Tag Archives: reading

Education

Posted on May 13, 2014 by | 37 comments

Yesterday I wrote a post, Your Child’s Been Diagnosed.  Now What?  There are so many things to add.  But something I wondered often during those early years was  – what good is a diagnosis if the “interventions” the professionals suggest and say will help, do not?  Now this is not everyone’s story, but it is ours.  All the recommended “interventions” did little, if anything, to actually help her.  In fact, I would argue that some of the interventions we agreed to, actually harmed her self-esteem.  And the general rhetoric, disguised as factual information, surrounding autism, encouraged her to feel damaged and at fault for the suffering of others.  No child should feel they are the cause of other’s pain and suffering.  And yet, so many do.

Once we began looking for schools that might be a good fit, we were even more horrified.  The choices were not – which one is best? – but became – which one will not harm her?  This shouldn’t be a parent’s guiding question when looking at schools, but for us, it was.  Will the staff be kind to her?  Will they be patient?  Questions like – will she learn?  Will she be taught science, math, english, social studies?  Those questions quickly gave way to – will she be harmed?  Are cameras monitoring what goes on in the classrooms and hallways?   Do they use isolation rooms?  Do they allow teachers to use restraints?  The best case scenario became less about education and more about physical safety and finding a place that did not harm or try to force compliance.

Academics were stripped down as it was “shown” that she could not understand basic concepts.  Because she could not read aloud, she was given picture books.  Because she could not answer the questions asked, the questions were simplified and simplified more and more and more until it was concluded she didn’t understand.  Because it was determined she could not understand a simple story about a boy and his dog going on a trip to visit his Grandmother, she was given less “complex” stories.  She was given “sight” words that were repeated for months and months, even years.  Billy Goat’s Gruff became the center piece for a curriculum that continued for three years, despite our disbelief and protests.  “Oh but we examine all the various characters in the story,” we were assured.  “THREE YEARS??” we responded.  “For three years?”  “Yes,” we were told with pitying looks and the hubris and bravado I’ve come to recognize from those who are convinced they “know” and understand “autism” and therefore my daughter.

Some of the worst offenders are those who have dedicated their lives to autism.  Those who are so sure they know, and as a result are no longer curious or interested in learning more.  Those are the people who are asked to give presentations at Autism Conferences, they are the ones who write books, that parents, not knowing any better, buy.  They are the ones we listen to and slowly as their voices are the loudest and most plentiful, we begin to doubt our instincts, we begin to soften our protests, we begin, slowly, slowly over time, to believe them.  Our ideas about our child are whittled away.  Our instincts are pushed aside to allow for those who know better, who have been doing this for “twenty years,” who have worked with “this population” and who, from having spent decades among children just like mine, know things I cannot possibly grasp or understand.  (This, by no means, describes everyone, but it does accurately describe a great many, and sadly, often those who were in a position with the most power.)

We parents are told to see our children for what they are: Intellectually impaired, socially inept, incapable, lacking and unable to understand the most basic concepts.  My child, as a result was shuttled off to learn how to tie her shoe laces and wash her face and hands.  While life skills are certainly important they should not take the place of academics.  So many of us are consoled with the idea that at least our child will be able to dress themselves, or not…  in which case we envy those parents who have children who can.  Our focus turns from philosophy, an exchange of ideas, history, english, poetry, literature, science, social studies, math and geography, to making sure our child can brush their teeth.  Until one is accomplished, it is thought, the other cannot be introduced.  A child who cannot dress themselves, surely cannot be introduced to Kant or Socrates or a poem by Yeats.

“Hey Emma, I’m curious, how is it that you know about WWII and Nazi Germany?”

“I hear you, Nic, and Daddy discussing,” Emma wrote over the weekend.

“Do you think it was right for Harry Truman to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?” my son asked.

“I have to learn more to say one way or the other,” Emma responded.

“Do you want to hear some arguments for and against the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima?” N. asked.

“Yes, I can better understand using the bomb if you tell me more,” Emma wrote.

There is so much more to say…

Emma struck this pose while waiting for the school bus - May, 2014

Emma struck this pose while waiting for the school bus – May, 2014

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Posted in Autism, Education, Parenting

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What Are State Assessments Assessing?

Posted on April 9, 2014 by | 15 comments

Yesterday, while at Emma’s school, her teacher showed me a sample of the state assessments that Emma is required to take, though there were record numbers of parents this year who protested them by opting out.  These assessments are done twice a year and take an enormous amount of time and energy from all involved.  The page the teacher showed me was about Ronald Reagan.  It was a series of facts that are read and then the student is supposed to choose the correct answer from two choices related to the facts just read.  I decided to use the page as an example of why I so vehemently object to these state required assessments as they are currently laid out.

I read the facts to Emma and then asked her to give me the answers by saying the correct answer out loud.  This is how the test is typically done.  Emma chose the last choice to each question every single time.  I then said, “Okay.  Now let’s do this using your letter board.  I asked the same questions, only this time, offered her the letter board and without any hesitation she got 100% correct.  I then asked her to circle the correct choice and she was able to do that too, which was interesting to see.

