All posts by krymarh

Not So Fast, Not So Easy

Robert did not learn much  last year at school. It is not a surprise.   Robert needs a very well designed instruction that the teachers are unwilling and incapable of providing. They don’t make necessary adjustments such as among others: using vocabulary Robert understands, providing enough opportunity for repetition of the skills in training, understanding his need to generalize to slightly different settings. Because Robert haven’t learned much from the last three teachers, each of them deduced that he was incapable of learning and started ignoring him, often withdrawing any instruction at all.  During one year, the main teacher not only removed Robert from the learning group, placing him at the separate desk with word searches as the main task repeated day after day, but she also forbade Robert’s aide to teach him.

In the end those three teachers were right.  Robert was incapable of learning at school. But the reason for that was that he was sentenced to be “taught” by people who  didn’t know how to teach him as they were not used to dealing with students with his educational profile and they were unwilling, despite assurances to the contrary-  to learn.

Teaching Robert is not a straight forward process.  It requires many repetitions and constant analysis of his responses. It demands specially designed worksheets that would decrease opportunities for errors and increase independence in solving problems. Because of Robert’s problems with short memory ( and working memory?), from one session  to the next, Robert forgets most of what he seemed to know already.  He cannot depend on what he remembers.  Very often the problem he could solve easily in the past, startles him and makes him incapable of continuing.

As Robert and I continue to practice changing digital representation of time  to the form that involves such words as ‘ before’ and ‘after’, I am often baffled by patterns of Robert knowing and unknowing the answers to the same question.  Of course, when I analyze closer I understand that “not knowing”  which come after the phase of “knowing” was really a result of “false knowing”. The quick glimpse at the last five days of our teaching/learning can clarify the difficulties in acquiring skills and point to the need for close observation and frequent adjustments.

First day.  Robert was using three worksheets which had respectively times 5, 10, and 15 minutes off the full hour.  by the end of each page, he seemed to grasp the pattern. Well, he seemed to know it.

Second day, Robert seemed at the same level.  He needed a lot of prompting with problems presented at the top of each age, and seemed almost independent by the time he reached the bottom.

Third day. Robert doesn’t have any problems with times 15 minutes off the hours (6:46, 6:15, 2:45, 5:15 etc) but times 10 minutes before the full hour (6:50, 2:50 )confuse him. He sets the analog clock to proper time,  but he doesn’t “see” that this is 10 minutes before full hour.  He “saw” that first and second day.  Why doesn’t he “see” that now?  I ask him to count minutes to the full hour. He counts to ten, but doesn’t make a connection.  Nonetheless, after  counting twice, he already recognizes the pattern and is independent till the end of the page. The problems return with times five minutes before full hours but yet again are gone by the end of the page.

Fourth day.  I prepared for Robert a page with exercises in which he has to find a missing addendum in equations where the sum of known number and a variable equals 60.  Except that instead of letter for a variable I am using an empty square:  40 + X =60,  Y+50+60, Z+55=60, and so on.  After practicing finding missing addenda we go back to the clock and similar exercises as those from day 1-3.

Day five.  We start with equations,  43+X=60, 58+z=60, 48+Z=60 and then return to Judy Clock.  Everything goes slower than before, but Robert is counting. Sometimes, he still needs support. Although he still utilizes patterns to help him with a fluency, he also is capable of writing an equation when he gets confused. If he baffled by an expression 4:47, he writes 47+X= 60 and finds that it is “13 minutes before 5 o’clock”.

Day six.  I anticipate that at the beginning of the session Robert will need to be reminded to help himself with an equation.  He might even be reminded what equation that should be.  In a few more days, such scaffolding would lead to independence.

Alas, if the skill is not used during next few weeks, it will disappear.

I don’t think such approach to teaching is possible in public school.  It would be possible in ABA driven Private School, such as the one that Robert attended in the past.  On the other hand, based on my experiences, it would take weeks if not months, before some adjustments to teaching could be done in such programs. still….

