Just as the title of this blog says- we are living and learning about autism spectrum disorder every day. I read the book "Why I Jump " recently which was written by an autistic teenager and found it really interesting. One of the topics discussed was the concept of time. Many with autism have a hard time with this concept. Robbie seems to have a lot of anxiety when it comes to time. For example I can't really prepare him for something that will happen next week or even tomorrow because that does not make sense to him. If I mention we will be going to Grandmom's next weekend, he thinks we're going today and does not stop asking- when are we going?????? It's different than his 5 year old sister who uses yesterday for almost all measures of time when speaking but fully understands the difference between last week ( a long time ago) last month ( a really long time ago) and tomorrow (in the future).
Another interesting thing I have discovered about Robbie is how he learns. Robbie loves movies. He has always obsessed over a few movies at a time- watching them many times over, as kids do. (I can remember my sister watching The Sound of Music and Eddie and The Cruisers- a zillion times as a kid.) The difference for Robbie is he has always mimicked the language or scripted the movie lines. This is very common for those on the spectrum as well. For Robbie however he has begun to take movie lines and use them in appropriate situations. Rob watched Paranorman with his Special Education class around Halloween. He asked if Robbie had seen it because so many of the phrases he has heard Robbie use. Robbie is such a visual learner- it only makes sense that he learns the appropriate use of language by watching it. He seems to try out phrases while we're in the car driving Lexi to school. He says them a few times- to perfect them. Later on he'll use them in the appropriate situation. I find this so interesting- and of course it makes me feel a little better about the amount of movies he does watch.
He almost never eats vegetables, however as begun to eat broccoli. The reason- it is eaten in two of his favorite movies, (Mars Needs Moms and Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs). He started reciting the movie lines while eating the broccoli- now he just eats the broccoli.
Our newest challenge- finding movies where a larger variety of vegetables are eaten!!!!Who knew?
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Oh my gosh, your description of Robbie's use of scripted speech in an appropriate manner sounds just like my son. Z doesn't use movie lines, but very specific phrases that he also "tested out" on us, then has learned through use that they were very acceptable to use lol.
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote about time was spot on, too. Sometimes, just sometimes, I get frustrated when someone will say "oh, but all kids have trouble with....a,b, or c...", when you **know** it is, well, just DIFFERENT. You worded it so well about how your daughter might use the wrong word but conceives of it properly.