Reading and Comprehension

A friend of ours had asked DW re some of what she does with DS on Reading comprehension and if she had tips on those.

Here's her response.

• It is better to start with reading comprehension with simple stories which are direct, doesn't involve tricks, actions/reactions of a character based on their feelings. (Theory of mind skills...intentions/perspectives etc)
• Make use small strips of paper where both (DM/DS) draws the characters, places/objects. sometimes when they find drawing to be difficult they just write the words. As DM reads, DS moves around these papers. for eg..a bird flies up in the sky and sat on branch of the tree... he takes the bird makes flying action....make it go up till the sky, make it sit on the branch of the tree..This kind of worked for DS.
• If the kid is good in drawing, then the parent can read the sentences the kid can draw ..starting with 2-3 sentences per day. These kids have difficulty to make pictures in their mind or imagine as they are reading. This is a concept from Lindamood Bell where they have methods/strategies to make movies in the head as they are reading.
• Comprehension is better when DS reads some passage where he could relate/understand the experience. since he could connect with his own experience. He could understand a book about visit to supermarket than a book about aliens in space.
• DW first tells the story for him to understand and then read the story.
• DS/DW act out the stories and read it again. The character names in the story would be DS's favourite movie characters (Ashok etc from Agni Natchithiram)
  
• Other strategies which we use subconsciously: DW has to explicitly work with him: When they come across a new word..finding the meaning...how it relates or connects to something he already knows or experienced......Some abstract terms, idioms and phrase needs to be worked on separately

Hope this helps...

Keep on Rockin' the free world !

Yesterday DS and I were watching a Tamil movie - "Sachin" - a தயிர் சாதம் uncle movie, that DS likes. In the end of the movie, the heroine professes her love for the hero. Watching that, I asked DS what would he do, if he a girl comes and tells him that she loves him.

DS face lit up and all smiles (with lot of shyness etc) and said that he will feel proud about it. And "I will also love her" :) Then for some reason, he said that a girl in his school tells "hi" to him. I wonder if he likes her. He is the one, who usually doesn't talk about girls and runs away if he bring up the subject. He was all lit-up when he talked about the girl. But he didn't know her name, but she knew his. I told him maybe the next time she says Hi he could introduce himself and ask her for her name and be her friend.

Btw, I also told him that particular girl just might be very friendly - just to make sure that he doesn't take it any other way. She would say hi to a few of his class friends too; and its common for girls and boys to be friends with each other (and gave a lot of examples). My point was to tell him that not every girl who says Hi, are the ones you fall in love with !! :-) Although, I believe for a 9-year old (which is where i think he is emotionally), its perfectly normal to believe so !!! So we had this talk for a while and I was glad he shared that with me instantly in that conversation. It was funny to me (and insightful) that he related the girl saying "hi" to him when I asked him the first question... Probably, its his first crush !

In any case, it brought back some of my own mind-set to the fore. When he first diagnosed, I had this Neil Young's (Rockin' the free world) that seemed apt for DS:

"...
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool"

Now, with the journey we have come with him (a great deal of credit goes to his DM), maybe, he would just be another average and yet another kid who goes to school, will fall in love and gets to be cool !

Which comes first - Right brain or left brain ?

This has been something on my mind since our last week at Pace Place. The power of right brain (Revolution, inspiration etc etc) versus the left brain (evolution, perspiration etc etc)...

It is quite known that kids in the spectrum have quite a bit of "rules" that governs their day to day life - that kind of shows up as inflexibility and lack of willingness to change and adherence to the sameness. Although DS has made great progress around flexibility over last year; however, there are some few places where he is still inflexible and would not want to change. That stems from a certain of set of rules that he has in his mind. So, we always think these kids are highly logical and analytical and are primarily left brained !

However, there was always an hole in this theory... Because we have seen DS to be highly perceptive; and we have seen that our emotional highs/lows do impact some of DS' thinking and his own moods. Particularly, that of his, DM's. And stepping back, we have found that most of his rules comes from situational incidents that happened at that time.

