My DS who is 21 years now was diagnosed as HFA at younger age. Along with inattention, the biggest issue that had been is obsessive thinking and emotional rigidity. All the other issues like lack of social skills do exist. He was growing up despite the autism but since the teen years things had been going downhill continuously with no hope in sight.
One of the issues is his thinking that whatever he is doing he is not doing the correct way. He thinks there are better ways to do things and so far he is not able to share his right way of doing things even for a single item. He has no concrete thoughts how to do things right way but just some mental thought that there could be better ways to do things. Two examples of these are below.
He has some reading skill but whenever we ask him to read something he will say we are doing it wrong. He says may be we should be reading from right to left and bottom to top. We are talking here about English script not other languages. Another one is he won’t do the brush saying may be he is doing the wrong way. The therapists and parents have spent countless hours trying to explain various ways but willingness to not agree is too much.
The question I have does any other member of this website had been thru this type of issue? If yes were you able to come out of this and how. TIA, Raky
It would be tempting to put his dinner on the table with no knife, fork, or spoon. You could then tell him that there are many ways do dine, some better than others. If he is hungry, he may go ahead and eat using his fingers (the wrong way). The lesson to be drawn from this is that doing somethings the “wrong” way can still be better than doing nothing.
However, it sounds like this has little to do with the purported reason (right / wrong). It seems more a matter of control. The ability to exercise control over something can provide a momentary refuge from anxiety. It can be confusing for the parent because discussing the stated reasoning seldom yields any useful results.
It might yield better results to focus on helping him develop some skill in identifying his anxieties and developing management tactics with which he can more directly resolve or reduce them.
Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Age: 76 Gender: Male Posts: 9,259 Location: Indiana
11 Sep 2018, 10:02 pm
raky wrote:
He has some reading skill but whenever we ask him to read something he will say we are doing it wrong. He says maybe we should be reading from right to left and bottom to top. Raky
That is a strange trait. How is his comprehension when he reads the way he likes?
When I entered high school, I was a poor reader. I was extremely slow and had poor comprehension. It was almost like I lost the train of thought by the middle of the paragraph so I would have to start over again. I guess the teachers noticed this and put me into a type of special class. It was a type of speed reading class. They would flash a paragraph or two on the screen for a few seconds and then measure my comprehension. Then they taught me tools to maximize my comprehension. Such as focusing on key words.
I know the next year reading was not a problem. But I do not know if it was because of the class or if it was because I found something I really enjoyed reading "The Hardy Boys" books.
Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Age: 76 Gender: Male Posts: 9,259 Location: Indiana
11 Sep 2018, 10:11 pm
There are different types of Aspies. I am a pattern thinker. But I wonder if your son is a visual thinker. If so he is not reading in a linear way but rather he is absorbing the entire page of the book, like one would look at a painting. If so, you might want to read the books written by Temple Grandin. She is a visual thinker. If your son is a visual thinker, her books might give you quite a bit of insight on how his brain works.
Joined: 25 Sep 2014 Age: 61 Gender: Male Posts: 929
13 Sep 2018, 2:51 am
raky wrote:
My DS who is 21 years now was diagnosed as HFA at younger age. ... ... He has some reading skill but whenever we ask him to read something he will say we are doing it wrong. ... ... Another one is he won’t do the brush saying may be he is doing the wrong way. ...
I think if he has only *some* reading skills at 21 years old, that's a major problem, and HFA may not be an appropriate label. Combined with the brushing issue, it is clear that your son is underdeveloped.
Let me tell you a story. My 8 year-old son, until earlier this year, had a ritual on how to get into our family van. Everyone in the back needed to get in, from the passenger side's sliding door. If you accidentally opened the driver's side sliding door, he would get upset. He said, that door was only for exiting. He's had the ritual for like 2 years. We never did much to address this issue. Until one day, I saw him enter the van from the driver side's sliding door. Then I saw it happen again. So, I asked him: "I thought you would only enter from the passenger side, how come you are OK now with entering from the driver side?" He told me: "Because of custom." I followed: "But how come you had a different custom before?" He then told me: "Because I was a baby." He had a big smile on his face when he told me that.
What's the point?
The point is, autism is all about auto-feedback loops inside human brain. If there is something negative, the more you talk about it, the more you try to address it, the less likely you will succeed. Autistic children have a different way of developing. For neurotypical children, we use the "push" method: we push knowledge onto the children. For autistic children, we should use the "pull" method: we start from their personal interests, and guide them into new territories. That way, we ensure that their brains are always being developed.
