrong with their pet. He is soft and cuddly and adorable, but…

Well, he can’t seem to learn how to walk on a leash, or sit on command, or fetch. His tail is much too long, so long it drags on the ground at times, and he doesn’t wag. They thought he was wagging once or twice, but then he growled and snapped when they tried to pet him. He’s usually affectionate, but  doesn’t like having his belly rubbed, and can even become violent when his family tries to scratch his tummy. They worry about his abnormally small size and his odd sleep schedule, and about how he stretches in ways that can’t possibly be healthy. He only picks at his food, won’t chew bones, and spends a huge amount of time licking his own fur instead. He frequently manages to get onto counters and shelves that a dog shouldn’t be able to get up to, and they are terrified he will fall and get injured. He doesn’t play well with other dogs,and is easily frightened by all sorts of unexpected things. Sadly, he’s never barked, not even once. Instead, he makes odd squeaks and growling noises.

They talk to their friends, who agree that they’ve never seen a dog act like this before. So they take him to the vet.

The vet agrees that there is something wrong. She’s seen dogs like this before, she says, and while there are some things that can help, she is afraid their pet may never be quite normal. She recommends certain foods, and intensive training in obedience school to help the puppy learn how to take better walks and tolerate tummy-rubs. They should spend more time at the park, where he can learn to be less frightened of the bigger dogs. He might never bark, she says, but he’ll probably find other ways to express when he is excited or needs to go out. They should discourage him from making those strange growling sounds, as they will confuse other people and dogs into thinking their puppy is aggressive. She knows it’s hard to have all those other families staring at their weird pet and telling them that they’ve done a lousy job training him. She assures them it isn’t their fault he turned out this way. In terms of appearance, it might help to surgically remove part of his tail, and have him wear a body brace to keep his back from sagging and bending too much.

Now, those of you from planet Earth may have figured it out by now. The problem with this dog is that it isn’t a dog at all– it’s a cat! But these people– the family, their friends, the vet, the trainers– don’t know anything about cats. They only know about dogs.

So what can this family do? Well, they can embark on the program recommended by the vet, and try to make their cat as dog-like as possible. Or they can adapt to life with a cat. They can learn that his “wagging” is actually a sign of unhappiness, that his belly is too sensitive to be petted, and that his strange growling noise– purring!– means that he is content. It’s not going to be easy– they will be the only family on the block who can’t put things on a counter or shelf to keep them out of reach, and they certainly can’t let him off his leash at anyone else’s house. Other people and dogs are often going to be frightened by his purring, assuming he’s growling at them. He doesn’t enjoy many of the activities most dogs do– swimming and frisbee and chew toys– and they worry that he will be lonely and bored much of the time. And what if he gets out of his harness and runs away? Whoever finds him will think he’s a wild animal when he doesn’t respond to “sit” and “stay,” and he might get treated as a stray even though he wears a collar. No matter how dedicated his family is to making their life cat-friendly, there will be some things that will simply never occur to them, like catnip mice and litter boxes.

It isn’t going to be easy trying to change so many things on their cat’s behalf. But the cat is never going to become a dog, either. He may learn to play with dogs, and even enjoy it, and eat their food and walk on a leash and generally fit in well enough for most people to assume he’s just an odd breed. Or he may not. Perhaps only a few people will ever think that it’s ok for him to look and act completely like a cat. But we can dream of a future where people know enough about cats to keep them happy and healthy, even in a dog’s world.

Thought-petals: What Autism Means To Me

Autism means…

…Running down the hill, full tilt, holding hands, feet flying, gasping for breath, laughing for the sheer joy of it.

Autism means entire conversations held without words.

Autism means…

The constant and constantly changing puzzle-game of trying to understand one another, and the incredible moments of joy and excitement — the Aha! — when one person’s means of expression is grasped by the other person’s brain. It’s a brain-teaser with a truly valuable solution, a code we’re racing to break together.

(I love this about tutoring, too.)

Autism means shouting “yogurt!” from the rooftops. Because you have the right to express yourself even if no one else understands.

Autism means colors colors Colors COLORS!

And happy flapping hands.