This was around in our thinking and more so, since we came back from Pace Place. And today morning, something happened that kind of made the light bulb go on for me. DS was typing an email to his grand-parents; and DW was behind him, guiding him. When DS made an error, instead of moving the cursor back to where the error was, he started hitting the back-space, that started erasing all that he had typed. DW who was behind him, seeing him hit back-space, reacted (as is wont with any one), with a bit in higher decibel, that he'd lose all that he had typed. DS who heard it (but wasn't seeing his mom), reacted to the voice (probably, a bit startled at the decibel) with an impromptu "rule" - said he'd start afresh and erased all that he had typed, even beyond the error... Post-that, DW did try and get to the mode in describing the mistake as "small-mistake" (vs medium vs large)... But by that time, DS had "rule" in place...

This actually made me think. In the incident above, it looks like an emotional response has led to the logical action. The first emotion (from his mom) was something he wasn't able to handle; His emotional regulation got him to the comfort zone; that was to have a "logical rule" to that emotion; discard/disown and put a distance between himself and the actions/surroundings that had led to that emotion. And there, birth of the rule.

So, is the spectrum primarily right brained (or inability to handle emotions stemming from right brain) or left brained ? [rhetorical question, btw :-) ]

So from our own perspective, it is clear that we need to do couple of things:

• Meet the eye when talking to the DS; and touch is very important for that emotional equilibrium.
• Get the positive emotion first, before explaining the logic behind

The other key observation for me was this - the crucial conversations had to happen with him, face to face, with some kind of touch involved. Any conversation with him, sitting side-ways or across rooms aren't going to help and becomes counter-productive. Thinking about it, this is where the RDI principle of "referencing' could really help...

Easier said than done !! :-)

At a Fast Pace !

Based on a friend's recommendation and talking to another parent who had been through this, we decided to go for the Immersion experience at the PACE Place. [Leave a comment to this blog post with your email id if you need more information on it].

It was a great experience. DW feels very happy about the experience and its as if all the pieces of puzzles are falling in place for her. I'm (DD) more intrigued and I'm in between Storming and Norming phase of Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing phase. I have intellectually understood the concept and have internalized some of them. Its now to get back and do it and make it part of our lives. In any case, our experience has been great and of course, very tiring on all of us. We took some of the challenges with DS head-on (those non-negotiable inflexibility he had). He seems to have come through it. Now the key part of it, is to take that experience and encode it in a way, it becomes repeatable for him. I believe we have some tools for it.

Here is the my list of 13 ! (a bit disparate, but its my list !! :-) )

1. Appeal to the emotional/feeling side before you go the thinking/logical side.
I kind of equated Feeling/thinking ~= Revolutionary/Evolutionary.
Revolutionary changes are quantum leap, where as evolutionary are incremental.
A strong Emotion always trumps thinking.
Do this in the envelope of Bigger-Stronger-Wiser-Kinder

2. Touch, Touch, Touch,
Use Touch to convey emotions/feelings. Silently.
Engage touch while talking.
Disengage touch to communicate disapproval.

3. Anger, Bossy, Irritation (on the DS) countered by higher +ve emotion - push envelope to seek help
(DS base emotion -> safety, fear; ask him to ask questions)

4. Have purposeful motion.
Create obstacles and going around them and create need for purposeful motion (vs Ruminating Emotion)

5. Be conscious of Frequency - Duration - Intensity of any reaction

6. The quantum thing - about preparation and post-summary - Small, Medium, Large (Silliness, anxiety, worry, fun) - The transition between pre and post is the experience. Encode it

7 Use -10 to 0 to +10 to grade silliness, anxiety, worry, fun etc. Do prediction before the event and assess after the event. The difference is again the experience. Through this, look to build anticipation. Anticipation will trump anxiety, which will trump DS's own rules

8. "ASK ME"

9. When throwing a tantrum - "Go to your room" - No anger on our faces - done w/smile (BWSK), as we (DD/DM) continue talking. If 'go to your room' needs to be backed up by a physical push, DD should do it.
Safety is the key" ; can push the envelope up to that point, unless feel safety is threatened
"Ask me 'am i calm'" ?
Hold on to higher positive emotion. Its ok to add edge to the voice.

10. Map the -10 to 0 to +10 scale to Threat (Danger) to Reward (Interest) scale. The key again is the experience. The Fun and the anxiety lines in the graph cross over somewhere during the experience

11. Hand on shoulder or start stop speech to get attention. Eyes follow where the hand goes

12. Baby Brain (makes rules, worries, ruminates, avoids, reacts by being bossy or whiny) Vs Big Kid Brain ( Regulates, organizes, makes sense, deals with the moment)

13. Connector Rx

Here we go - that is my 13 encodes. Now, onward we go !!!

ps: I believe that Eric, Kathi and Steve are perfect complement of each other - this is where the whole was much greater than the sum of the parts...