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by krymarh on September 8, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Teaching Out of Autism
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Posted by krymarh on September 8, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/09/08/not-so-fast-not-so-easy/

Thinking Before Teaching

I wonder, how much teachers think about teaching.  I dare to ask such harsh question not to criticize others, but to analyze what I know about my own teaching experience in the context of its usefulness to the students.  With typical student, teachers usually follow given curriculum and apply teaching methods that are currently en vogue and/or pushed by their administrators, and often, politicians. In United States textbooks for children are accompanied by a presentation books for teachers.  That let the teachers to follow general instruction written by authors of the textbook and relieves them of the obligation to plan lessons themselves. How many of the teachers, even new teachers, prepare  themselves for lessons by writing lessons plans?  Do they analyze individual student’s errors? Are they aware of learning idiosyncrasies of particular students.?   Are they able to plan ahead  ? Do those plans take into account the differences among pupils that would require targeted instruction, and vocabulary? How many teachers rethink their approach AFTER the lesson?   Do they rethink and reshuffle their methods?

Of course when Robert was in ABA oriented Private School, the teachers and their clinical supervisors (you would call them BCBA today, but they were much more than that) analyzed data from discrete trails and based on the numbers they made decisions about next steps. However,the emphasis on strong reinforcers embodied in ABA might have diminished the trust that  teaching methods also do influence the quality and pace of learning.

My teaching depended on haphazardly searched textbooks and workbooks.  I made intuitive assumptions about how their pages could be applied in teaching Robert. After choosing worksheets, I tried to adjust Robert’s way of learning to them.

But even I felt that there still was a gap between Robert’s abilities, often limited by his way of processing information, and the demands of the tasks.  So on the backs of one-sided copies of the worksheets I kept  writing simple exercises that would bridge that gap.  Those handwritten pages, as I see it now,  were really the most suitable and useful educational materials for Robert.  I have been writing them having Robert in mind thus they addressed difficulties Robert had in retaining or understanding new information. Many of them I wrote as a sequence of easy exercises that step by step lead to more advanced skills.  I knew what was difficult for Robert and how to go around it.  As i look at those pages now, I realize that they allowed for the easiest and most pleasant teaching/learning. However, I did not treat those pages  seriously.  I treated them like supplements, the afterthoughts, not as the main venue for learning.

The general curricula were necessary to set the  direction/goals, and stay focused, but without those “supplements” Robert would not learn.

I have to add, that those were not  practice pages – the whole page of multiplication facts, or division facts etc. I did not bother making those, as the internet and many workbooks are full of those.  I concentrated on writing simple pages with just a few related problems.  For instance in a top  of the page there were a few problems to change mixed fraction into improper fraction. In the next line there were a few problems to multiply proper fractions (less than 1), and finally in the bottom half there were a few problems (but written in larger numbers) that required multiplication of mixed fractions.

For last three days Robert was learning to  tell time using different expressions. He has been making  progress because I spent a little time planning his learning, I used what I know about both Robert’s skills and his difficulties in appropriating new information to design a few simple worksheets that together with Judy Clock would become tools for learning.  I organized problems in such a way, that would lead Robert to discover patterns, which would later enable him to answer similar questions faster and almost mechanically.

I wrote:

3:55______________________________________________________________________________

7:55______________________________________________________________________________

2:55______________________________________________________________________________

2:05______________________________________________________________________________

I asked Robert to set the time on a Judy clock to 3:00 then move the minute hand to3:55. That would help Robert avoid an error of setting the time to 2:55.  After looking at the clock, Robert was ready to write the time in words, ” It is five minute before 4:00.) He proceeded  down the page, following mechanically (with some stumbles) the same routine, until he got to 2:05 and with my help wrote:” It is five minutes after2:00.” As he went down the page with more times written down, he discovered ( through rereading his answers) the pattern.  Whenever he was able to answer without the support of Judy Clock, I let him. if he hesitated or made an error, I passed him the  Judy clock with words, “Help yourself.”

Robert has progressed but he is not independent yet.  If he had a test today he would fail.  In Vygotsky’s terminology, Robert is on a higher assisted performance level. Using ABA jargon, one might say that Robert needs some level of prompting. Since however, the  support I am  providing to Robert is of a flexible and variable form,  Vygotsky’s language is more suitable.

At present, Robert can do one, two or three tasks independently, then he looses focus, and he is lost.  Sometimes, he applies pattern that he had discovered himself, sometimes he forgets that pattern.  But when I say,”Help yourself.”  and give him Judy Clock , he immediately sets the minute and hour hands in proper positions and finds the answer.

I don’t know why  I did not put more thoughts in Robert’s teaching.  I knew why his old ABA programs worked when they did and why they failed when they did not lead to progress. I was well equipped to design programs  much more suitable for Robert than any ready-made curriculum. Why didn’t I ?