We did not go over more of the assessment, but for all those students who are like Emma, these assessments are useless.  They are not telling anyone anything helpful.  In fact they are giving inaccurate data.  If Emma had not been given the opportunity to learn to communicate using a letter board, she would have no way of proving she knows the correct answer.  How many children are just like Emma?  I do not believe for a second she is the only one who cannot say what she knows, but if given appropriate accommodations would be able to.

It is incredibly frustrating to have the state require her to take such assessments, which, as they are currently written, do not accurately assess what she is capable of.  This is my biggest objection with so much that is done when it comes to autism.  Far too often the current conversation is by people who are looking at things, similar to these assessments, and basing their beliefs on the information they are getting from them.  Incorrect information that tells us nothing of what a child is actually capable of.  Assessments, that in fact are assessing nothing.  What is being learned?  What a massive waste of time and money.  We should be doing better.  Our children deserve better than this!

*We are hoping to have the video of Emma’s presentation at CoNGO up on the blog tomorrow!

April 9, 2014

April 9, 2014

15 Comments

Posted in Autism, Education, New York City

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“How Did You Learn To Read?”

Posted on March 20, 2014 by | 29 comments

A few days ago someone asked Emma, “How did you learn to read and spell?”  Last night, in response to this question Emma wrote, “I learned by watching the words my mom read to me.”  She went on to write, “I was able to read many years ago and could write, but didn’t have any way to show it.”

I asked, “Were you able to read as a very little girl?”

Emma wrote, “Yes.”

“As a toddler?”

“Yes,” Emma wrote again.

What is interesting about this is that for years, when Emma was very young, I assumed she didn’t like being read to because when I tried she would grab the book, insist on flipping the pages faster than I could read them, and generally seemed (to me) uninterested.  But from what she wrote last night, it suggests I was incorrect about these early assumptions or at least was partly incorrect.  I am no longer shocked by all that I didn’t understand.  It no longer surprises me to find out, even now, how wrong I was and continue to be about so much when it comes to my daughter.

Because Emma did not sit quietly while I read to her, I thought she didn’t like being read to.  Because Emma preferred holding the book and would turn the page before I had time to finish reading the words I assumed she wasn’t interested in the story.  Because Emma protested if I tried to take the book from her to continue reading, I assumed she wanted to be left alone.  Because Emma seemed distracted while I read, I believed she didn’t like the story, didn’t care for the book, didn’t like books in general.

How would I have viewed her various therapies, preschool, and later grade school, had we understood that she already knew how to read at such a young age?  Our decisions on how to proceed, our opinions regarding what others told us, so matter-of-fact, so sure of themselves… who knew how wrong they all were?   How wrong we were?

People say things like – parents know their child better than anyone.  In our case no one knew our child better than anyone.  We didn’t.  All those therapists who worked with Emma didn’t.  All her teachers, everyone who came in contact with her, not a single person during those early years ever said, “I’m guessing she already knows how to read” or “maybe she already knows, but we haven’t found a way to help her show us all she knows.”  Emma’s need to move, her inability to consistently say out loud what she intends, her deep need for sensory input, her attempts to regulate herself, none of that was understood by anyone, including us.

Had we not begun to find ways for Emma to communicate through the written word, had we insisted on her “speaking,” we would continue to be in the dark. All the things emphasized in  school for a child like Emma who is physically capable of articulating words made us believe spoken language was what we needed to concentrate on.  What we are seeing is that the less we focus on her speaking and the more we focus on her writing, the more she is speaking.

“Hey Em, do you want to put the smaller string in your backpack, just so you have it?” I asked as we headed down to meet her school bus this morning.

“N” “O” Emma said, as she bounded toward the elevator.

A self portrait in the making

A self portrait in the making

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Posted in Autism, communication, reading

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“Talking is Easy, But Saying What I Mean is Hard”

Posted on March 7, 2014 by | 25 comments

Most of us, who have spent our lives using spoken language as a way to socialize and convey what we are thinking, do not ponder what it would be like if we could not do so.  Most of us who are able to speak do not spend time imagining what it would be like if we could speak, but what came out of our mouths did not necessarily match what was in our minds, or wasn’t what we wanted to say, or was taken to mean something else.  For those of us who speak and have little difficulty having a conversation with another it is difficult to imagine what it might be like if we could not speak at all.  We easily tune out our environment allowing us to focus on what is being said by another person.  Asking questions comes naturally, and without thinking we ask for clarification about things we don’t understand or want to know more about.  When we cannot hear something or lose part of a sentence spoken by another, we ask to have the part we didn’t hear repeated, or request that it be said in a different way.  And even so people misunderstand each other all the time.

But what if we could speak only a little and those hard-earned words we finally managed to say were met with confusion, irritation, even anger and led to misunderstandings.  Or what if speaking words was so difficult it was easier to utter sentences constructed by others, sentences that held special meaning to us because it reminded us of a happy or sad or anxious or frightening time. Whenever one of those emotions surfaced, we would blurt out that sentence from the past, because it so beautifully captured what we were feeling now.  Maybe though, other people who did not understand or know the meaning they held for us, took them to mean something entirely different.

