Archive
Just Amazing
Sometimes my job is difficult, frustrating, or annoying. Sometimes it makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world. This day was the second kind. And not just because I got to wear a bathing suit to work!
***
Less than a year ago, I would arrive at his house, pile into the car with him and his mother, and buckle his seatbelt for him. We would drive from place to place– park, playground, and so on– and try at each place to get him out of the car for some exercise and fresh air. Sometimes he would come out and play. Sometimes he would refuse to leave the car at all. Sometimes he would sob and claw at me or pull my hair. This never made me angry, but it did make me sad. Sad because I hated for him to be so unhappy.
Today I arrive at his house and he whoops with excitement. I lay out some laminated photos on the counter– beach, playground, pool, park– and call his name. He comes over, and without hesitation taps the picture of the pool.
“Ok!” I say, “We’ll go to the pool.” He grins. We get ready and head out to the car. By the time I get there, he’s already in his seat with his seat belt buckled, ready to go.
When we arrive, I ask him to carry his lunch box while I carry his backpack. He does. We pick a bench and put down our belongings. He kicks off his sandals and runs into the pool. I don’t need to hold his hand. I join him in the water and watch him while his mom takes care of the toddler.
***
He’s in a great mood, and is eager to interact with me (sometimes he wants to enjoy himself all alone and that’s ok too). He tugs my hands and tucks them under his arms. I bounce him up and down in the water to the best of my ability (he’s grown so much in the past two years!). I spin him around, and we both laugh with delight. I push off the wall of the pool with my feet, and after a few minutes he imitates me– another thing I couldn’t imagine him doing last year. We work together to find different ways I can hold him and move him in the water. He’s so relaxed, so happy, so affectionate. He could easily swim by himself, but he wants me to hug him, put my hands under his back while he floats, roll him over and over.
***
I notice him watching a younger boy who is practicing swimming underwater, pinching his nose with his fingers. I suggest to my client that he try it too, and explain to him about the need for exhaling or holding his nose so he doesn’t get water in it. In response, he dives, blowing bubbles like a pro. Obviously, he’s known how all along. What’s cooler is that he was displaying that knowledge for my benefit– letting me know that he knew. When I first met him, he seemed uninterested in communicating with me except to make requests.
***
He watches a group of kids his age playing catch in the water. This is another recent development– he used to ignore other children completely. I encourage him to join in, but I can’t blame him for hanging back. Only once have I witnessed him really playing with another child, and it was an autistic boy a few years younger than him. Seeing him watching this game, my heart aches for him. I know what it’s like to be the kid who can’t figure out how to participate, or is too afraid of rejection to try.
I get him a ball from his backpack, and he plays with it by himself for a few minutes while I stand by the edge of the pool watching. Then he tosses it out of the pool. This usually means he’s tired of playing with a thing, but on a whim I pick up the ball, call his name, and throw the ball back at him, expecting him to ignore it. To my amazement, he turns to look, reaches up, and catches it.
“Wow! That was great! Throw it back!” I suggest enthusiastically, cupping my hands. He pauses a moment, not seeming to pay attention… then gives the ball another gentle toss out of the pool, but not really in my direction. I retrieve it and throw it, and again he catches.
“Throw it right at me this time,” I say, and again he seems to be ignoring me at first, but a few moments later the ball lands at my feet. The next time it almost makes it to my hands and I cheer as if he’s just hit a home run.
I’m grinning like crazy. He’s playing catch with me. It’s beautiful. I don’t care about him doing this to be more “normal” or because it’s what the other kids do. I care because he’s having fun and he’s sharing that fun with another person.
I’ve never before seen him choose to do any kind of structured activity with another person. Never seen him do something that involves taking turns, that involves this level of response to someone else’s actions. I want to grab the people next to me and tell them they are witnessing a miracle. I want to call the national news. I can’t imagine being any more excited if he were my own son.
***
It’s a day full of moments like this. He swings on the rope dividing the pool into sections.
“Off the rope, buddy,” calls the lifeguard. He doesn’t respond. I call his name, and he looks up.
“Leave the rope alone please” I call, and he lets go of it immediately. His mother and I have always suspected that he understands most if not all of what people say (in more than one language, too). But only in the past 6 months has he started regularly responding with actions that make it clear that he understands.
In response, I’ve completely stopped using the short, simplified sentences that I often used when I wasn’t sure of his comprehension level. Now I just talk to him like I’d talk to any other preteen, chatting about all kinds of random things.
Later, a few other kids are playing on the rope, and the lifeguard again instructs them to let go. To my surprise, my client also looks up at the sound of the lifeguard’s voice, seemingly alert to the possibility that he’s done something wrong. I reassure him that he’s ok where he is and he goes back to playing.
His awareness of everything around him seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. Or perhaps he’s always been paying attention but hasn’t been able or willing or interested in responding. Whatever the change, it means I no longer have to hover over him and, for example, physically drag him away from that rope. It allows him more independence.
***
By now, I’m sure any autism parent reading this is dying to know how these changes were accomplished. So first, let me point out that he is no less autistic. All these wonderful new things he’s doing, he does them while stimming and shrieking, flapping around, sniffing and tasting things that he probably shouldn’t, and having meltdowns over tags in his clothing. He is and always will be autistic. But he is becoming a more communicative, interactive, cooperative, friendly, self-confident, and independent autistic person, and to me, that’s the true measure of success. And the best kind of success.