At first, I did not trust myself. I thought that teaching a child with autism had to be very different than teaching children without developmental disabilities. Later, i discovered that similar rules could be and should be applied but with stricter analysis of results and thoughtful self corrections.   I was also constantly put down by… educators. They ignored my teaching, as if it did not bring any results, as if Robert was not learning.  When they reluctantly noticed that Robert knows things he had learned with me, they dismissed that knowledge as not relevant. They implied that there was no point of Robert having such knowledge as it would be useless in the limited life, they envisioned for him.  They were amplifying Robert’s lack of skills, his difficulties learning new things  and ignoring what he knew.  Over and over they let me believe that educating a child with special needs doesn’t make any sense.  In so many ways, the teachers, some aides, and school  administrators were invested in undermining  Robert’s and my educational efforts.

So my educational efforts were going AGAINST the  philosophy and practice of special education in my school district.  I kept teaching.  I did not lost my motivation, but I ended up  confused and distracted.

As i see now, Robert paid the price.  We lost too much time on lukewarm  teaching  when for Robert’s survival the most sharp, intellectually challenging approach was necessary. Sadly, that is not something Robert’s public school is capable of providing.

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by krymarh on September 4, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on September 4, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/09/04/thinking-before-teaching/

Speech, Speech, and More Speech

I rethought the way I was teaching Robert about time.  Yesterday, I prepared for him three worksheets.  On each of them he was supposed to rewrite the time using words.  The first one  listed times that were five minutes off the whole hours: 3:55, 11:55, 7:05, and so on.  At the beginning I opted for Robert using words “to” (five minutes to 4) and “past”(five minutes past 4) . Soon, I realized that it would be much more useful for Robert to practice with ” before” and “after”.  Those were the words Robert was using on two other worksheets which had times that were  10 and 15 minutes off the full hours. “Before”, and “after” are much more universal than “to” and “past”.  Practicing them in this context might improve Robert’s understanding of those concepts.  Judy Clock allows to connect temporal understanding of “before” and “after”  with the spacial one. We will continue the same approach today.

We also practiced proper applications of “was” and “were”. The goal of the practice was to overcome Robert’s tendency to utilize ABAB pattern whenever there are only two possibilities. I noticed that when Robert knows something very well, his reliance on ABAB pattern decreases, but the smallest hesitation might lead to loosing focus and he returns to ABAB formula for his answers.

We worked on a  few sets of Fun decks card from Super Duper School Company.

1. What Mrs. Bee See?  Just five cards.  Robert was describing five scenes in 4-8 sentences.  I did not provide any verbal cues, just moved my finger over the characters and Robert followed with sentences. Today, I would encourage Robert to move his fingers over the picture.

2.Where? Questions. Robert read one question for me to answer, I read the next one for him.  The goal was to have Robert say a part of the question while NOT reading but looking at (even for a fleeting second) me when he was asking.

3.Auditory Memory for Riddles.  I divided cards into two stacks for Robert and myself. I read one riddle, Robert read another one.  Unlike with Where? cards, I did not see what card Robert was holding.  That was the whole point as it forced Robert to pronounce words clearly enough for me to understand.  It was very hard for him, and even harder for me.  He had to read three short sentences and very often I did not understand any of them.  Because making his speech understood was so difficult for Robert, whenever I understood him, I answered.  Robert knew all the answers to the riddles, so teaching them was not a purpose of this activity.

With the help of five pages from No-Glamour Listening Comprehension, Robert and I practiced just that, listening comprehension.  I made copies of those pages because I wanted to separate two sentences of the text from the picture. (I cut pages, gave pictures to Robert and I held the part with the text and four related questions.)  I did not want Robert to read.  I wanted him to listen.  I did not just read the sentences.  I went over the picture with Robert, pointing to the main character and repeating his name a couple of times, telling and retelling what the character was doing.  Only then I read the sentences and asked questions : Who, What (did), Where, and When. It was very difficult for Robert to answer two out of four questions.  So I made modification.  I asked Robert to repeat each sentence as soon as I read it.   He still needed more prompts.  One was to reread him a sentence while omitting a word that constituted the answer. For the question, “When did Ethan go to the doctor office?”  I read, ” Ethan went to the doctor’s office….. ”
Surprisingly, Robert  finished without hesitation, “Yesterday.”