Progress...

Trying to restart the chronicles again...

There has been significant progress with the DS. He has also grown a lot - believe he is in the cusp of puberty and we have all our fingers and toes crossed as to what would happen when it hits him ! He is very tall for his age - about 5.9" and quite slender - result of which no pants or shirt fit him !!! For that height, he is expected to be a little more plumper than what he is now. So we go to a shop asking for a 28x32 (waist x length), the girl at the shop goes, Hmmmm... (and I take a glance at DS as to see if he stealing surreptitious glance at the girl) !

DS is going to Tennis and Karate classes. The great thing about these two classes are the teachers have broken them up into simple parts and have been teaching him. So DS, feels highly competent and at the same time in that zone of edge-of-competency, that allows him to make progress. He is very keen to attend karate tournaments and showcase (parts of the) Katha ! One goal for summer, this year is to focus on his physical development a bit - because of height (and possibly weak hara, as we call in Karate), he is hunched... Should work on his middle-body strength this summber.

In any case, we are continuing to do RDI, although not officially - due to work and otherwise, we have taken a 6 month break from it. We are continuing on the Teach Social classes (Erstwhile Michelle Garcia Winner's Social thinking) - that is once a week with another boy. That has been helpful in teaching techniques. He is getting some "organization" (but left brained) concept behind it. One interesting development has been 'story-telling' (linked). DW and I have been using story telling for imagining the future for him and he has been using it to convey his difficulties and experience. While we use Rahul as the central character, he uses two - Anil and Balan. He has been very effectively conveying his experiences in school, through those proxies - his punishment (of teasing and getting to stand outside the class etc etc :) ). We are keeping to that agenda and over-joyed...

Some other snippets

1. The class teacher tells us he is very social these days. When he gets to the class, before the bell, instead of sitting in the class, he gets his friends out of the class and hangs outside
2. He is quite bright in the class and comprehends the concepts - once he understands the concepts its easier for him - but is also quite playful and continues to push the boundaries
3. One night, as I was sitting in the couch, he came and hovered around me a bit, and then said "Dad, I want to talk to you". And asked me about my day and how my office was... My two weeks of stress flew away.
4. He is beginning to understand relationships are compromises. He is talking about the compromises I've (DD) made and his mother have made. Its like talking about it makes him internalize it a bit more. Now, we can see he is adjusting a lot for our changes. And we have swooped in and taken advantage and make a lot of flexibility changes.
5. There are still a few core things that he is non-negotiable on (which is why we decided to go to the PACE Place (link here) for their immersion program. Drop us a note, if you want to know more.

I hope we'd be a bit more consistent in posting from now on. And most importantly, the trajectory of the development graph for DS is consistently upward !!

For the newcomers...

I do not really feel like welcoming you to the blog, since discovering that you have a child with special needs is not something very easy to start with. The intent of this post is to make it a bit easier on you...

You would find a tremendous amount of resources, help and support in many forums on the net (some of the resources on the net are listed on the side). For us, this has been (and still is) a journey, for the past ~10 years... Based on our experience here are a few things you may want to look at first:

1. This is a journey, its never one and done - there is no magic cure. Its very much like looking for a best possible life for a Neuro-typical child. There is work that needs to be put in both cases; its just a bit different for our children.
2. For special children, the intervention is (my strong belief) "parent driven, specialist aided" (specialist also encompasses teachers at school). Read as much as possible yourself; ask questions, never be "shy" to propose what you need from school, your aid, intervention specialists etc. Take your time to read without stress.
   
3. Share your situation with your family and friends. Once people are aware, the amount of help or how much they'd do is tremendous. What we learned is, if we don't share, then our friends suspect something is different, but are polite enough not to pry or offer help (so that they don't offend you)
4. There is ENOUGH TIME. Do not rush. It just needs adjustment of your outlook -eventually, be it a normal child or special child, the parents want the child to live independently after them. So, you do not need to rush - there is enough time for the child to develop. Maybe your child would not pass 12th at 17, but would do it at 23 - so what? (and possibly, for independent living, passing 12th may not be required!!)
5. Set out clear goals for yourself and the child - the goals could be split into micro-goals over a period of 3m. Take it one at a time - remember you have enough time ! :-)
6. Start your financial planning - plan as if you'd have to support your children beyond you. Look for some annuity based income that starts later in the life for yourself and the child. Plan as if you have to support his/her life span too.
   
