Being Literal.

Imagine the scene Steve takes a pen from Jeff’s pencil case without asking. Jeff becomes really angry and hits Steve in frustration. The teacher see’s this and says to Jeff “Do not hit Steve”, the next time Steve is angry with Jeff he doesn’t hit Jeff but instead he stamps on and breaks Jeff’s sandwich box. As he is doing this the teacher is shouting at Steve to stop. He replies “But I’m not hitting anyone”, the teacher replies “I’m not playing that game, just because I said you can’t hit Jeff it doesn’t mean you can do anything you like”. Steve replies “But I’m not hitting him”. The teacher replies “Do you want to lose your reward”? Jeff “But I’m not hitting him”. Because Steve is literal he takes everything you say literally. This means when the teacher says don’t hit Jeff, as far as he is concerned as long as he doesn’t hit Jeff anything else is acceptable. This is a combination of being literal and also flexibility of thought. Most neuro-typical children understood that what the teacher say’s and what she means can be two different things. Other children understand that what she is really saying is “Don’t hit Jeff, in fact don’t hit anyone or don’t get angry when I am around”. Now if Steve had flexibility of thought he could work out that if he really wanted to hit Jeff he could do it during break or after school. With a lot of autistic children it is best to use the approach ‘tell them what to do, not what not to do’. Also be very mindful of asking questions as requests (this is a very British thing to do) we say things like “Can you open the window”? to which they reply “yes I can” and then they don’t open the window. They hear it as a question but when we say “Can you open the window” it is actually a request to do it. At times it can get a bit more complicated because they may think yes I can but not actually tell you. So when you ask them if they can do something they may just look at you and then just walk away, which we interpret as rudeness but really it is a lack of understanding. Be mindful of sayings such as “In a minute” to some children who are aware of time this means 60 seconds. They come up to you and say “Mom can I talk to you”? You reply in a minute, after 60 seconds they return and say “Mom can I talk to you”? You reply “I said in a minute”, they are now getting stressed because you broke your promise and in frustration they shout “But it is in a minute”. You shout back “don’t talk to me like that, go to your room”. They are now really confused now because they did what you said and BOOM an incident occurs. Sorry but this is your fault not the child’s.

Literal examples:

Teacher: “Billy, have you done your home-work”?

Billy: “Yes I have”

Teacher “Can I see it”?

Billy “No”

Teacher: “Right young man, detention”

Billy: BOOM incident occurs.

Billy has done his home-work but it is in his bag under the desk. So of course the teacher cannot see it.

Correct response

Teacher: “Billy, have you done your home-work”?

Billy: “Yes I have”

Teacher: “Bring it to me please” or “Where is it”

Billy: “It’s in my bag under the desk”

Teacher: “Bring it to me please”

One young man who got arrested by the police was told to “Hop into the car”, much to the officer’s amazement the young man did indeed hop into the car.

This is why some children won’t do homework because it is school work and you do school work at school. Some schools have set up homework clubs to resolve this very issue.

Also be aware that some individuals can struggle with sarcasm.

One young lady was fighting with her mom at the top of the stairs and announced “I’m going to push you down the stairs”, to which her mom replied “Go on then”. Much to her amazement her daughter did indeed push her down the stairs.

‘tell them what to do, not what not to do’. Coming back to this phrase you may have to teach your children what to do in difficult situations. Rather than say “Don’t hit your sister” try saying “next time you are angry with your sister, go into the garage and hit the punch bag” or a more acceptable response that you prefer.

Another thing to try is being more direct with your speech, a friend of mine who is autistic always tells me neuro-typical are too polite. We always use would you, will you, could you when we mean do it. With this in mind try remembering “Say what you mean and mean what you say”. If you want them to open a window, say “Steve, open the window please”. You will also notice that I said the person’s name first to get their attention. Neuro-typical have a habit of saying it the wrong way round such as “Open the window Steve”, now even if you are the only two people in the room Steve only focuses on you when you say his name. So he replies “What”? to which we lose our temper because they were not listening to us. These tips won’t work with everyone but they are worth giving them a try.