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by krymarh on September 1, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on September 1, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/09/01/speech-speech-and-more-speech/

Round and Round the Clock

Not once, while teaching Robert, I stumbled upon difficult to explain obstacles in passing information/skill to Robert.  Unfortunately, it often takes me (and others) long time to understand the nature of the problem before I could  design a method to address it.  In one of my previous posts I reported on Robert’s difficulties in memorizing addition facts.

I discovered that he was not able to remember (or pay attention to) three different numbers and two signs in the expression that makes an addition sentence.  For instance 3+8=11.  He was, however, able to remember (or pay attention to ) an addition sentence where the addenda were the same. For instance 7+7=14.  I wrote about this  in the post: https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/looking-for-variables/

Alas,  I encounter such difficulties almost daily.

I am not always aware why Robert cannot understand what i am explaining him so simply and clearly.  Because that is what I believe I do.  I am often convinced that I explain or demonstrate a new fact/skill in the simplest possible way.   And because I don’t believe I can do it in any simper way, I repeat the same approach, the same drawing, the same words again and again with the same negative results.
Many times I have tried to explain to Robert that  if the minute hand on a clock makes a full circle that means that 60 minutes have passed.  Somehow there is a disconnection between my words and Robert’s understanding.

When I ask Robert to make a full circle with minute hand starting, for instance, at 3: 45, Robert stops the minute hand on any full hour.  It might be 4:00 or 5:00.

To make it more confusing, he knows that one hour after 3:45 is 4:45.  He just doesn’t connect that with a full movement around circumference.

My directions are not understood.  I explain(?) “You have to end at the same point you started”  “Just go around and stop at the same place.”  Robert pushes minute hand on a Judy clock well past mark for 45 minutes.

I give up explaining and return to counting elapsed time by subtracting times. As long, the two times are not on both sides of 12:00 Robert is fine.

It happened so many times, that I begun to consider it a problem in itself.  I feel that if Robert understands how to move a minute hand one hour from any time on the Judy Clock, he would also understand something else as Robert would gain a new thinking tool.

Today, I continued to work with Robert on time skills.  He counted elapsed time by subtracting the time the activity (  flight) begun from the time the activity ended.  He knew how to regroup minutes.  To subtract 3h 30min-1h 40min, he changed the expression to  2h 90min-1h 40min.  He did a few similar operations.  That went surprisingly well.

But again,Robert had problems moving minute hand for exactly one hour.  My words did not seem to carry any meaning.  “From here to here.”  “To the same place”  “You start here, and you end here.” “If you leave at 15 minutes mark, you have to return to 15 minute mark.”  I kept saying it one way, another way, many times, and Robert kept turning the minute hand up to full hour mark.

I am not sure yet, why my words are so confusing for Robert, but they are.

So i try a different approach.

I  drew a few clocks on a piece of paper.  I asked Robert to draw a circle that began at 45 minutes mark.  He ended at the same mark.  Now I asked him to make the same movement with a minute hand.  Robert passed 45 minute mark just for 5 minutes and stopped.  He realized that he went to far. We repeated the sequence. He drew a circle on a paper that started and ended at the same mark and then copied  that movement with a minute hand on a Judy clock stopping at 45 minutes mark.

I did not push for more.  One success is enough for today.  Tomorrow, we will repeat those sequences :drawing full circles on paper clocks, and moving minute hands on Judy Clock.  I will ask for that, not because I want Robert to have one more tool to count elapsed time.    I will ask Robert to do that, as a way to explain to him what it means when I say, ” Start and end at the same point /place” . It sounds so simple, but, as I learned already, the simplest words are the hardest to explain.

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by krymarh on September 1, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Math
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Posted by krymarh on September 1, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/09/01/round-and-round-the-clock/

Venturing Outside After the Storm

Over the years, Robert  displayed a few difficult behaviors in public places.  Very few.  Nonetheless, they always left marks. Like  shadows or dense mist, they tainted the world outside presenting it as darker and riskier. Those episodes always shook me to the bone.  It was hard to regain posture or pose after they happened and even harder to imagine going out with Robert again.  Even understanding Robert’s motivations and actions didn’t make venturing out easier.

there is no other option, but to go out again and again and again

I wrote about our shopping pitfalls at  https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/all-the-bubbles-in-the-world/ . I wrote about Robert’s terrifying disappearance during a family stroll in Boston Commons at https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/dont-blink/.  I could write more, much more, but the only important thing is to keep going out again, no matter what.