7. As a family, spend time together - although its easy to say this, this has been one of the areas that has been tough for us too, given that we all have our own needs, distractions and interests.
8. Finally, stay very very positive. One thing about our kids are that they are very perceptive. It always appears that they sense negativity and it affects them. Once you are positive, you will see doors open and pathways appear. Expect the lows from your kids, and enjoy the highs ! Expecting the lows helps you to stay positive.

I didn't talk much about intervention, since there are so many of them out there; all of them aren't great for all - you just need to research and see which (or a combination of what) would work for your child. We have listed some of what we do on the links on the side... and some of our own thoughts and actions in the blog.

I also would advise the parents to figure out a technique for themselves to be able to sort out the information flood coming at them and organize it in a way that they can implement it with their child, stay plugged in, watch the result and modify/drop as appropriate. There are several complexity methods to it - you could google cynefin framework, DSRP framework etc for that.

Good luck and all the very best...

Absence...

Hello all !! Its been a long time since I posted anything (infact, anywhere). Things have not been really hectic - i.e., it has not been that hectic that I could not find time to post... I think its a lack of inspiration :-), or mental fatigue, if you will...

Lots have been happening, mainly due to DW's efforts - DS has been growing (literally, he is as tall as me now and he is only 13) and has been enjoying life a lot. There has been great improvement in several areas (of note: flexibility, which is one of the core deficit). Story-telling has been a great success: DW uses it to message across; DS uses it to convey his thinking and why he did/does certain things through characters in his story. I will post something in detail soon.

Our focus for next year (beyond flexibility) - is "anxiety reduction".

Will post more about it.

In the meantime - Wish you all a great 2010 - Have a wonderful, peaceful and successful year ahead.

Summer of '09

We talked about the Summer of '69, jokingly... This summer has been really good for all of us, including the DS.

Here are some updates on how the summer went... What I've written down is very specific, but there are several abstract that we cannot put our finger on and explain it descriptively...

1. DS has gotten (or is getting) comfortable with numbers and word problems. He is now playing monopoly, getting a roll of quarters from Whole foods checking (counting by stack of 4s), playing a card game (counting by stacking in 10s) - we have begun using the Whole Movement template for that (the fractals and whole concept) and touch wood, it seems to have worked well.

2. He is getting motivated to get rewards for his efforts; black tape for learning in karate class, star in tennis class, ice cream on Fridays post week-in-review, if his weekly schedule is complete, surprise reward is the plan is followed in Teach Social. The funny thing is this - His karate classmate was on leave one week. DS was happy that he could get the black tape while the other boy misses out (since they started the same and the other boy had overtaken DS due to similar reasons)... The key thing about Karate class is this: DS has realized that there are hundreds of things to learn in karate (and extended it to Tennis). We are now hoping that he realizes that about other things in life and is no longer that anxious about new things.

3. DS has started playing games that he doesn't like with his friends (pretend and otherwise). He has started coming up with different ideas to play with few objects like cars, bean bags.

4. He has definitely shown signs of reading non verbal clues, in non-RDI-lab environment. Reading facial expression, he had asked, "why are you scared" ? The other day, while he was searching for something, he self-talk with his DM, let me see where your eyes are looking and follwo the path of her vision.

5. He is more aware of others and their needs. DW had made ragi aaloo rotis. He likes them... As he was eating and finishing those, he asked DW, "Is this for appa too ?" and then left two of them for me. He has started helping his DM with cutting vegetables; and agreed to watch an English movie at the theater (Ice-Age 3), with us.

6. He has shown higher order of thinking and problem solving and coming with alternate ideas - he had a lot of different size of boxes to junk... He came up with by stacking them one inside the other to make sure it was at manageable size to carry... Another time, when the door of the bedroom came off, he had safely taken the screws and kept them aside, calling parents for help.

7. Improved story reading comprehension. DW is using drawn pictures of the character and places, one of us read the story, other moves around the papers like puppet show. He has shown full engagement, not shutting off which used to happen when reading...