A blogger friend, E. of the fabulous blog The Third Glance wrote an amazing piece, Words, a couple of years ago about trying to participate in a conversation with a group of friends.  I’ve never forgotten that post, it was one of a number of posts that radically changed my thinking.  You can read it by clicking ‘here‘.  She describes wanting to keep up with a conversation that a group of people she knows is having in a busy place, while trying to filter out the noise that comes with being in a public place, the stress of trying to figure out when it would be appropriate to interject a comment, the pressure of knowing some sort of response is expected of her, and not being successful.

Yesterday Emma wrote, “Talking is easy, but saying what I mean is hard.”  I understand that when she wrote that, she meant it literally.  Emma “has language” yet cannot carry on a spoken conversation.  Emma cannot answer with spoken words questions like, “What did you do in school today?”  Or “What did you think of that movie?”  Or “Which student in your class do you like best?”  Or “What’s your favorite subject?”  Or even “What are the names of the other students in your class?” or “Where do we go to borrow books?”  As a result all those so-called reading comprehension questions are met with silence, or with words that seem to have nothing to do with the question asked.

The other person then draws the conclusion that Emma does not understand the question, or cannot read, or isn’t interested, or doesn’t care or is intellectually disabled, impaired, has a disorder, a disease, is afflicted, suffers from, is a puzzle piece, is locked in her own world or any other word or phrase used to convey what we believe to be true because of our understanding of her and those like her based upon what she can or cannot say with spoken words.  This is the same girl who wrote, ““I can’t talk the way I think.  Where is the label for that?”  The same person who eloquently answered questions about functioning labels, stimming and autism, ‘here‘, ‘here‘, and ‘here‘.

“Talking is easy, but saying what I mean is hard.”

Emma Playing the "My Mouth is Glued Shut" Game

Emma Playing the “My Mouth is Glued Shut” Game

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Posted in Autism, communication, language

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Changing Our Thinking

Posted on October 1, 2013 by | 25 comments

I asked Emma for her permission to talk about language retrieval issues, and specifically to describe some of what occurred during her first session with Soma last week.  She said it was okay for me to do so.  I’m incredibly grateful to my daughter for being so generous with what is personal information.  She has given me her permission, but to leave it at that, would be wrong.  To not acknowledge what this means would be negligent at best.  She is unbelievably generous to allow me to share these things.  I do not know how many of us would be willing for another to share such personal things about ourselves, and the trust she has bestowed upon me, the trust that I will not betray her…  it is something I not only take very seriously, but need to acknowledge.  To say I am grateful does not come close to describing the feelings of appreciation and awe my daughter inspires.  If all human beings could take a page from Emma, both in her cheerful generosity in giving of herself so that others might benefit and her compassion and willingness to see the best in people, even when so many have said and done cruel things to her, this world would be a far better place for all of us.

I wrote about Emma’s first session with Soma ‘here‘.  What I didn’t write about was how after Emma pointed to a letter she was encouraged to say the name of the letter, just as her Proloquo2Go program does on her iPad.  She was able to do so without hesitation.  But when Soma put the stencil board down and asked Emma to say the next letter of the word she was writing, without pointing to it first, Emma would, more often than not, say a random letter.  Soma then picked up the stencil board and again without hesitation, Emma pointed to the correct letter and was able to identify it correctly out loud.  After Emma wrote a sentence she was invited to read the sentence aloud, but could not do so.  This is a sentence she’d just written, one letter at a time.  A sentence she’d created, yet was not able to read.  It is not then surprising that Emma is unable to read a random story out loud, even though she is perfectly capable of reading it silently to herself and fully comprehending it.  See related post about reading aloud, ‘here‘.

To see this broken down, to witness this at the level of single letter retrieval and not a whole word even, made it all even clearer to me.   Which isn’t to say that Emma will never be able to do this.  Perhaps at another point, perhaps once she is proficient in writing her thoughts and identifying a letter after pointing to it, one letter at a time, she will then be able to work slowly, patiently and without the anxiety of feeling expectations are being placed on her, perhaps then she will be able to come up with the next letter before she points to it and from there the next word and on it goes until verbal language can catch up to her written.  But for now, it is imperative that every single person who comes into contact with my daughter understand how detrimental it is for her to have these expectations placed on her and then to have the inevitable conclusions drawn about her comprehension and ability.

My daughter is nothing short of brilliant.  I am not saying this as a biased mother who is basing her thoughts on nothing more than some sort of convoluted tip of the hat to genetics, or a round about way of bolstering my own ego and intellect.  I am saying this because I have seen the evidence.  Since her diagnosis, Emma has been treated as though she were intellectually impaired when, in fact, she is intellectually gifted.  This is, I’m sorry to say, something I am hearing from others.  We have a growing population of children and people who are treated as though they are incapable, when in countless cases the opposite is true.  The onus is on us to change our current teaching methods and the therapies we are employing and to open our minds to the idea that we have gone about this all wrong.  This is what must change.

Soma & Em copy

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, Soma Mukhopadhyay

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Language Acquisition?