I wrote about our Monday’s visit to the optometrist to order a new pair of glasses at https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/looking-through-empty-frames/. Very stressful event.  Even more stressful because I did not expect it.  The last time something similarly difficult happened was in early summer of 2006. Seven years earlier!  And like seven years earlier, I was shaken to the bone.  I lost and motivation for going out with Robert anywhere.

But like seven years earlier I knew there is no other option, but to go out again, and again, and again.

So on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, we went out.

On Tuesday, Robert was not entirely himself.  He was still digesting what had happened on Monday at the Optometrist’s. It was important, however, that we keep similar schedule so we studied  for two hours  with the help of a few sets of language cards: Synonyms, Changing Nouns to Adjectives, Making Predictions and a few other. A lot of talking.

In the afternoon, we drove to the Zoo.  But instead of  Roger Williams Park and Zoo in Providence, which we had visited many times,  I took Robert to the Franklin Zoo in Boston.  I chose Franklin Zoo  to let Robert see different animals (tiger and lion).  I chose this zoo, to break Robert’s habit of making a purchase of watermelon flavored lemonade to be the main attraction of the zoo trip. I wanted Robert to refocus on animals.   My main reason, however,  for choosing Franklin Zoo was to venture out of our routines, even if that meant to step out of MY safety zone.  I needed to take Robert to a place that would be as new for him as it would be for me.  I needed to explore new  paths of the new zoo just to expand the space in which Robert feels comfortable.

I wanted to show Robert and to demonstrate to myself that it is OK to not always know what is at the end of the path. Of course, that was not a dramatic change.  It was after all zoo, just like Roger Williams. How much different could it be? On Tuesday, it was as different as I could tolerate.

It turned out to be a very pleasant afternoon. We consulted our maps to find out  where we wanted to go.   We meandered around lion’s, tiger’s, and camels’ enclosures, visited pavilion with apes, compared  Bactrian Camels to Dromedaries  (two humps versus one hump), and mistook ostriches for emus.  Robert noticed a restaurant. “Fries, fries”, he asked.  “We will eat home.  We came to the zoo to look at animals. We will eat home.  Chicken and potato with cheese.” We continued walking and watching before   very pleased with ourselves, we returned to our car.

On Wednesday morning, Robert and I practiced with clock and time zones. We used three other sets of language cards practicing prepositions, synonyms, and changing nouns to adjectives (for fluent speaking). After lunch we went to Old Navy to buy clothes for Robert.  I believed that for Robert, buying clothes was an easier to accept variation of ordering new glasses. Before we went, I reviewed with Robert the whole process: look for a right size, choose clothes you like, try them on in changing room, see what looks best, and pay for it.   Everything went so smoothly, that we left after 15 minutes with two cheapest T-shirts.

As we were leaving the store, Robert looked at me as if he were saying, “See, I can do it.  It is easy.  Not a big deal”

He was right.  It was not a big deal.  Or was it?

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by krymarh on August 29, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 29, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/29/venturing-outside-after-the-storm/

Looking Through Empty Frames

It was nothing really.  Robert JUST wanted to put the glasses away in their place in a display box.  He did not want anything else.  Just this.

But

He was very dramatic.

Extremely dramatic.

And loud.

And forceful.

And quick.

The fact that the new pair of frames  was removed from its rightful place in a display box and was put in the optometrist’s hands meant that the world was falling apart.  Even worse, it might signify that he, Robert, would get a new pair of glasses.  After all, he knew from past experiences, how those things usually ended.

So as soon as the optometrist placed the glasses on the table,  Robert grabbed them and carried to the display an to the wall.  After he did that, I asked him to bring the glasses back.

Reluctantly, with many loud protests, he did. Then he took them again and carried back to the enclosure on the wall.  SO, I asked again to bring them back. As reluctantly as before, with as many grunting noises as before, Robert brought them back to the counter.

Asking Robert to bring the frame back was the only way to rectify situation.  He would not let anybody else do that.  Only he could bring them back.