Has been a good summer... The DS is also growing up physically - he is taller than his mom and is almost as tall as me - just about two inches shorter than me.

Just keeping our fingers crossed and hands together for the trajectory to continue !

Awakenings !

Some nice anecdotes that happened in the past two weeks:

• DW and I were tired on one weekend afternoon and crashed out - sometimes during weekends we take an afternoon nap as a family - get together talk for a while and then doze off. That particular day, it appears DS didn't feel like sleeping, so perhaps knowing that he could disturb us, he left the room... The funny thing was he came in after about 1.5hrs and woke both of us up, saying, "Appa, amma wake up - its 4.15PM - its already evening...".
• DS sleeps in a separate room during nights - however, he still finds it hard to sleep through the night alone. So he comes into our room around 2-3AM and crashes in with us. Its likely he would also use the bath room at that time. However, he isn't very quiet with the door and most times it is very loud - as the door is shut, the automatic bolt makes lot of noise as it slots in. So, one day I showed him how to close it, so that the noise can be minimized - ie turn the handle down and carefully release the bolt gently. Next day, at night, when he came into sleep, he actually followed it ! It was an indicator to us that he is "in the moment" most of the time !! He is also getting aware and stays very conscious about it... I told him then that I'm very proud of him that he remembered and cared for others...he responded by snuggling up close ! :)
• Tonight, he and I went out for a walk. We were playing a scenario - where he played the role of himself and I played multiple roles - myself, DW, his friends, my mother and a stranger. During the role-play, my conversation was to get him to disclose his gmail password; he didn't reveal it; but once he slipped up and then we thought and talked through that. Then I was stranger asking him to reveal the password and making (sexual) advances (the one thing we are told that we need to be safe in this country)... He didn't budge from his stand. All this was good; and then came the icing on the cake - after the role-play, he commented that people could say anything and try to trick him !! and he needed to careful !! Cool !!! I like his recognition of the possibility of trickery !!!

Btw, we do find role-play and socio-dramatic play is helping him internalize a few things. He also loves acting scenes... particularly assigning his own life experiences to movie characters' names.

Priceless...

DS had his tennis lessons yesterday. In addition to the forehand, the coach also introduced backhand and overhead serve. We can see DS was trying hard to learn and focus. I had, on the side, told the coach to follow what they do in Karate - a stripe on the belt for a good class - do something similar. The coach drew a star on a ball and gave it to DS; the DS was very proud and he has kept it safely and will have to take the ball next week too, to see if he can get another star...

...but I'm digressing. After the class, we had gone to a local shop to look for a tennis racquet for my friend. DS was obviously very tired and wanted to get back home - i think the shoes were also bothering him. So he sat on one of the empty shelves...

...and then commented, "I'm on sale, will I get bought by someone ?" :-) Even without a discount we would ! And there was severe sale going on ! Its a bargain !!!

Summer of '69...

DS has reprised Bryan Adams 40 years later... DS has said this summer are the best of his life so far... and we are only into 3rd week of his summer holidays - its another matter that 3 weeks have flown by !

It has been a long time since we had updated the blog. Touch wood, things are going ok and well. More importantly, DW is happy and DS is happy with DM and both are happy together... This itself implies that the situation is positive :-).

DS has finished his schooling year - the first in the US of A. The school report says he has done well. And he has said that he likes the school, very specifically the class room that he goes to. He is getting a lot social cues at class and is beginning to talk to his class-mates about his likes and dislikes and share those stories. I also believe he feels more comfortable with the school here, since he goes to a special day class and does not feel the pressure as much as it is in normal classes. Although this is probably slowing down his academic progress, we believe it is helping him develop is EQ and functional thinking..

Re summer activities - this summer has been labelled as "physical summer" - He has suddenly found interest in Tennis and we have put him in a Tennis class - the coach who has taught special kids before seems very patient with him. His swimming classes start next week. Additionally, he continues to go the Karate class which he seems to enjoy. I believe these are all providing the neccessary sensory inputs to him and that is the reason he relishes it himself. And my own belief is that physical activities help in high level of mental engagement.