Posted on September 20, 2013 by | 44 comments

Yesterday I wrote about some of the problems inherent in asking children to read out loud.  You can read that post ‘here‘.  The comments have been uniformly terrific, extremely informative, and very helpful.  Ischemgeek wrote several comments that I’ve actually printed out and even copied and pasted into emails to a few teachers I know.  She wrote a terrific explanation and series of suggestions in answer to a question I posed asking for her thoughts regarding handwriting.  My question to her was slightly off topic from the original post, but if you read the comments you’ll see how the conversation evolved.

Another comment, from bjforshaw, reminded me of how when Emma was a baby she seemed to acquire two or even three word phrases (“chase me”, “go out”, “all done”, “play catch” “I donwannta”)  as opposed to individual words.  Bjforshaw wrote, “I dislike reading aloud because it is so different from the way I normally read and this makes it feel uncomfortable. My usual reading speed is fast, much faster than my speech, and I scan phrases, groups of words, even whole sentences. In contrast when I read aloud I have to plod along one word at a time.”

When I read his comment I had one of those “light bulb” moments.  You know, where you think – wow!  This reminds me of this other, seemingly unrelated thing, I wonder if there’s a relationship?  So I went to the internet to see if I could find any articles on the topic of language acquisition, but haven’t found any dealing with babies learning whole phrases and chunks of words at a time.  Not only have I not been able to find any articles written on this topic, but I cannot find many articles written about language acquisition and autism, specifically, that aren’t more than ten years old, which I find baffling. If anyone has relevant links, please send.

I have no idea if, for some, language learning is similar to the way bjforshaw describes his ability to read, but I’m curious now.  Could it be similar?  Has anyone heard or read anything about this?  For those of you who read in chunks and not the individual word, do you know or remember whether you also learned to speak this way?  In other words instead of learning one word and then building upon that word, did you learn a phrase or several words together?  Could this also then be related to scripts? I’m thinking out loud here, but I’m wondering if scripts are meaningful because they are learned chunks of language that come to represent more than the literal interpretation given by those listening. Do the scripts carry more (hidden) meanings to the person saying them?

Thanks again to all who have commented, and to those who intend to, thank you in advance.

Em types for an audience in Tampa, April 2013Em types with Pascal

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Posted in Autism, language, Parenting

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The Pitfalls of Reading Out Loud

Posted on September 19, 2013 by | 89 comments

When Rosemary Crossley was here she spent several hours working with my daughter.  One of the many discoveries we made was that Emma can and does read very quickly, but if asked to read out loud, she will stumble and get so caught up in pronunciation I question whether she is able to comprehend what she’s reading at all.  I know I have trouble following the story.  Yet most schools ask children to read out loud, both as a way to assess what they are capable of, and also to make sure they are at the correct reading level.  If a child reads a first grade reader out loud with great difficulty, the impulse is to make the reading material simpler.  Except that if this is done with my daughter she will be stuck reading kindergarten and beginning level reading books for the foreseeable future.

I know Emma is able to read much more complicated texts than beginning readers.  I know this because I have seen her read with Rosemary and me very quickly.  I have witnessed her ability to read, not only faster than I can, but her ability to accurately answer multiple choice questions related to the text with ease when  given some resistance.  In other words, if she is asked to wait a beat, instead of being allowed to immediately point to an answer, her accuracy goes way up.  Without the pause she is just as likely to randomly pick any answer.  From Rosemary Crossley’s book, Speechless, “The resistance I provided slowed her down very substantially, and the quality of her output increased as her speed fell.  I gave Jan a picture of a cow and asked her to write me a sentence about it.  Instead she typed, THIS TYPING IS HARD.  I HAVE TO THINK.  That was, of course, the aim of the exercise.”

This idea of providing resistance is a tricky one to explain to people.  I have had some people say they just cannot understand why this would be necessary.  The only way I know of to better explain, is by comparing it to the way many, who are like my daughter, will perseverate on a word, or will rely on favorite scripts.  It is not that these scripts have no meaning, it is more that they are often difficult for others to understand.  If I hand Emma her iPad and ask her to type me a story, she will most likely write something like, “rollercoaster, kiteflyer, greenride, hurricane harbor, waterslide” which is also in keeping with what she might say out loud.

These words are powerful to her, they hold a great deal of meaning, but to most people, they are seen as gibberish.  If this then is used to assess her capabilities she will not be well served.  However if I ask her to type me a story and then hold one end of a rod while she holds the other end with her typing hand and types with one finger while I pull her hand back after each letter is typed, she might type, ““One day there was a boy called george. He had been in afight can’t tell you how he got into the fight but he was bruised all over.  He fought a lot and his teacher was very angry.  The next day he was all purple and his mother said you can’t go to school looking like that.  The very clever boy covered himself in flower and his teacher thought he was sick and sent him home.  The end.”  

Incidentally, that story is one Emma wrote when Rosemary was here working with her and is typical of the sorts of things she can and does type when given the kind of resistance I’ve described.  (You can read the entire post I wrote about her session with Rosie, ‘here‘.)  However, ask Emma to read out loud a story similar to the one she typed and she will have a great deal of trouble.  What she is capable of is far greater than what one might assume from what she verbalizes, whether that means reading out loud or with spontaneous speech.  Ask Emma to sing the lyrics of a song, in Greek no less, and she will get much of it right, but that’s a whole other post.

