That's wonderful. This tells you so much about his learning style! You used direct teaching, spelling out how life works out for him. This is one of the basic teaching tools in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (and other disorders where kids don't pick up things incidentally or sometimes when.in situations where theres too much noise or language going on. But its classic for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) programs ).
As life continues, if there are times this particular jar discipline method doesn't work, remember that he may need direct teaching to learn the skill he is not using well/yet or to understand why his behavior is unacceptable. Many times our kids will do a consequence but not change behaviors because the consequence doesn't teach the missing skill. So just be ready to add that step for resistant behaviors. The other thing I think you lucked out on is his not having a meltdown in the car. My son had increasingly challenging car rides and even became dangerous grabbing me from behind and pounding the car. I have to still use child safety locks. It's rare now because a) we have a service dog that distracts him in the car and b) I never deal with behavioral issues or schedule change info etc. in the car.
It's so hard to not want to start sending the message right that minute that I'm upset and he needs a consequence. I usually prep him when we are nearly home bedore he leaves the car, that when we get home we need to talk. I get to a point sometimes where I give several consequences and the kid has nothing to be good for! It never turns out well for us at those times.
You did well having him DO something which teaches him restitution (would be great to.think of something directly related to the situation like an apology picture/letter drawn for.the therapist). I found that doing something helped my son learn more and didn't cause him to upset his routine at home (if I say no tv for example after he has planned for days which shows he is watching then there is a whole other issue here, but thats because what he watches on TV relates to his high interest area. ) Each kid is.different. I'm just sharing our experience in case you face situations in the future where this doesn't work for everything. It will depend on how rigid he is, how much he understands, or the appropriate skills he already knows.
So the big test will be when you go next time. If he was just being a stinker (which all kids do sometimes, even our differently wired kids) then he will likely do better if he wants to avoid a consequence. If she was challenging his system (afterall he's there due to deficits) and he doesnt know how to identify or express that OR if her directions were overwhelming to him, or.she changed the order of how she did tasks, etc.....well then she may need cues from you about how to structure sessions to match his learning style. For example, making a visual chart of what they are going to do and after he checks off two (for example) the next thing on the list is a little reward or "his choice " or whatever ...then check that off and go to the next task. If you notice she uses lots of words while he is trying to do a task remind her to use few words. Try to make any behavior plan a reward based plan based on specific behaviors rather than what to do if he doesnt follow directions or is disrespectful. People would say to q he was in trouble for being disrespectful at a young age when he didn't recognize different tones of voice meant things, when he just imitated how people spoke to him, when he didn't connect events to consequences, etc. Learning these things takes time. Being specific like when you don't want to do X say.....Y and then practice the voice tone can help.
Also, over the years, we found out that certain smells like coffee breath or smoke smell or strong perfume would make my son uncooperative...other smells actually calmed him..... if she smelled like lunch or things we wouldn't mind, it could bug him.
Just tossing ideas. Hopefully he was just having a bad day and will do great with little prompting.
Your direct and concrete method was so great. Mommy instincts rule! You are a great match for your son. Its not always so automatic to get how they think (for me anyway)
(Gosh this post brought lots of memories up....no wonder we're all tired with all the mental energy we have to put into being one step ahead...always thinking if I do this we can avoid that......etc.)