On others, this summer, he has got into group session at Michelle Garcia Winner center of Social thinking - this is now known as Teach Social. This is in addition to the individual classes. All of this is helping significantly. We have also started using Connector Rx. It has helped us (ie DW/I with DS) to be "in the moment" - he has shown some initiation skills when we have strapped this on. We are continuing with RDI, Impulse creations, aura healing, whole movement... we believe each on its own is not the sole reason that contributes to the development. To me this is like, solving the a problem in the "complex" quadrant of the Cynefin framework. This framework is a good way to look at PDD - we apply "Emergent Practices" approach, where the Cause and Effect are not immediately seen and aren't close to each other. One probes, senses and then responds. So these multi-dimensional practices helps us to probe different possibilities - for example, Impulse creation helps learning with the body; Whole movement is a tool that I believe helps DS to look at the way one can organize information and to be able to address a larger problem, but starting from fractals. RDI helps in developing functional thinking, Teach Social helps him in the intersection of functional and skills. His regular school is where he is learning specific skills. To us, function is the thinking part (why, what) and skills is the doing part (how, when). Each of them separately isn't that helpful.

And with all this, DS has said this summer has been the best for him ! So, something is working for him - like they say, dont fix it, if it ain't broke...

In spite of all the uncertainty in my job front, things are looking up... Hopefully, the trajectory continues to remain true North. Touch Wood. Thank God.

Shot through the heart...

Blogging after a long time...

We want to treat DS as a grown up and he oscillates being a big boy to a small kid. Sometime he resents being told something (just like any other boy in the cusp of teen-age) and sometime he is just a baby... So I was telling him that day that we talk about all these things, because he is growing up and he is no longer a baby and there are social expectations of him (not in so many words though)... Also, we told him that he would live far beyond us and at that time there may not be much help available to him; as my parents have outlived their parents etc etc. He heard that and asked some questions around that... Later on, that night, while in bed, he asked me couple of times as to what I told and why I told those (ie we, as his parents would die earlier than him)... We can see it was playing in his mind.

The very next day this event happened. He has a very favourite pillow - its his imaginary everything - friend, confidante etc. There was some damage to it and he was really broken. He cried for long and during that time, he told me that neither of us are important for him and his pillow was important; and we could leave the house or he would with the pillow...

It was quite rending to hear those words... But after a while, thinking about it, I wonder if his reaction was based on the talk we had the night before - on impermanence of us...

Penumbral Motivation...

Somehow I've always emagined/presenced that DS will become a good doctor or something to do in the field of medicine/life-sciences - his ability to remember things, to be able to co-relate facts to several degrees deeper and masked, and his sensitivity to people would render himself to be effective - I'm hopeful that is his calling !

Last week, there was a reading comprehension lesson given to DS. This was about the heart-beat - there were several sentences given about heart and he had to find what the central theme as about (which he did); but the offshoot of that is what was that made us more happy. He was really really unhappy to know that heart beats stops and all of us would die - including us; i think he is internalizing that himself, although we have talked about death to him sometime ago. His DM has also talked about Hindu philosophy of the soul and body (there was another correlation that he made - that in a different post later)... Back to the story, hearing about the heart-beat he was very disturbed and said that he wanted to have the same body (hmmm, what was that about not being in control of their body and sensory integration issues - do they really have that or is that our perception ?) even after he dies ! But then he wanted to know how to live forever !

He then went ahead and googled "live forever" and found out some work done by this researcher, Aubrey de Grey. He has now started reading about Aubrey de Grey and still shown interest to know more about what this researcher is doing; the only challenge is the words are high flying and a lot complexer !

One idea we had was to use Whole-movement Tetrahedron to explain different biological system within the body and then build it from there... Again, the worry here for me is, is this the right approach - in system vs details ? do we build the system as a whole and get him to see the details ? Or build he details and let the system emerge ?

Where Amazing Happens !

Btw, thats the tag-line for the "National Basketball Association" (Professional Basket ball league here)...

Where Amazing happens is also in our lives ! Day to day, where DS amazes us with his repertoire. As springs sets in, there is a lot more sun and today DS and I decided to take a walk to the park nearby and then walk around the apartment. And here is the story...

Today:

As we were walking past the tennis courts, there was a kid with his dad going home after their games. The kid was munching an organic bar. As we went past them, I told DS that the kid was eating the energy bar, just like the one we bought him (organic, gfcf, sugar-free)... DS appeared not to hear, but after few steps, slowly turned his head and looked at the kid, looked elsewhere and then turned his head back... I looked at him puzzled and asked, "Kid..."