But how does one convince others that this is so?  Particularly when many are trained and told that reading out loud is a good indicator of ability.  There is surprisingly little written on the topic of the problems with reading out loud for those who have spoken language and word retrieval issues.  Again, in Rosemary Crossley’s book, Speechless, she writes, “her reading aloud was bedeviled by the same word-finding problems which affected her spontaneous speech, preventing her reading with any fluency.”

Obviously there needs to be more written about all of this.  The closest I have found, other than Rosemary’s book, Speechless, is a blog, The Right Side of Normal,  that concentrates on “right brained children”.  And on that blog, this post specifically, Silent Reading versus Reading Aloud, which deals with, at least some of what I’m discussing here. If others know of other resources discussing any of this, please do leave me links in the comments section.

Rosemarie Crossley

Rosie

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, reading

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Watch Emma Fly!

Posted on April 26, 2013 by | 33 comments

Years ago Richard and I went to hear Temple Grandin speak (this was before the documentary about her had been made).  She had slides and gave a terrific talk about what it was like growing up as an Autistic child in a not autistic friendly world.  After the talk she went into the front entrance of the auditorium where she sat near a table displaying her latest book.  I went over to tell her how much I enjoyed reading her two previous books and to ask her if she had any suggestions for me regarding Emma’s inability to stay seated when on an airplane  prior to take off and again once we landed.  (This was something Em had a terrible time dealing with and would get a look of abject panic, before launching into a high volumed scream that had all the passengers covering their ears.  We were pretty desperate to find some way to help her cope.)

Temple said she was pretty sure there were sensory issues at work and gave some suggestions of things we might do to mitigate those.  I remember thinking that Temple in no way resembled my daughter and then made the assumption that Temple must have been far more able when she was my daughter’s age than my daughter currently was.  Whether this is actually true or not is something I cannot know, but a version of this thought process on my part is one I’ve repeated over the years on more than a few occasions.  So desperate to quell my fears and worries I have sought to find my daughter’s adult replica.  I have made the mistake of comparing an adult, possibly an adult who is now even in their 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s, and then drawn conclusions about what I imagine they were like when they were my daughter’s age.

Comparing Em to any adult has proven to be unhelpful to me, to my daughter and, I imagine to the person I am comparing her to, if they were aware I was doing it.  In addition, comparing a child to an adult is never going to give an accurate view of anything, there are too many variables involved.  And this kind of thinking completely ignores the fact that all human beings progress, evolve and change.  This is an obvious statement when applied to a non autistic child, but somehow I came to believe that my Autistic child was different.  I worried she would not progress.  I worried she would not be able to learn.  I worried because, in part anyway, we were given information about our Autistic child that has been proven to be not true.  We were given information that was in direct contrast to presuming competence.  Just as Emma no longer suffers when traveling in an airplane, she also now reads and writes and has, as of three days ago, mastered the complicated skill of a “catch” at her trapeze school.

Excuse me while I jump up and down while wiping away my tears of joy.  Emma wasn’t able to do a catch upon her first try or second or even third.  Em has been going to trapeze school for more than two years.  She also goes to gymnastics once a week where she has been working hard for almost three years strengthening her core muscles.  In the last month she is now able to do a cartwheel.  Emma began learning to type two and a half years ago.  She practices every day.  She practices reading too.  She practices and works really hard.  None of this has come easily or automatically, there is no “magic” involved, unless magic means being given the opportunity to work toward her strengths, to learn and practice and the belief that she can and will succeed.  Watch that video again, because all her hard work is paying off.  Watch Emma fly!

Bungee jumping barefoot – December 2012

photo

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Posted in Autism, Parenting, presume competence

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A Typed Conversation With My Daughter

Posted on October 24, 2012 by | 24 comments

This is the typed “conversation” I had with Emma last night inspired by the wonderful comments left here yesterday.  This was done with very little talking.  Emma’s replies are in italics.

“Hi Emma.  I know one of your favorite songs is “Beat it”.  What other songs do you like?

Emma likes Fireworks.  Emma likes to go swimming.

Hey!  Did you go swimming today?

Yes, it cold go swimming.

Emma, was the water cold or was the air outside cold or both?

 Both cold outside.

It is cold outside now because it is fall.  I like the fall when the air gets colder.  Do you like the fall too?

 Yes, I do like the fall too.

What do you want to do this weekend?

 I want to have a weekend with Jackie at the Vanderbilt wiyemseeay.  And go swimming.”

This was HUGE for Emma and me.  Rereading it now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t ask better questions and follow her lead more instead of directing the conversation.  For example I wish I’d spent more time talking to her about swimming instead of going off about the seasons, which were of little if any interest to her.  I could have asked her a great many questions about the pool and swimming and the water temperature, but didn’t.  I was so surprised when she wrote, “Yes, it cold go swimming.”  I literally laughed out loud when she wrote that, because this is just huge for her to introduce a new thought, to volunteer new information when typing together.  Excitement doesn’t really sum up what I felt.  I was ecstatic!

