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my rant about the TSS worker
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 320128" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>PUnishment doesn't work as a rule, especially if it is not absolutely immediate. Yes, he is highly intelligent, but he is very immediate, I'm guessing.</p><p></p><p>ANd I know it looks like he's trying to manipulate you, but generally that are not. Not in any ways we understand manipulation to be.</p><p></p><p>Give as much praise as is appropriate and make it unconditional. We often forget to praise, it really works well with these kids.</p><p></p><p>Good example: "You got your essay done, you worked on it solidly and it's finished. Well done! Doesn't it feel good to know you can play, and that task is finished?"</p><p>(OK, a bit risky to try to link it with how good it feels, but it's not quite conditional).</p><p></p><p>Bad example: "You got your essay done, you worked on it solidly and it's finished. Well done! It was so much easier this way, wasn't it a shame you had to argue about me with it last night?"</p><p></p><p>The bad example is really pushing home that YOU were right about the argument, and he was wrong. This devalues any praise and alsao make him feel bad again, at a point when he should be enjoying feeling good about getting the work done. He needs to associated success in these tasks with feeling good, not with any bad feelings in there at all, or he will become even more resistant.</p><p></p><p>When handlnig these kids it should never become a battle between the Forces of Evil (the difficult child) and the Forces of Good (us). It sends a really bad message ono too many fronts.</p><p></p><p>Instead, we need to help the child use this stubbbornness that they are capable of, as a tool to push themselves. </p><p></p><p>This is a very different way of handlinng these kids but the advantage is, it can help you skip a few stages. It is what these kids can do (especially the bright ones) and they will still ned help with what they can't. The risk is, that people aorund you, or you yourself, can make assumptions about what the child is capable of, when in fact he simply can't do it all yet. </p><p>Example: last year difficult child 3 was studying English (he's had a break this year; it begins in earnest in February). His English teacher is a very smart lady but knows SFA about autism and difficult child 3 especially. Our method of schooling for difficult child 3 is primarily one on one. I requested some lessons for difficult child 3, thinking thta if she worked with him face to face, she would learn to understand him. But she still set questions like, "In this text, what did Jake assume Bob was thinking?"</p><p>Now, this is complex theory of mind stuff, a classic diagnostic difference betwwe "normal" people and those with autism. difficult child 3 is learning to overcome theory of mind problems, he can demonstrate now that he does have some level of theory of mind, but it has taken a great deal longer and doesn't come easy. His instinctive response to the question ther English teacher asked, is to say what HE thinks about what Bob thought. Or even what he thought about the situaiton. He would miss that added layer effect to the question.</p><p>And this is all to do with social maturity, a problem for people on the spectrum. They do get there but not to the same extent and not in the same time-frame as other people.</p><p></p><p>There are a lot of misconceptions about autism. perhaps the biggets misconception is tat people with autism don't feel emotions. IN fact, they feel very much indeed, sometimes they feel things even more strongly. Certainly their feelnigs hurt them a grat deal, they can seem over-sensitive.</p><p>BUT - they often don't display these feelings in ways we recognise or understand.</p><p></p><p>A child with a deadpan face can seem scary. You wonder, what is going on in that head? But the child doesn't always show their feelings on their face or with body language. Or maybe the child is smiling and it seems inappropriate to the situaiton (say, at a funeral). But the grief of other people at a funeral can sometimes work the other way, and trigger a public outpouring of gried or maybe a very public tantrum (a desperate "get me out ofhere!" plea).</p><p>We took difficult child 3 (four years ago) on holiday to Port Arthur, a famous convict penal settlement from Australia's early colonial history. It is a beautiful place, now. But it has a terrible history. difficult child 3 was not able to understand tat history, but he had picked up a 'vibe" about the place and from the moment we walked in the gate to the moment we left, he was begging us to take him away from there "because something bad is gonig to happen." It was even scaring us - we were wondering if he had picked up on the more recent history of the gunman on a rampage there and hunting people down in cold blood. We had never told him and although there is a discreet memorial, the gunman's name is never mentioned in that area. But difficult child 3 gets anxious for many reasons. He couldn't tell us why he was in a panic, all we could do was keep reassuring him. Next day easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to go back there, difficult child 3 was very unhappy for her to go back there and didn't even want to come with us into the car park to drop her off there. We spent the day in a zoo a few miles up the road. He was content there but worried about his sister.