Anxiety & Communication

Some individuals experience high levels of anxiety when other individuals try to converse with them. This may be because the individual is unfamiliar and they do not know what they are going to say, so could be described as being unpredictable which causes a lot of stress for those on the spectrum. It could also be because they don’t see the point of the conversation i.e. chit chat which in turn can cause stress. I remember listening to a talk by one young lady where she talked about having a one to one support worker who would talk all the time, on and one they would drone on until one day she hit her 1:1 and she stopped talking. This happened several times and eventually the local authority made her 2:1 one. The young lady goes onto to describe how she then got nagged at in stereo.

Some neuro-typicals love to chit chat they just can’t help themselves. I remember working in one residential service and I was acting as a 2:1 for a young man. The young man let’s call him Tom was non-verbal but alas his support worker was not and loved to talk. The member of staff proceeded to tell me his life story and I responded with grunts to indicate I was listening when really I wanted someone to shoot me (you can tell I’m not that social). After about twenty minutes Tom went up to the member of staff and scratching him along the face. Of course the staff member was horrified and said “Why did you do that”? I think both Tom and I knew why it had happened because for the rest of the walk we walked along in blissful silence.

One young lady described that talking to people as being painful, even more painful than pain itself. So when someone asked her how she was feeling, even if she had a toothache she would say she was fine. Now she said this because then the person would leave her alone. It back fired at one point because she was rushed into hospital with a appendicitis. When she was asked why she didn’t tell anyone? Her response was the appendicitis was not as painful as talking to people. The same young lady tells a story when she had a visit from her parents and her father told her the flat smelt really bad, they pin pointed the smell to the young lady. Her mom stripped her and found that she had a really deep cut on her leg that was infected. Her father told her that next time she bleeds she must tell someone. The same young lady told me that her father was horrified the next time she told her father she was on her period. Be careful what you ask someone who is literal, when will get onto that topic another time.

A great clip on communication: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9A76XstZgc

Top Tip

When you pick up your child from school try not to engage them in conversation. The difficulty is that you want to show an interest in them, show you care. Wait for them to talk to you. Remember I talked about the book All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Cats-Have-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1843104814 and just like a cat, if you leave them alone they will come to you, you have to wait until your child is ready to talk to you. If you engage when they are not ready or de-stressed from the rigors of school then you may get a negative reaction. Just give it a try; what do you have to lose.

Processing Delay

Processing Delay

Certain individuals on the spectrum can have a processing delay. This means that when someone says something to them then it can take a while to respond. I don’t know if you are old enough to remember using dial up to connect to the internet? Now when the internet was new we would click on a link and just wait and wait and wait for the picture to load and because the internet was new we just accepted that this was the way, so we would just wait. Now we live in a time of broadband and high speed internet we will not accept any waiting time for the internet to show us the same picture and if there is a delay we impatiently repeatedly tap on the mouse. This does not help except fuel our impatience and then we are greeted with more than one page opening. For some people on the spectrum this is what it can be like talking to neuro typicals. Imagine Billy takes ten seconds to fully process what his mom is saying to him E.g. Mom “Billy it’s time for bed” (time passes in seconds) one, two, three, Billy is processing moms request and trying to make sense of it. If he gets to the count of ten he will respond. Mom speaks again; Billy has hit the reset button and is starting from one again. Mom is getting wound up now as she sees the lack of response as defiance. “Billy it’s time for bed”, Billy hits the reset button again one, two, three Mom starts to get angrier. “Billy if you don’t go to bed now you will lose your PlayStation” BOOM, Billy explodes. I mentioned earlier that this doesn’t apply to everybody but if you do experience this, give this a try. When you ask your child to do something, in your head count up to ten and see what happens. You may find that all your child needs is a little time to respond and then hey presto they do it.

I should point out that some individuals don't have a processing delay as such rather they have too much information to process i.e. not sure what to focus on so have to take it all in and when they have figured out what is happening they respond. But not quick enough for the neuro typical.

Great video

BBC have come up trumps with this video from people on the spectrum, well done to them.

https://www.facebook.com/bbcthree/videos/10153847649365787/?pnref=story 

It's all in the gut?