The optometrist was filling a computer forms and from time to time looked at the frame.  It was clear that this would take a few more minutes.  Too long.  I encouraged Robert to wait outside with his father.  But Robert could not abandon his responsibility as a guardian of the Universe when the empty hook in a display box was warning him  of the encroaching chaos. No, Robert couldn’t leave. not yet. Getting more tense and anxious, he watched optometrist’s writing on a computer until it was just too much to bear. Suddenly, Robert reached over the counter trying to pry the frame from optometrist’s hands.  We did not let him. A short struggle.  Robert calmed down. I kept explaining why he could not do that.  Short sentences, one or two arguments, artificially assertive voice.  I repeated the same sentences two or three times. I wasn’t sure what effect my explanations had on Robert.  It seemed that he at least calmed down.  The optometrist noticing how a big deal was that to Robert wanted to give him the glasses.  But since Robert was already accepting the outcome – either as a defeat or as a lesson – there was no point of giving him glasses.

After optometrist placed the frame in the envelope and hid it somewhere, Robert went for a short walk with his dad, but returned exactly when I was choosing frames for myself.  He watched me trying a couple of new frames, bringing one of them to the counter, and passing it to the optometrist.  Robert was tense, but did not protest.  He was  not convinced that it was the right thing to do, but the protests were to exhausting and left unpleasant aftertaste.

It had to be said, that Robert doesn’t like to be dramatic, he doesn’t like to grab things from others.  Such episodes drain him and leave him confused if not ashamed for at least two days.  He doesn’t like doing things he feels forced to do.

I did not expect this outburst to happen.  Seven years passed since I witnessed similar behavior.  I believed it would not happen again. I believed Robert knew better.

After all there was a steady progress.  For instance, for at least year,  Rober thas been able not only to buy clothes, but also  try them in the store.  I did not assume that getting a new pair of glasses would be different.

I don’t know all the triggers or variables that control  Robert  actions and reactions.  But I  know the next time will be easier.  As strange as this might seem, this was a lesson to Robert, that taking the frames from display doesn’t lead to a disaster.   It was also a lesson on how to buy a new pair of glasses.  Robert will remember the sequence – trying frames, choosing one, giving it to the optometrist, looking through strange binoculars, waiting for forms, and  paying.

As hard as this Monday’s  afternoon  was for Robert and me, it was a step forward. Lesson taught and lesson learned.

I just wish that the lesson was simpler and much, much easier.

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by krymarh on August 29, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 29, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/29/looking-through-empty-frames/

Reflecting Smiles

There was a little commotion just before they met.  There were two restaurants on the short street.  When we made arrangements, we gave the address of one restaurant, while we meant a different, the one where  we had met a year before. So we checked one restaurant and we were on a way to the second one, when Robert noticed Mrs. Scott crossing the street in our direction. He stopped for a second and smiled.  SMILED.  SMILED!!!!!

The smile shoot straight from his heart and brighten the day.  It was magnified by Mrs. Scott’s face, as always, expressing acceptance and admiration. Robert’s happiness  amplified her smile in return.

I stood just a couple of feet from them and could not but marvel at the beauty and sheer joy of this encounter. They looked at each other, the retired teacher and her former student, pondering  the miracle of seeing each other again.  You almost could see sparks of joyful energy traveling back and forth  between them.  A few times, I tried to interrupt reminding them about lunch and the restaurant, but I backed off before finishing the first half of the sentence.

I don’t know when finally, we all ended up in the restaurant. I know we had very happy and pleasant time.  It was the kind of time Mrs. Scott and Robert used to spent together at least once a week, before she retired and moved to Vermont.

I always knew how much he loved her, but I did not realize how much he has been missing her in his rather wordless world.

It should not surprise me that Robert, in his taciturn ways, kept longing for Mrs. Scott all this year.  He is a sensitive and loving young man and he is capable of reading other people’s feeling toward him.  He knew that Mrs. Scott accepted him from the start, admired his ways of navigating his world, and well…. loved him too.

She looked at him as if he were the absolutely unique, wonderful human creature who was making the world around him better, more beautiful, and  more thoughtful.  There were very few people who looked at Robert with joy and acceptance.  There were very few people who cold bring up Robert’s smile.

Before Robert met Mrs. Scott for the first time in November of 2006, he went through long months of feeling like a helpless troublemaker.  The more he wanted to do good, and fix his environment, classroom really, the more problems he caused.  He knew it, but couldn’t help it. He was lost.  He was frustrated. he felt obligated to go to school every day, but as he was approaching the school’s building his steps became slower and heavier.  The fact that I took him out of school, only replaced feeling of failure with unnecessary solitude.

Mrs. Scott understood his frustration and his loneliness.  She decided not to let him be unhappy.  Every time, she looked at him, she radiated acceptance and thus she provided emotional safety net for him.  And she smiled.  She smiled a lot.  She smiled from the center of her heart.