</p><p></p><p>These kids are different in how their brains function and in how they learn. You mention that your son needs to learn figurative language and slang - did he have any language delay when younger? Because that can have a long-term effect on their language in subtle ways. difficult child 3 had significant language delay (in Australia that means an autism diagnosis and not Asperger's, as a rule) and although he now has a vocabulary in the superior range (including figurative language and slang!) he will always have problems with word retrieval and speech dysfluency.</p><p></p><p>The rason for this, is that when most people are laying down the feramework of language, they are young enough for milions of brain patheays to be readily laid down. By the time someone with language delay gets the knack of communication, they are older and the brain less malleable. Fewer cross-connections are made for each word.</p><p></p><p>Example: think of the word "apple". What other words and ideas come into your mind? You think of apple tree, apple pie (how they feel, taste, smell), how apples grow, the different kinds of apples, buying apples, tinned apple, and so on. Someone with language delay has to consciously think through these pathways. It takes more mental effort. </p><p></p><p>These kids are worknig at a much higher mental level, for much longer. It's no wonder they get mentally fatigued and can lose self-control when stressed.</p><p></p><p>Something that we did to help language development (and build pathways) - we got the hand-held "20Q" game. There's also a tabletop version, also a website. What this does, it is puts in the brain cross-connection betwwn ideas related to a concept. You think of an obsject (or concept) and let the electronic gadget 'guess' what you are thinking of. It is purely a product of programming and electronics, there is nothing eerie about it, although it can seem so. It really does seem like it's reading your mind! But it has helped difficult child 3's language development a great deal. I strongly recommend tem as a fun toy anyway, but a useful tool for any therapist trying to work with someone with language delay. Especially someone who is a good reader. difficult child 3 was a very early reader (hyperlexic). He was reading fluently at 2 years of age. He just didn't understand what he was reading, and was still mostly non-verbal.</p><p></p><p>Do try to get your hands on "The Explosive Child". I thought I was doing the best I could, I was very reluctant to learn anything else or to read any more books because my head felt overloaded already, and wasn't I already doing all I could?</p><p></p><p>What I found, though, was a change in mindset in me that suddenly made a lot of my efforts either not needed (the stuff where I was banging my head against a brick wall) or much more productive. And even more amazing, he began to improve, where previously we'd seemed to make horribly slow progress.</p><p></p><p>My energy levels improved, difficult child 3 became nicer to know (maybe because I was also nicer to know, from his point of view) and it rapidly improved all round from there.</p><p></p><p>It sounds like your concerns about the TSS were shared by the supervisor. </p><p></p><p>See how things go with your new system, it may be less disruptive.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 320128, member: 1991"] PUnishment doesn't work as a rule, especially if it is not absolutely immediate. Yes, he is highly intelligent, but he is very immediate, I'm guessing. ANd I know it looks like he's trying to manipulate you, but generally that are not. Not in any ways we understand manipulation to be. Give as much praise as is appropriate and make it unconditional. We often forget to praise, it really works well with these kids. Good example: "You got your essay done, you worked on it solidly and it's finished. Well done! Doesn't it feel good to know you can play, and that task is finished?" (OK, a bit risky to try to link it with how good it feels, but it's not quite conditional). Bad example: "You got your essay done, you worked on it solidly and it's finished. Well done! It was so much easier this way, wasn't it a shame you had to argue about me with it last night?" The bad example is really pushing home that YOU were right about the argument, and he was wrong. This devalues any praise and alsao make him feel bad again, at a point when he should be enjoying feeling good about getting the work done. He needs to associated success in these tasks with feeling good, not with any bad feelings in there at all, or he will become even more resistant. When handlnig these kids it should never become a battle between the Forces of Evil (the difficult child) and the Forces of Good (us). It sends a really bad message ono too many fronts. Instead, we need to help the child use this stubbbornness that they are capable of, as a tool to push themselves. This is a very different way of handlinng these kids but the advantage is, it can help you skip a few stages. It is what these kids can do (especially the bright ones) and they will still ned help with what they can't. The risk is, that people aorund you, or you yourself, can make assumptions about what the child is capable of, when in fact he simply can't do it all yet. Example: last year difficult child 3 was studying English (he's had a break this year; it begins in earnest in February). His English teacher is a very smart lady but knows SFA about autism and difficult child 3 especially. Our method of schooling for difficult child 3 is primarily one on one. I requested some lessons for difficult child 3, thinking thta if she worked with him face to face, she would learn to understand him. But she still set questions like, "In this text, what did Jake assume Bob was thinking?" Now, this is complex theory of mind stuff, a classic diagnostic difference betwwe "normal" people and those with autism. difficult child 3 is learning to overcome theory of mind problems, he can demonstrate