Autism means needing a break from stimuli other people don’t even realize are there.

It means the blissfully peaceful look on your face when you come up from a dive, completely renewed by the immersion and the pressure and the magical world of water that holds you safe from sound and smell and the rest of the world.

Autism means that sometimes you need to bite down on your own hand just to get through a certain moment. And that’s ok, too.

Autism means talking in sound effects.

And deciding that we’re not going to use silverware at dinner tonight.

And lying down on the floor a lot.

And sitting the wrong way in chairs.

And hiding under the covers.

And tight bear hugs.

Autism means that something you see or hear or feel or smell or taste or think can be so fascinating that you just plain forget about everything else in the world.

Sometimes it’s like an involuntary mindfulness exercise.

Sometimes it’s frustrating and overwhelming.

Sometimes it’s tranquil.

It’s often beautiful.

Autism means paying very close attention, it really does. Just… maybe not paying attention to what you expected.

Autism means…

…emotions like fireworks — sudden, blindingly intense, incredibly memorable, the center of the world one moment and gone the next, leaving your ears ringing and your eyes blinking away spots…

…and sometimes it means not being able to show what you mean…

…and sometimes being able to express things more sincerely and profoundly than most people can…

…it can mean being a poet, a painter, a scientist, a person who thinks in numbers or pictures or videos or music, a person who reads at lightning speed, who remembers everything, who tastes music or hears colors, who notices the smallest details…

…Autism means being the square peg. Sometimes very obviously so. Sometimes with edges just slightly, almost imperceptibly, too wide for the slot into which everyone expects you to fit.

Autism is where you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time.

Autism means that look on your face when you watch the water sparkle…

Autism means the sounds you make when…

Autism means…

Autism means…

…fragile fascinating fascinated flying falling free focused fireworks…

Autism means you, and you are beautiful.

Notes About Learning Language

I just got finished reading this excellent article: http://www.assistiveware.com/are-our-assumptions-about-autism-and-aac-all-wrong

Fortunately, I’ve only once seen a case where an autistic client’s AAC was used in the horribly restrictive way that this article warns against. I have also been privileged to witness some wonderful AAC uses, and I’m in the process of learning how to encourage even more.

But let me back up a little here and tell a story.

….

The family cat enters the living room and my client perks up and points.

“At!” He says excitedly, “At!”

“Yes,” I say with an encouraging smile, “That’s a cat.”

“At,” he repeats.

“Cat,” I agree. A few minutes later, just in case I had forgotten, he points at the kitty again.

“At! AT! AT!” He looks extremely proud of himself, as though he has just discovered (or possibly invented) the entire idea of cats.

“You’re so smart. It IS a cat.”

“Yow,” he adds, grinning from ear to ear.

“Yes! Cats say meow!”

“Yow. Ow. At.”

“I see that.”

“At”

“Yes, cat.”

….

This client wasn’t one of my Respite kids. He was a typically developing toddler. And I suspect anyone who has ever had a toddler has had many conversations of this type. This is by way of reminding you what “normal” language development looks like. Lots of labeling. Lots of repetition. Lots of speech that, while not meaningless, seems rather purposeless.

So why on Earth, when an autistic child does this on their AAC, do people call it “stimming” and take the device away? Or worry that it is inappropriate, problematic,  or inhibiting learning? And even if they don’t object, they certainly don’t engage and respond, much less encourage. And I think they should.

….

A client with some fine motor difficulties forms odd sentences on a device, inserting the word “iPad” at intervals, so it might read something like “iPad I want iPad park iPad swings.” Watching this, I develop a theory. I think the “iPad” button is being used as a home base, a starting point, a reference. “I know how to get to the ‘park’ button from ‘iPad,’ so I’ll make sure I start at ‘iPad’ first.” This 7-year-old had invented a strategy to help overcome difficulties with motor planning… a strategy that could easily be overlooked or considered a “mistake.” Kids are often much smarter than we give them credit for.

….

A pre-teen client relaxes on the couch, casually exploring her AAC program. She has a lot of pre-programmed phrases. “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine.” “My name is Suzanne.” “Call me Suze.”