Emma kept trying to read my typed words out loud, but I reminded her to read silently.  I made a huge number of mistakes while having this conversation with her.  I corrected her spelling a couple of times, and wished I hadn’t.  I never know whether it’s best to let her spell things and go over the spelling later, separately or whether its better to correct it right away or better to leave it alone.  I wanted her to feel encouraged, supported and cheered on, not criticized.  So that’s something I am still questioning.  I also get so excited when she says anything off the grid, I get overwhelmed and can’t think what to say other than – “OMG you just introduced a new topic and I’m so excited!!”  Maybe I can learn to relax a little and go with it a bit more.  I am also aware that my excitement is an example of my NOT assuming competence or rather it is me feeling euphoric that Em shows her vast intelligence in a way that my NT brain can grasp.  I really want to learn how to move away from that limited thinking on my part.

When Emma was diagnosed with autism I remember that first day when all the therapists came to our home to work with her.  I’d done my homework, read all the materials the agency provided me with and then some.  Yet, I remember how everything was “dumbed down”.  Things that I knew she knew were treated as though she didn’t know them.  Really simple things were suddenly a huge deal if she indicated she knew them.  I remember vividly my confusion.  I began to doubt everything I thought I knew or assumed about Emma.  I completely capitulated to some set idea about my daughter given by a group of people who had never met her but made assumptions based on a single word – Autistic.

I’m old enough and have enough humility to admit I don’t know what I’m doing a great deal of the time.  This is not a popular statement in our culture of bullshit reigning supreme, even if it’s all a lie, even if it means people who know almost nothing about a given topic, but who claim “expertise” are suddenly seen as having something sensible to say.  The art of bullshit has become a well honed skill by about the age of ten these days.  It’s amazing how quickly children learn to adopt it.  Add a little chutzpah and you’ve got a kid who will go far in this world of ours without being particularly knowledgable in anything.

However, the art of bullshit requires a couple of things –  a massive dose of ego and an ability to lie.  My daughter Emma has neither of these.  Still, I am feeling confident she will do well in this crazy world of ours.

The ongoing construction of the Freedom Tower

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Reading and Reading Comprehension

Posted on October 23, 2012 by | 59 comments

Emma’s teacher and I have been brainstorming new ways to increase Emma’s reading comprehension.  We have tried the standard reading comprehension questions, which, as my friend Ibby pointed out, are typically filled with inconsistencies and problems.  We’ve tried the more standard reading comprehension questions such as a story about a boy named Peter who takes a taxi to the airport.  He gets on an airplane, buckles his seat belt and the plane takes off.  The questions are then, “Who took a taxi?” The answer, obviously is Peter took a taxi.  But the second question, “Where was he going?” is tougher to answer because we aren’t given the destination other than he took a taxi to the airplane and that isn’t actually accurate as he took the taxi to the airport, but the airport isn’t part of the story.  It tells us he took a taxi and then got onto the airplane where he buckled his seat belt, so Emma answered, “Going to visit Granma in Aspen!”  And while this isn’t the answer the creators of the questions were presumably looking for, it demonstrates that Emma certainly understands what the story is about and she is adding her own personal experience to the gaping holes the story provides.  In addition, the story has been dumbed down so completely, if we are “presuming competence” then Emma must be going out of her mind with boredom.

So this is the question I come up against almost constantly – how do we make the material interesting and engaging, but not so difficult it becomes frustrating.  How do we set Emma up to succeed and not fail without boring her?  How do we deal with her resistance to reading and writing?  I’ve made some headway by trying to do some playacting and using some of her favorite songs, but reading itself remains difficult for Em and she certainly doesn’t enjoy it.  Maybe I am making it too complicated. Maybe I’m over-thinking the whole thing.  Maybe it’s better to just present reading material and have her read it silently.  Then type questions that she types the answers to.  Maybe having her read aloud is causing problems.

What I am seeing over and over is that when she has trouble with a text we make the text easier, but I don’t believe that’s the answer.  I’m not sure making it “simpler” is better.  My biggest challenge with all of this is that this is not my area of expertise and I have no idea how to proceed.  Emma’s teacher continues to try different things, but we haven’t found anything that seems to captivate, motivate or particularly interest her.  I have to think about this more.  I’ve printed out some of her favorite song lyrics, but there were too many words she couldn’t read and so much slang, I quickly abandoned the idea.  I need to find reading material that isn’t so easy it’s boring and not so difficult it makes her frustrated.  Looking back  over the past year, I can see how well she was doing and how so much of that progress has stopped.  I need to revisit those earlier concepts and see if I can find material that will pick up where we left off.

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Fear = Feel Everything And Remain

Posted on April 20, 2012 by | 8 comments

Fear.  It creeps up on me, seemingly without warning.  Sometimes I get hit with it while brushing my teeth or waiting with my son, Nic, for his school bus or when I am walking to my studio.  Like a person suddenly appearing in front of me, it startles me every time.

There are phrases using fear as an acronym, such as:  F*ck Everything And Run, or False Evidence Appearing Real, or Failure Expected And Received, or Frantic Effort to Appear Real.  I like some of those, but the thing that I’ve found helps the most is to admit I’m feeling fearful out loud.  To “out” it.  To not allow it to sit, twisting and turning in my gut, while pretending it isn’t there.  Pretending it isn’t there rarely helps.  On the other hand, allowing myself to go into intricate detail about it often makes it worse, like feeding a dragon, or adding fuel to a fire, (pick a cliche) so it seems there’s a balance needed.  Feeling the fear, acknowledging it, and then trying to trudge along anyway, or do as my favorite saying regarding fear – feel the fear and do it anyway.  The “it” is often a moving target, particularly as this morning’s fear is all around future thinking involving Emma.