now that he does have some level of theory of mind, but it has taken a great deal longer and doesn't come easy. His instinctive response to the question ther English teacher asked, is to say what HE thinks about what Bob thought. Or even what he thought about the situaiton. He would miss that added layer effect to the question. And this is all to do with social maturity, a problem for people on the spectrum. They do get there but not to the same extent and not in the same time-frame as other people. There are a lot of misconceptions about autism. perhaps the biggets misconception is tat people with autism don't feel emotions. IN fact, they feel very much indeed, sometimes they feel things even more strongly. Certainly their feelnigs hurt them a grat deal, they can seem over-sensitive. BUT - they often don't display these feelings in ways we recognise or understand. A child with a deadpan face can seem scary. You wonder, what is going on in that head? But the child doesn't always show their feelings on their face or with body language. Or maybe the child is smiling and it seems inappropriate to the situaiton (say, at a funeral). But the grief of other people at a funeral can sometimes work the other way, and trigger a public outpouring of gried or maybe a very public tantrum (a desperate "get me out ofhere!" plea). We took difficult child 3 (four years ago) on holiday to Port Arthur, a famous convict penal settlement from Australia's early colonial history. It is a beautiful place, now. But it has a terrible history. difficult child 3 was not able to understand tat history, but he had picked up a 'vibe" about the place and from the moment we walked in the gate to the moment we left, he was begging us to take him away from there "because something bad is gonig to happen." It was even scaring us - we were wondering if he had picked up on the more recent history of the gunman on a rampage there and hunting people down in cold blood. We had never told him and although there is a discreet memorial, the gunman's name is never mentioned in that area. But difficult child 3 gets anxious for many reasons. He couldn't tell us why he was in a panic, all we could do was keep reassuring him. Next day easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted to go back there, difficult child 3 was very unhappy for her to go back there and didn't even want to come with us into the car park to drop her off there. We spent the day in a zoo a few miles up the road. He was content there but worried about his sister. These kids are different in how their brains function and in how they learn. You mention that your son needs to learn figurative language and slang - did he have any language delay when younger? Because that can have a long-term effect on their language in subtle ways. difficult child 3 had significant language delay (in Australia that means an autism diagnosis and not Asperger's, as a rule) and although he now has a vocabulary in the superior range (including figurative language and slang!) he will always have problems with word retrieval and speech dysfluency. The rason for this, is that when most people are laying down the feramework of language, they are young enough for milions of brain patheays to be readily laid down. By the time someone with language delay gets the knack of communication, they are older and the brain less malleable. Fewer cross-connections are made for each word. Example: think of the word "apple". What other words and ideas come into your mind? You think of apple tree, apple pie (how they feel, taste, smell), how apples grow, the different kinds of apples, buying apples, tinned apple, and so on. Someone with language delay has to consciously think through these pathways. It takes more mental effort. These kids are worknig at a much higher mental level, for much longer. It's no wonder they get mentally fatigued and can lose self-control when stressed. Something that we did to help language development (and build pathways) - we got the hand-held "20Q" game. There's also a tabletop version, also a website. What this does, it is puts in the brain cross-connection betwwn ideas related to a concept. You think of an obsject (or concept) and let the electronic gadget 'guess' what you are thinking of. It is purely a product of programming and electronics, there is nothing eerie about it, although it can seem so. It really does seem like it's reading your mind! But it has helped difficult child 3's language development a great deal. I strongly recommend tem as a fun toy anyway, but a useful tool for any therapist trying to work with someone with language delay. Especially someone who is a good reader. difficult child 3 was a very early reader (hyperlexic). He was reading fluently at 2 years of age. He just didn't understand what he was reading, and was still mostly non-verbal. Do try to get your hands on "The Explosive Child". I thought I was doing the best I could, I was very reluctant to learn anything else or to read any more books because my head felt overloaded already, and wasn't I already doing all I could? What I found, though, was a change in mindset in me that suddenly made a lot of my efforts either not needed (the stuff where I was banging my head against a brick wall) or much more productive. And even more amazing, he began to improve, where previously we'd seemed to make horribly slow progress. My energy levels improved, difficult child 3 became nicer to know (maybe because I was also nicer to know, from his point of view) and it rapidly improved all round from there. It sounds like your concerns about the TSS were shared by the supervisor. See how things go with your new system, it may be less disruptive. Marg [/QUOTE]
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