 

The brain gut stuff has really been taking off recently. Beforehand, it was only in the sidelines of research but over the last couple of years bigger studies have been looking into it.

Basically, the non-hysterical side of this research says that some people with autism do have what they call “gut problems” i.e. diarrhoea, constipation, stomach cramps etc. And this is true. The question is why. Now, our beloved Andrew Wakefield really brought out the idea that the gut problems were a part of the whole “poisoned by vaccines” thing. So a lot of this kind of research has focused on how autism is actually a gut thing and if you cure the gut you cure the autism. This is obviously wrong, and used by alternative therapists to sell anything they can, including my current favourite, camel milk. But also the gluten free diet.

Now this is where it gets complicated. Some people with autism do have “gut problems”. Some people with autism do respond well to the gluten free casein free diet. But we don’t know why, and how to predict who would have them and who would respond. Like everything else, it’s likely to be different for different people. So for example, it is logical that people with pica may have resulting gut problems. Similarly, anxiety is associated with gut problems. Ironically, a number of vitamin supplements and alternative medicines cause gut problems, so chicken and egg happen’s.

My stance on this is:

Gut is not cause of autism

Curing gut does not cure autism

If someone has any form of gut problem, of course this should be treated, because it’s a human right to receive medical care.

Understanding the gut problems is important in the scope of understanding autism as a whole.

Unfortunately, a lot of the research is incredibly biased. So it is very difficult to know what is true and what is not true.

Social Communication

See if you can answer these simple questions.

What is communication?

What do you need for effective communication?

How many people do you need for effective communication?

Now I’m not going to give you the answers to these as you can simply look them up, but it’s interesting to think that the answers don’t come easily and we have to give these questions a little thought. Of course when it comes to communicating we just seem to do it. What is quite interesting though is that for certain individuals on the spectrum, communication does not come intuitive. In his book How Can I Talk If My Lips Don't Move?: Inside My Autistic Mind Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Talk-Lips-Dont-Move/dp/1611450225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446450815&sr=8-1&keywords=how+can+i+talk+if+my+lips+don%27t+move+inside+my+autistic+mind

talks about this very problem. So some individuals never develop speech, unfortunately we live in a time when it is often seen that the ability not to be able to speak is often linked to intelligence, which is just not the case. Tito and fellow author Carly Fleischmann in Carly's Voice: Breaking Through Autism http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carlys-Voice-Breaking-Through-Autism/dp/1439194157/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446451100&sr=1-1&keywords=carly+fleischmann totally dispels this myth. Jim Sinclair an individual with ASD once said “It’s as though some individuals on the spectrum don’t know what communication is for” He also said this:

“It takes more work to communicate with someone whose native language isn’t the same as yours. And autism goes deeper than language and culture; autistic people are foreigners in any society. You’re going to have to give up your assumptions about shared meanings. You’re going to have to learn to back up to levels more basic than you probably thought about before, to translate and to make sure your translations are understood. You’re going to have to give up the certainty that comes of being on your own familiar territory of knowing your in charge, and let your child teach you a little of their language, guide you a little way into his world” (Sinclair 1993)

If you do have a child that is non-verbal I can’t emphasise enough the importance of teaching your child at the very least to use a communication system such as PECS or Makaton. Communication is a basic human right and without it an individual can never get their needs met. People mean well but you are only guessing what an individual wants unless they have the ability to tell you in one form or another.

A lot of children are now being encouraged to use augmented communication systems. These are systems that make use of tablets and lap tops. There is a page on Facebook called Kreed’s World https://www.facebook.com/kreedsworld/?fref=ts it is a great example of how with a lot of effort an individual can excel in the use of such systems.

Now if you have a child that just does not want to engage with the outside world and appears locked in then I would recommend looking at intensive interaction http://www.intensiveinteraction.co.uk/courses-events/intensive-interaction/Intensive interaction is an approach to teaching the pre-speech fundamentals of communication to children and adults who have severe learning difficulties and/or autism and who are still at an early stage of communication development.

Finally if you are still not convinced then consider these wise words:

“If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication. For with it I would regain all the rest.” Daniel Webster