Which leads me to the two most detrimental things that lead me to despair faster than anything else when it comes to my daughter – future thinking and comparing her to others.  Compare and despair, they say.  Deadly.  It is deadly and it doesn’t matter whether I am comparing her to another autistic child or a neuro-typical, it is deadly.  I try to cut that one off at the pass.  If I see it coming I try to turn my back.  “Don’t go there,” I tell myself.  Sometimes it’s impossible, large gatherings with other children are the worst and sometimes it’s impossible  to avoid.  Sometimes I have to sit and hope it just washes over me and leaves.  I hope there will only be a few waves of it.  I hope I’ll be able to stay upright.  I hope that I’ll be strong enough not to cave under the weight.

That’s the thing about fear, it can be so all encompassing, so random, so…  sprawling.

Make a list.  This is an action step I take when I feel as though I can’t breathe.  Make a list.  Prioritize.  What needs to be done?  This past month I have not been as diligent with Emma’s “study room” and she has not been progressing as rapidly as she had been, so I’ll need to figure out how to manage my time better to get back to that.  Emma’s literacy program is one that continues to fill me with hope and gives me energy.  Seeing her progress with her reading and writing has been the single most helpful thing in keeping the fear at bay.  When Emma was stalled out, not moving forward, those were the darkest times.  As long as she continues to progress, her self-portrait, her letter, her writing about going to the zoo, are examples and the things I cling to like so many scraps of wood in the middle of an ocean of fear.  Just keep my head above the water, just hold on, keep treading, keep breathing, it will be okay.  It will be okay.

Make a list.  Check.

Don’t pretend I’m not feeling the fear.  Out it.  Check.

Feel it.  Check.

Keep moving forward.  Check.

I know these things won’t remove the fear, I know they won’t completely eradicate it, but they are the things I know to do that will help, even if not in this next moment, but in the next few hours, the next few days, the fear will dissipate.  It always does.  Take a deep breath.

FEAR = Feel Everything And Remain

To read my most recent Huffington Post, click ‘here.’

To read my guest post on Special Needs.com, click ‘here‘

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Bedtime Stories, Memories and Love

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | 4 comments

Almost every night after Emma has brushed her teeth and flossed, she will find me and say a version of – “Mommy time to read stories now.”  Last night I found her in her bed.  I stood in the doorway and waited to see if she would say anything.  “Mommy read stories?”  she said.

“Em, do you like The Wind in the Willows?  Or should we find something else to read?”

“I like Wind Wills,” she answered.

So I picked up from where we’d left off the night before and began reading about Mole, who having smelled his old home returns to it with Rat accompanying him, despite the fact that it’s late and a snow storm is threatening.

Emma nestled against me, as she almost always does, with her head on my shoulder, sucking her thumb, about thirty tiny shreds of what was once a down stroller blanket strewn about her neck.  The Wind in the Willows, for those not familiar with it was published in 1908.  The lyrical language tells a beautiful story about four friends – Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger – and their various adventures along the Thames river.  I don’t ask Emma questions about the stories I read to her during bedtime.  I don’t want her to have to work.  I want her to feel no pressure.  I have no idea what she takes in or even understands, the only thing I know is that she enjoys being read to, just as I did when I was young.

My mother read to my sister and me Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, My Family and Other Animals, while my father could be heard reading to my brothers in the living room, such tales as The Three Musketeers, King Arthur and other stories involving sword fighting and adventure.  I much preferred the stories my mother read and would lay my head on her shoulder, just as Emma does with me.

I used to pause occasionally and make a comment such as, “Oh I wonder what Ramona will do.  She seems sad that her Mom has to work and isn’t home when she gets home from school.”  Emma usually said nothing or if I lingered for too long, would say, impatiently, “Keep reading.”  or “Don’t stop.”

Being read to still conjures up fond memories of snuggling in my parents bed with my mother and sister, sometimes falling asleep, other times, listening to the antics of various animals and characters while feeling safe and loved.  I can only hope I am providing Emma with similar memories.

To read my most recent Huffington Post, click ‘here.’

To read my guest post on Special Needs.com, click ‘here‘

 

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Teaching a Name

Posted on February 9, 2012 by | 3 comments

When Emma was a year old, in a moment of impatience we bought her a baby doll for Christmas.  Despite the fact she showed no interest in dolls of any kind, despite the fact she showed little interest in any of the toys we tried to entice her with.  Emma was much more of a doer than a child who sat happily playing with a toy.  This was a kid who liked to move.  Take her to the playground and she made the other kids look lethargic.  I admit, I took a certain degree of pride in her rejection of all toys and her desire to move and run and slide instead.  Emma’s disinterest reminded me of my father who shunned all holidays, grousing that they no longer celebrated what they were intended to, but instead fed the insatiable Hallmark Greeting Card’s appetite for cheap sentimentality and  had become a financial boon for ad agencies.  His grumpiness about it all, increased with his age.   Emma’s resolute rejection of all toys, her disinterest in videos, movies, and anything else that required her to sit still, would have made my father proud.