Her smile brought Robert back.  He could smile back.

But he doesn’t smile often.  He is tense while approaching new situations, he watches carefully environment, he follows responsibly what are his chores, he tries to understand the logic and the facts.  Somehow, his teachers, don’t think happiness is the most fundamental part of learning, accepting and adjusting to the environment.

Robert doesn’t smile often,

There is a challenge for us, his parents and his sister, there is a challenge for whomever he will meet in the future, to elicit the same kind of smiles from Robert, which Mrs. Scott could bring on with the tiny movements of her face muscles and a spurt of love and bliss from her heart.

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by krymarh on August 27, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 27, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/27/reflecting-smiles/

Home, Home, and Home Again

On Monday morning and again on Saturday evening, Robert asked for home. “Home, home.”He said during long ride to our appointment in Boston.  He was anxious and kept  repeating, “Home, home”, as a demand (I would rather go home.) and as a question, “When will we go home?” I kept reassuring him that we would return home after we talk to somebody in Boston.

“Home, home (?)”

“First we go to Boston and  talk to someone.  Then we will go home.”

“Home, home?”

“First we go to Boston and talk to someone.  After that  we will go home.”

“Home, home.”

“What about home?”

“Boston.”

“You right.  First Boston, then home.

I don’t remember Robert asking for home, when he was in our family car, even hundreds miles away from home. He did not ask for home in the airplane. He did not ask for home in New York City buses, subways, or cabs. Robert was anxious as if he felt that this trip was more than a simple travel to Boston and back. It signified change, a step into adulthood, and whatever that might bring.

Restless and confused, he asked for home as a reassurance that things would return to normal, to predictability, and to safety.

On Saturday evening, in the apartment of his grandmother, he asked again, “Home”. Just like that, one word. When Robert uses  one word it means that he thought carefully about his request because it was an important one. It was unusual, Asking for home while at his grandmother’s apartment and expressing his wish with just one word.  When Robert visits his grandmother in New York, he asks for many things, for Metropolitan or Natural History Museums for Central or Hudson River Parks, for a Broadway or off Broadway Show (preferably Cirque du Soleil),  or  for a restaurant.  He has never asked for home. Last Saturday night, he said, “Home.”

“We will go home tomorrow.”

Robert accepted this answer and returned to bed.  Two more times we repeated that conversation before he fell asleep.  On Sunday morning, it became clear that Robert was sick.

“Home”, he said at eight in the morning.

“Yes, we will pack and go home in an hour”.

Reassured, Robert returned to bed and… slept until noon.

We left around one.  I put pillow on the back seat of the car.  Robert was apprehensive at first since the pillows should stay in the trunk and not on the back seat inside the car, but he put his head on them and fell asleep.  He did not want to eat, he hardly drink anything.

He was hot, tired, and mellow.

He was sick for the next three days, but he did not complain.  He was, after all, HOME.

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by krymarh on August 23, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Teaching Out of Autism

Posted by krymarh on August 23, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/23/home-home/

Confusion with Yes and No

It seems that nothing is clearer or easier than the questions that require “yes” or “No” answers.  There is no room for “maybe”,  “to some degree” “under certain  circumstances one way or another”.

So it seems.

How then I should reconcile those two facts:

1.Robert knows all the math facts.  He uses them fluently and without hesitation when he is adding, subtracting, and multiplying large numbers, or when he divides large numbers by divisors up to 12.  He applies his knowledge while doing operations on fractions or even mixed numbers.

Thus it was not surprising that Robert answered all the questions below correctly:

How much is 5+8?

How much is 11-4

How much is 20 -7

How much is 64:8

And a few more.

2. Robert  made more than 50% errors while answering  any of the following questions requiring “yes” or “no” answers.

Is five plus eight eleven?

Is five plus eight thirteen?

Is twenty divided by four, eight?

I could go on and on, but I stopped after ten questions.  Only three times Robert answered correctly.  A person without any knowledge of math facts would have a 50/50 chance of providing a correct answer.

So what has happened?

Robert and I have been struggling with this problems for years. I analyzed if from many different angles. I came with different answers, which in the end are only hypothesis, I am not sure how to check.  Is the  attention, a culprit?  But then why Robert pays attention to one sort of questions and not to the other?