“Hi Suze!” I say. I want to acknowledge her words, even though I don’t think they are actually directed at me.

“How are you?” The device asks, and she answers it herself, verbally. “I’m good!” It looks almost like she’s having a conversation with the device… Talking to herself, as it were. Maybe she’s got an imaginary friend. Or maybe she’s practicing. I used to practice saying things in the mirror all the time. This kind of “non-meaningful” device use has never interfered with her ability to also use the device “properly” for communication. And she’s enjoying it. People learn better when they’re having fun.

“My name is Suzanne.” says the device. “Call me Suze.”

“Ok, Suze.”

…

I’m making toast for an 8-year-old client while his family relaxes in the next room. This kid is very smart, but doesn’t use AAC as much as we’d like. I suspect it feels very limiting to him, as he’s a very precise person. But he finds ways to work around the problems. Sometimes they are downright ingenious.

“I want to eat toast toast toast.” says the device.

His Daddy smiles and sighs, “Don’t worry, buddy, you’ll get your toast. She’s making it for you.” Daddy thought he was just asking for toast. Again. Three minutes after the last time he asked. Daddy thought he was pestering.

“Yup! Toast coming right up!” I enthused. I thought he was just excited. I figured this was his way of saying “Yay! Toast!”

His 10-year-old brother, however, understood something that neither of us adults (both of whom are pretty close to him) even considered.

“He’s telling you he wants three pieces of toast.”

Oh. Toast toast toast. Three toasts. Of course. I’m so glad there wasn’t a therapist there to “correct” him. The repetition had a specific meaning. I wonder how often we miss the messages intended by the WAY in which our clients use AAC, messages we probably dismiss as quirks, oddities, or mistakes.

….

A year later. The same client has a newer AAC program, one with more flexible grammar and a much larger vocabulary. But he still doesn’t use it for much besides simple “I want” statements. And I don’t know how to encourage it, but here are a few things I’m trying:

• Using the device myself, in his presence. It’s hard, and time consuming, trying to express thoughts this way. Several times I’ve told myself I’ll only use the device and not speak for a given length of time… and invariably, I’ve failed and resorted to speech. That tells me a lot about why exploring the device during downtime is so important. You need to learn your way around so that when you actually want to say something to someone, it doesn’t take you ten minutes to locate all the words you need. I’ve said serious things and silly things and simple things. “I like music.” “I know this is hard work.” “You rock!” I’ve used it to ask him questions. He doesn’t answer often.
• Inputting the beginning of a sentence, such as “I like…” or “I feel…” and handing him the device so he can finish the statement. He’s done so once or twice. Not usually, though.
• Carrying the device around, and handing it to him when he seems to be trying to express something. What active 10-year-old is going to walk around holding something that size? Or any size? Something that fits into a pocket might work. Or having the device always set up in a specific spot so he can run over to it whenever he needs to. That can work at home and school and maybe the playground, but I realize that it’s a serious logistical issue. If you had to put in the effort of finding something or going to another room every single time you wanted to say something, how often do you think you’d bother for minor things?

….

He and I relax at the laundromat while his Mom goes to pick up his brother from practice. We both enjoy watching the laundry go around, hearing the regular swooshing of the machines. I find “washing machine” on his device.

“Washing machine. Washing machine.” Verbally, I add “I like watching the–” and complete my sentence on the device. “Washing machine.”

He looks up from the machine he is currently watching. I hand him the device, show him how to navigate to the “washing machine” button, under Appliances.

“Washing machine.” He says, then puts the device down.

“Washing machiiiine” I repeat verbally, drawing the word out, exaggerating. I giggle and he smiles. I pick up the device and find “dryer” next to “washing machine,” with an identical picture.

“Dryer dryer dryer.” I write. He looks at me, smiles. My own voice echoes the device. “Dryer.” I point at the dryers in the laundromat, even though I’m quite certain he already knows which is which. I hand him the device. I point to the button that says “dryer” and repeat the word verbally again.

“Washing machine dryer washing machine dryer dryer dryer” he writes.

“Cool,” I say verbally, “I like watching the washing machine too. And the dryer. But especially the washing machine.”

Doesn’t this conversation sound… familiar?