The baby doll we purchased was pudgy, with blonde pigtails, and came with a little toilet, hairbrush, mirror, bathrobe and towel.  All that was missing was a mani/pedi kit and perhaps some massage oil.  I bought a couple of little playsuits for the doll and wrapped everything up in pretty paper with a big satin ribbon.  We had to help Emma as she showed no enthusiasm in her gifts piled under the Christmas tree.  She begrudgingly humored us by tearing open the present, but showed no excitement, it was as though it were a chore,  something that was expected of her.  When she saw the baby doll, securely fastened in it’s box with a clear window so that she could see it, but not actually reach it, she lost all interest and wandered off.  “Emma, look!  It’s your very own baby doll!”  I exclaimed.  “What are you going to call her?”  Being ignored during those early years was something we had grown used to.  Still, I persisted, carrying the baby doll over to her, I said, “What’s her name?”  Emma refused to look at me or the baby doll.

Years later, during out DIR (Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-based Model, also known as floortime) phase, the baby doll, now joined by a number of other baby dolls, groovy girls, Jessy and Woody from the Toy Story, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, each one evidence of our ignorance and dogged determination to engage her in the world of make believe, lay untouched in a pink plastic bin near her bed.  In a moment of inspiration I yanked the baby doll from its bin and thrusting it in Emma’s face, asked, “Oh look Em!  What’s her name?”  Emma said nothing, but I persisted.  “What do you call her, Em?”  And then Emma spoke.  “Doll,” she said.  “Yes, but what will you call her?”  I was nothing, if not determined.  “Is her name, Tabitha or Katherine, Anastasia, Cynthia?  What’s her name, Em?”  The idea that naming something was not a concept Emma fully grasped, never occurred to me.  When Emma then repeated the names I was throwing out, I eventually gave up and as I was leaving, Emma said, simply, “Doll.”

And of course, she was right.  It was a doll.  To Emma that was all she was.  A doll.  For a child with little or no ability to understand the world of make believe, the idea of naming a doll, must have seemed bizarre.  Why would one do that?

Last weekend, at Barnes & Noble, I showed Emma a book called Biscuit, a beginning reader book.  Emma took the book from me, sat down on the carpet and pointed to the first word.  “Biscuit, that word says Biscuit.  That’s the dog’s name,” I said.  Emma nodded and continued to read the book, stumbling over a couple of unknown words, but for the most part being able to get through it with little help from me.  As I sat with her I remembered her baby doll and it occurred to me, she does not fully understand the concept of naming.  It is something I will attempt to teach her this weekend.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:  Emma’s Hope Book.com

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Emma’s Story

Posted on November 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

This is the story Emma made up and wrote this morning before she went to school.

I had to give her support a couple of times when she would say a word, such as “the” or “to” but then would forget to actually write it and wrote the next word (always a noun or verb) instead.  According to Dr. Marion Blank, the woman who created the literacy program we have been using with Emma for the past nine months, children on the spectrum dislike non-content words.

Emma then took her story over to her dad and read it to him!

We first met Dr. Blank almost a year ago now.  Before that first meeting we both read her book “The Reading Remedy” and were impressed by it.  In January of 2011 we began implementing her program with Emma.  During those first few months we worked on the beginning of letter formations and sequencing.  In April Emma was able to form all the letters of the alphabet and we began the first level of the literacy program.  Over the last seven months Dr. Blank has added other elements to the program, specifically designed for Emma so that we now are working on a spoken language program in conjunction with the literacy piece as well as the Phonics Plus Five and Reading Kingdom programs.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:   www.Emma’s Hope Book.com

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Autism’s Murky Future

Posted on September 19, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Yesterday the New York Times ran a front page piece entitled – Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World.  I am always so grateful when I see anything on autism, even when I am not told anything I don’t already know.  I am particularly grateful when I see something on autism on the front page of the New York Times.  For those of us who are parents of a child with autism, the looming question of what will happen when our child becomes an adult is something we do not have the luxury to ignore.  Yet, the answer is not readily available to us, either.  There is no road map by which we can look to.  The future of our children is very much up in the air.  It is a tricky balance keeping the fear at bay, while also being practical and realistic about ones child’s future and how we might ensure she is taken care of should she not be able to hold down a job and live independently.

My message of hope on The Hope Installation at the entrance to the High Line

The truth is we cannot know what Emma will be like in another eight years, all we can do is continue to work as intensely and extensively with her as we currently are.

So this evening when I come home from work, I will work on the word – does.  After we spend an hour or so going over the word, both using it in hand written sentences and as well as typing sentences with it, we will also use the word verbally as when I lay out a frog, a boy, a bus and a dog and say, “Hand me the one who does not eat.”  After we have done all of that we will play some games using the word “does” and finally we will go over a list of words she has already learned and review them.  Somewhere during all of this – dinner will be prepared, Nic’s homework will get done, stories will be read and everyone will eventually go to bed.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:  www.EmmasHopeBook.com

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