Was my (or someone’s before me) method of practicing answering “YES and NO” questions a cause of Robert’s confusion?  For instance, when I used cards as so-called “visual support”, I probably bewildered Robert even more. Imagine a question, “Can a giraffe fly?”  illustrated by the picture of the giraffe seating high up, on the tree.  From the picture you clearly have to deduce that yes, it can. How would a giraffe make a nest on the top of the tree, if it did not fly there?

But even more realistic photo of a bird perching on the tree, doesn’t help Robert answer the question, “Do the birds fly?”  as the only bird in the picture is not flying in this moment.  So the birds in the picture do not fly.

Unfortunately for Robert, the people around him consider “Yes” and “No” questions the easiest tool to gain basic information. Those questions  Robert heard very often in the past and he will hear them frequently in the future.  Robert’s answer, however, are not reliable source of information about what Robert knows, experiences, feels, needs, or wants. There is no way of avoiding them, so Robert should learn.

I should teach him.

I don’t know how.

Not yet.

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by krymarh on August 20, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Teaching Out of Autism
Tagged

Posted by krymarh on August 20, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/20/confusion-with-yes-and-no/

Waiting for the Ride Home

Last week, Robert and I were driven to MBTA agency so Robert could apply for RIDE.  We were picked up at our home at 9 AM and driven for an appointment at 11 AM.  On a way, the driver was picking up and discharging other RIDE clients from Boston and its suburbs. we waited 30 minutes for the interview. It was short and pleasant. Unfortunately, after the interview,we had to wait for almost an hour for the ride back home.   Since it was a new experience for Robert, he was anxious.  However, all through our meandering  all over Boston and its suburbs Robert kept his anxiety in check, expressing it only by saying, “Home, home.”, every five or ten minutes. Waiting for a transportation back home was more difficult for Robert (and me). We waited in the agency’s waiting room, then we walked to the cafeteria (closed), returned to the waiting room only to take the elevator down to the main entrance and to wait on the benches in front of the building.  I had two sets of the language cards.  Robert let me occupied him with those cards, but not for long.  Then we returned to the waiting room and after a few minutes we promptly followed outside yet again. During those 55 minutes of waiting, Robert repeated, “Home, home” probably 30 times. Although Robert was not disruptive in any way, just witnessing his anxiety, wore me out.  The only thoughts that remained in my drained brain were, “Where is the IPAD when you need it?  “Why didn’t we take it with us?” IT would be so much easier to wait if Robert were occupied with his Netflix. Where is the IPAD when you need it?”

Whenever Robert said, “home, home” I responded telling him that we would go home when  the car would come for us.  That was not much of the assurance, as many cars with large logo “RIDE” displayed on their sides had already arrived and left without us.

Just for the sake of my own sanity, I decided to at least use this opportunity to practice elapsed time. During the last 20 minutes of waiting, whenever Robert said, “Home, home” I showed him the time on the cell phone and asked him to count how many minutes until 12:10, the time of our scheduled ride.  First I asked to tell how many minutes to noon and then I told Robert to add 10 more minutes to that number.

It did not go well at first. Robert was distracted and did not understand the purpose of doing the same exercise we had done previously at home.  I don’t think he exactly grasped that purpose by the end either, but every time he asked for home, I followed with the same routine.  And it got easier.

It was 7 minutes to 12:00 and 10 more.  17 minutes.

It was 6 minutes to 12 and 10 minutes after.  16 minutes.

It was 3 minutes after 12, so how many more to 10 minutes after 12. A moment of confusion. . Robert can easily in his mind subtract 3 from 10. He can also subtract WITH the piece of paper 12:03 from 12:10, but here he had to subtract that without paper and pencil.  It is almost the same, but it is also very different task. I helped.

It was 4 minutes after 12, so how many more minutes to 12:10.  it went better but with not exactly.

Two more tries. Robert  became annoyed with those exercises and to free himself from the obligation to count elapsed time, he stopped (for a while) to say, “Home, home.”

I did not mind a few calm minutes of waiting.  Another car with RIDE logo splashed along it side arrived.  Robert got up.  “Home, home?”

As soon as driver called his name, Robert was at the van’s door.

He repeated, “Home, home.”   again during the long ride home, but as he noticed that the car was going in the right direction, Robert satisfied himself with looking through the window.

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by krymarh on August 19, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Math, Teaching Out of Autism
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Posted by krymarh on August 19, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/08/19/home-home-home/

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