I had written about the approach that we intended to use (and are kind of bungling through it) in making connections across multiple scenarios within the DS's head.
Of late I've been thinking more about the efficacy of RDI - or rather how to make it more useful in our own way for the kid. We intuitively know that RDI labs, encoding and highlighting helps DS in someway and set him out in the thinking zone of drawing parallels.
One effective way I think could be the stories. Based on my online discussion with another parent (who I acknowledge as one of the best thinker-parent), here is where my head is - re story-telling. Story-telling or apocryhpal/anecdotal are most powerful. I wonder thats one of the reasons that our forefathers wrote Ramayanam and Mahabharatam, to ensure the values are taught through stories.
I do think at some levels, RDI labs do come across 'manipulative' :); I do give the benefit of the doubt and will call it 'role modeling'. On a different plane, stories could also be 'manipulative'. One of my colleagues said this - "the thing about analogies, stories and anecdotes is that you can use a specific story to drive the message you want with your audience; and at the same time, you can pick a different story altogether to drive a completely opposite message".
However, I do think Stories are most powerful, since they don't get overtly prescriptive and proscribe a solution. They let the theory hang (like the methodology to solve complex problem in cynefin framework); then yet another story let another snippet hang - it should help stimulate thinking makes connection between those various puzzle pieces and form one's basis for ethical/morals. This is where RDI could come in - it could help "simulate" that thinking - create/manipulate ourselves into a situation/lab that creates a live scenario for the kid to connect those dots. At the same time I also believe a 1st person's "personal experiences" abstracted to a 3rd person and stewed over a century :) is one form of story... RDI perhaps deals it in 1st person.
Anyways, believing this theory, we've invested some in Amar chitra Katha and monthly magic pot ! The next step is to find time !!!
Comprehension!
DW is implementing the home-schooling with DS.
One nice thing, I think, she has come up with is this - DS has the Friday off - but its not completely off; what DW does is this - she tells a story about a movie (in our local language) through the week to some extent; and on Friday, the movie is played and DS watches it and tries to relate the story to the visual story that he watches.
It looks a good exercise on comprehension and trying to relate some emotions on the screen to an extent. Also, it seemed a good use for the day-off !!
______________________________
Btw, on a tangent, here is a good article to read; its strange that a online tech mag like wired has this article, but I guess its the awareness thing !
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism?currentPage=all
One nice thing, I think, she has come up with is this - DS has the Friday off - but its not completely off; what DW does is this - she tells a story about a movie (in our local language) through the week to some extent; and on Friday, the movie is played and DS watches it and tries to relate the story to the visual story that he watches.
It looks a good exercise on comprehension and trying to relate some emotions on the screen to an extent. Also, it seemed a good use for the day-off !!
______________________________
Btw, on a tangent, here is a good article to read; its strange that a online tech mag like wired has this article, but I guess its the awareness thing !
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism?currentPage=all
Hormones - Anger and otherwise.
I had written about growing up earlier.
As its quite normal in the culture we grow up, DS is still sharing the same room at night with us. A few days ago, we had this "fight" and he got angry and staged a walk-out. He took his pilllows, blanket and his security-blanket and walked out of room; he marched out of the room and decided to sleep on the couch in the living room. This was a big deal for us - he was always scared of couple of things - the darkness and being alone. Doing this was a break-through for us. He actually, slept most of the night on his own, with night-lamp on. The next day we high-lighted it. We keep telling him that this was a sad and happy day for us; sad that we had a fight; but we are more happy than sad, since he became very brave that night.
Definite Signs of growing up !!!
Yesterday, as we were talking we were recalling the names of his friends from India. He was quite ok, until one name came up. This was the name of a girl his age; and who was his friend in India, for about two years. She was the one who was friendly with him and knew his condition but was very sensitive towards him. As soon that name was said, DS became extremely shy, shouted out the noise-word to mask out the name and ran away from the room, with smiles lighting up his face big time !!
For us, its going to definite sighs of growing up !! :) :)
As its quite normal in the culture we grow up, DS is still sharing the same room at night with us. A few days ago, we had this "fight" and he got angry and staged a walk-out. He took his pilllows, blanket and his security-blanket and walked out of room; he marched out of the room and decided to sleep on the couch in the living room. This was a big deal for us - he was always scared of couple of things - the darkness and being alone. Doing this was a break-through for us. He actually, slept most of the night on his own, with night-lamp on. The next day we high-lighted it. We keep telling him that this was a sad and happy day for us; sad that we had a fight; but we are more happy than sad, since he became very brave that night.
Definite Signs of growing up !!!
Yesterday, as we were talking we were recalling the names of his friends from India. He was quite ok, until one name came up. This was the name of a girl his age; and who was his friend in India, for about two years. She was the one who was friendly with him and knew his condition but was very sensitive towards him. As soon that name was said, DS became extremely shy, shouted out the noise-word to mask out the name and ran away from the room, with smiles lighting up his face big time !!
For us, its going to definite sighs of growing up !! :) :)
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