Because there’s been no special diet or medication or new therapy. In fact, most of those things were discontinued completely over the past few years. He has made these changes himself, with the support of the adults around him.
Some of his independence came of necessity. There have been a lot of life changes for him that were totally unrelated to autism. One grandparent died and another moved away and his mother had a baby. As a result, there were a lot fewer adults tending to his every need or making demands on him, which gave him both more freedom and more responsibility. He’s matured a lot emotionally.
The other thing that happened is that he’s gotten some autistic adults in his life– first me, then a man who has a remarkable knack for visual communication. There wasn’t any lenthgy teaching involved– they’ve worked together for no more than a dozen hours. But somewhere in those few hours, there was an “aha moment” for both my client and his mother as they finally zeroed in on a method of communication that both could understand. There’s still a long way to go before he’ll be able to tell us more than a handful of things, but the breakthrough has happened and now he knows that it’s possible for him to make himself understood in a way that he never could before. Since that realization, I feel he’s become much more interested in learning new things.
I think it was crucial for him to meet adults who were somewhat more like him, who intuitively understood thimgs about him that his parents and teachers and therapists did not. It doesn’t take much. The vast majority of his time is still spent at home with his family, and his mother also provides the other crucial ingredients to his success: unconditional love and constant encouragement.
Accept. Love. Encourage.
Keep accepting. Keep loving. Keep encouraging.
Celebrate every new attempt, no matter how unsuccessful, every step forward no matter small. Not the fake programmed encouragement of tokens or rewards or empty praise, but genuine appreciation for the effort you see a child making. Acknowledge difficulty and setbacks. Children learn best when they feel safe and supported. When they are learning because it enriches their life, not out of desire for praise or fear of disaproval. Learning is its own best reward. Success builds confidence, and confidence leads to trying new things, and trying new things leads to more success.
***
Here are things I say to him often:
Try.
You can do it.
I believe in you.
Try again.
Thank you for trying.
I’m proud of you for trying.
I know it’s hard.
You’ll get there. I know you will.
You can do it.
That’s better.
You’re making progress.
Keep trying.
It’s ok to fail.
You can try again later.
You’re wonderful.
You’re the best.
You make me happy.
Keep trying. You can do it.
I love it when you _____.
***
Unconditional love. Unwavering acceptance. Unending encouragement. They are magic ingredients.
As I drive home from his house that afternoon, the radio plays a song that always makes me think of my clients. As Billy Joel sings “I love you just the way you are,” I find myself crying. I cry in happiness for the wonderful children in my life and the joy of seeing them grow and learn. I cry in sadness for every autistic child who doesn’t have unconditional love and acceptance. I cry because I am lucky to know that perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and I wish more people understood that. I wish every person in the world could hear those words when they matter most:
“Don’t go changing/ To try and please me…. I want you just the way you are.”
Communication is a collaboration
It takes (at least) two people to communicate. The transfer of information does not happen in a void. Lots of professional people have written professional things about this, everywhere from brain injury journals to Star Trek fan forums. Here’s what it looks like (sometimes) in real life:
My client takes his mother’s hand, tugs. She follows him into the kitchen. He pushes her hand in the direction of the cupboard that holds cups and glasses.
“You want water?” she asks him. She doesn’t expect a reply, at least not the normal kind– a word, a nod. His response will require a little more decoding.
She takes a glass out of the cupboard, puts some water in it, hands it to her son as she and I chat. He sets it on the counter beside the sink. Takes her hand, pushes it back toward the glasses. She offers him an empty glass– perhaps he wants to fill it himself? He waves it away.
“You want me to get you something different to drink?” She opens the fridge. “Juice? Milk? Show me.” He closes the fridge. Brings her back to the cupboard. She is baffled.
“Maybe he wants to play with the bubble cup?” I suggest. The cup appears to have bubbles suspended in the sides, and sometimes he enjoys looking at it. We were blowing bubbles earlier in the day. It could be a matter of association. She offers him the bubble cup. No. He pushes her hand back towards the shelf.
It’s easy for people to get frustrated at a time like this. It’s frustrating to her that she can’t understand, that her son seems to be requesting something and then rejecting it. It’s frustrating to him that he can’t make himself understood. But they don’t give up. She knows her son isn’t doing this to be annoying. He’s trying to tell her something. She begins taking the cups down from the shelf, one after the other, and each time he pushes her hand up again. She knows the message is here somewhere, if only she can be patient and find it… and she does.
She brings down a mug, and her son stops pushing her hand, rests his hand on her arm instead. Her confusion clears immediately.
“Oh! You want tea!” I am surprised. I would not have thought of this. I had no idea he liked tea. He wants tea, on a hot summer’s afternoon. His mother makes him tea.
These moments of working together towards a shared understanding are so simple and so complicated at the same time. They can be as trivial as a request for tea, and absolutely crucial to building a common world, a relationship, a mutual language. It is beautiful. Communication is a basic human need. Every time I see someone succeed at it, I smile.
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.
***
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.