4 months ago, during Thanksgiving Holiday (late Nov):

DS wanted to go on a local train and we went on the locals. As we were going across town, a family of three got on the train and took a seat in front of us - mom, older child about 7 and a baby. DS, not so socially aware, stared at the baby and his antics. I told him that its not ok to stare like that; and btw, if you know DS, he doesn't like two things - when the voice is raised and if we correct him unexpectedly. And he felt silent after that in that ride. Later on, I kind of explained to him about the whole thing and told him sorry that I had to correct him unexpectedly.

Back to Today:

...I looked at him puzzled and asked, "Kid... what did you do ? Did you see that ?". He said, "yes I did, but you told me long time ago not to look at strangers "straight on their face", which is why I did that slowly after looking somewhere else"...

My heart swelled with pride !!!

------

ps: Rest of the walk, we talked about social rules vs police laws; what a society is, what are unwritten rules etc, and how he behaves differently when there are guests at home and that is nothing but he following some "social" rules himself... etc etc etc  etc...

Movie Magic

I had posted on this line, in one of the parent support forum, where there was some discussion re ails of visual media (TV).

We have used the visual medium effectively to develop (and in the process of doing it) some key skills in DS.

We have movie days every friday - where we bring in known Tamil movies. Ahead of time, we tell DS the story of the movie. While he is watching, we try to work on his comprehension and see if that could be improved; we also freeze the movie at certain place and ask S to identify what the character feels and why does s/he think so ("he is happy because he got a job and i can see from his face, since he is smiling; He is angry, because the other person cheated him and I can find out because he shouted" etc)... Also, it is helping him look at the story-level rather than details ( which would earlier be - "he opened the left door of the car, drove through trees to go to the shop and on the way he crossed a dog and an auto" vs "he went shopping for his wife")... The movies has become a tool for us to teach Emotional Intelligence !!!

DS has now begun to want to dance as the heroes do - it gives him a good SI input. We have also seen some of the SI exercises prescribed for him form some portions of the dance-moves in the songs. So, its easy to get him to do those SI moves. He now wants to tape his dances and watch them - I believe they improve his self-awareness and his own view of his body and balance. I'm hoping the recording would help him see the differences between what the movie actor does versus what he does (in terms of performance/moves)... I hope that would lead to DS's better understanding himself.

Additionally, for him to watch movies on Friday, he needs to pay out "3 Poker chips" - so he earns those throughout the week doing work. And he is learning some basic accounting. Also, some negotiations, since he wanted us to make movies a bit more in-expensive, particularly when he doesn't have enough poker chips (or happy sticks)...

We have also used his favourite movies (he has seen) to teach the concept of history, based on their release date and the timeline on a white-board and what else did happen in that specific year. We plan to teach the "history of movies" now... We use the upper-half of the timeline for movie-history and the bottom-half for some other history (like cricket, India etc).

Growing some Non-chalance

DS and I used to have some standard exchanges. 

He would want to know as to where we (DW & I) went or what we did, in his absence (particularly his mom, since he doesn't like her to do something that he too likes when he is not around). To his question,  I would ask him why - as to why he wants to know. He'd say something that is quite standard - "I'd like to know", to which my standard response would be, "thats not the real why, so tell me why do you like...". After couple of repetitions of such back and forth, it would get to him and he'd show his stress in his face and by his "stimming behaviour" - ie clasping his palms tightly...

Yesterday, after a couple of "you tell - no you tell - no you tell first" between us, he said, "ok, don't tell" and walked away... There is a Buddha lurking in that DS :)

Yay !

Mental Fortitude...

Yep, those are big words ... Lets just call it mental strength...

I'm discovering that DS has great mental strength. Once he decides, its pretty much easy for him to stick to it. I know folks would say thats typical of such kids. Somehow, I think everyone has their temptation and would want to do things that is forbidden :) Here are couple of examples.

1. I had written about DS sleeping alone. However, he sleeps in the living room; and in there, the sound of the rain on the roof and the wall mounted AC is pretty high. So. he does get scared of that sound (and it has been raining quite incessantly for the past few days). So, I had asked him last night that since its raining, would he want to sleep with us, partly due to my own issues. But he was quite clear. Nope, like last night, I'll sleep in "Thatha's room" (the room, that my parent's used when they visited us). For the past two nights he has been sleeping there soundly...
2. Last weekend he had an invite from one of his class-mates for a birthday celebration at a bowling alley, that he really loves to go to and bowl. But he hadn't told us about it at all; the invite was amongst his books in his bags. When DW saw that on Monday morning and asked him, he said he didn't want to go, but didn't really explain really well. However, later on during the evening, when DW talked to him using the "Rahul story" (which DS has taken to, with his own version of character called "Red Thala"), DS had explained that he didn't go to the party because he had several dietary exceptions already in the recent past - 'boys day out' with me (at Chinese joint), eating out the local Komal Vilas, eating at a friend's place; and he simply didn't want to eat cake at the party which they would ask him to. And to avoid the temptation he simply decided he would not go !!!! Amazing !!!!!!!!!!!

Given this, I believe he has great mental strength. So, I believe this was a good time to talk to him about "melt-downs" (or temper tantrums)... So both of us talked to him about "meltdowns" and why its normal for people to have it and how people react to it differently when they have one. For the past few days, we are playing the "True/False" games around a few melt-down 'facts". Eventually, I want to lead it to a point where he does know melt-downs are pretty normal and he will need to find a way to handle it in a way it does not perturb people around him...

Like Floyd says, "the Child is grown, the dream is gone...", only in this instance, the dream is still out there and it might very much come true ! 

Clarification Please ?

Ok, I'd like to know... The funda about sleep-place. What was it, again ?

Is it that, DS should not be sleeping with us ? Would that mean  that I can go sleep with him, in the room where he sleeps !?!

Ah ! Thank you !

(and yes, I know about the letting go, funda !)

Red day !

We met DS's psychologist during our visit to India in Dec-Jan. She was very pleased with DS's progress and said that the next step for us to get him do things independently. Since then we have been modeling some stories via his alter-ego. We bought a mobile for him and also seeing if he can describe the sorroundings around him. He now can say right-ahead, right-adjacent, right-behind, left-ahead etc, in describing what he sees...

In any case, one of the things we have been thinking about, given his age, that he needs to sleep alone. He has slept with one of us all the time, and lately sleeping in the same room but not in the same bed. He had agreed to sleep in a different room recently... However, I think I was the one who was resisting the idea, perhaps given his fear of darkness and general anxiety. DW was saying it was not DS, but me who was making all the excuses as to why he cant sleep alone. DW was cool, she just moved on quickly... I was the one who wasn't letting go easily. I felt as though I wasn't looking after his safety, although intellectually, I know by doing this, i probably look after his safety more... Stepping back, I think DS is really growing up in his own mind and perhaps really wants to be treated so.

Anyways, as I had said earlier, there is a time to hold on to and there is a time let go - not just mentally, but also physically !

Directional Sense !

DS just amazed us yesterday.

DW was going for a lecture last night and us boys were to have a night-out on our own (which we did and a bit of that in the 'ps').

As we get out of our residential area, in a complex maze of roads, we need to hit a freeway to head to the destination.  From Steven's Creek, we get on to the ramp as an entry into free-way for 3 of them - 85 North, I-280 North and I-280 South. That entrance is quite complex and you kind of go around, that its easy to lose your bearings directionally (atleast for someone like me who is directionally challenged).

So the two key roads to this post are, Steven's Creek Boulevard and I-280. We had to get of SCB and then enter I-280 and travel South. 

As soon as we said thats the way we are going, DS remarked that Steven's Creek boulevard goes in the same direction as I-280; but SCB is called SCB east and SCB West; where I-280 is called North and South. If you see the picture below you'd see what he means (although I-280 takes a turn towards South-East, much further out)... I was quite amazed that he got it - he is not into maps much. I thought it was a remarkable observation or mapping in his own mind !! The two roads are circled in red in the map...

We later on tested if he understood the directions - and asked him what happens if we travel North and take a right-turn or travel west and take a left turn. He got those... jujeebee !

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ps: After dropping DW off at the venue, we went to a mall covering the 1.5miles in about 4miles (I did tell you I'm directionally challenged and I'm the only person on the face of the earth, who could lose the way with GPS showing you the way !!). At the foodcourt, DS was all eager to eat McDonald stuff and fries. As we went to the food court, he saw Panda Express (Chinese fast food) and switched over. A few years ago, such a change could not have been imagined !