For instance, I always keep close touch with my son's teachers. Every now and then I would tell them what new inventions my son has made at home. I would include pictures or videos in my e-mail messages. Then, the teachers would talk to my son about it in school, and sometimes ask him to write essays about his inventions. My son had a passion for elevators. For last year's biography project, I let him research about Elisha Otis: the inventor of safety elevators. I even built a model safety elevator, so he could take it to school as a prop for his presentation. In the presentation, I also recorded an elevator safety mechanism that my son has made with Lego blocks.
You are probably confused at this point: what does all this have to do with your son's problems?
Your son's problem is not with reading, or with brushing. His problem is with underdevelopment: not enough connections inside his brain. The problem you need to solve is not reading, or brushing. The problem you need to solve is underdevelopment.
Because, once his brain has developed enough connections, one day, he will start reading and brushing correctly. Just like the case of my son entering the car from the driver side.
*You* are the expert about your son. Nobody else knows about him as well as you do. *You* are the one that needs to figure out what his interests are, and develop him into new-but-related territories. Some general comments are: focus on visual-manual development. If your son's hands are not generating manual output (drawing, writing, object construction, etc.), then that's an alarm that you need to detect. He needs to feel comfortable about other people communicating visual-manually, that means you need to use your hands to communicate with him.
See, recently I have been reading the book about Carly Fleischmann, a non-verbal autistic girl (adult, now). She communicates by typing. But, when she was younger, she refused to type at home for her parents. Do you know why? Because her parents only talked. Carly picked up steam in writing and in developing, only after she was sent to an institution (group home) 4 days a week. Why? Because her father was forced to communicate with Carly by writing e-mail messages. Do you see my point? Carly truly developed, only after her father started to communicate with her, via writing, instead of talking. Now, time cannot be dialed back, right? If Carly's family had started to communicate with her visual-manually early on, Carly today would have been a whole lot more developed than she is now, and my guess is that she wouldn't have developed the OCD that handicaps her today. Her parents, doctors and therapists have made a whole bunch of mistakes. Pumping all kinds of drugs into Carly's body being one major mistake.
Only after your son is a bit more developed, you may want to explore ways of addressing the negative or rigidity issues. The basic idea is always "modulation." Your starting point is always your son's happy moments and his personal interests. Use those fun, happy moments and/or personal interests, then you can modulate in your additional messages for him.
This is the video I made for my son when he was in preschool (3 years old?). He was basically non-verbal back then. I taught him to line up, and not to roll on grass.
Read also this article: http://www.eikonabridge.com/fun_and_facts.pdf and see how you can reach into your son's negative side by leveraging his positive side. Please understand that autism, at its root, is really a trivial issue. There is one and one single tool that you'll ever need: modulation. Yeap, the video above is a perfect example of modulation. From fun drawings, I taught him what to do (lining up) and what not to do (rolling on grass). Oh yeah, my son was able to read all the sentences in the video and much more. Yeap, the video was also teaching him to read, and motivated him to write and draw pictures later. That's what modulation is all about: expanding him into new territories, teaching him knowledge and skills.
I am very thankful to timf, jimmy m,eikonabridge and fluffysaurus for suggestions and feedback.
timf I agree that 'It seems more a matter of control. ' He has the skills to do many things including reading. But since teen age when he became more aware of his disability the things had been going more downhill. Rather accepting and moving on he has been surrendering to the disability.
'jimmy m' Answering 'How is his comprehension when he reads the way he likes?" in the past he had read Harry Potter books and his comprehension is somewhere equivalent 6/7 grade. We understand issue is not missing skill to read, but more of unusual autistic thinking or psychiatric issue. Will look into Temple Grandin books.
eikonabridge Thanks for sharing the car story, video. and push/pull method. We try these ideas but he is kind of smart enough to not co-operate when we or therapist lead him to do something outside his narrow interests.
fluffysaurus He has failed on many things he has tried his own way and pretty much wasted last 3 years doing nothing. Refused to go to any program once local high school graduated him. He had been in the special education section all the time in public school. He even did not allow us to enroll him into special ed school. Saying his siblings went to public school so he should also go there. It is very difficult to nudge him to do the right thing. Too much rigidity. Most of the professionals working with him get frustrated very quickly.
I remember one session with the therapist of my Aspie.... oh, age was around 10ish maybe. Anyway, the therapist just said, "don't try to argue. just don't, it will end in tears." This related to trying to "convince" my Aspie that a certain topic or belief was incorrect or should be more flexible or fluid.... that is not the way that worked well with her.
One method that worked for her was honestly saying it was a rule. It sounds simple in theory, but here is one example where I remember this coming into value for me.
I was driving my aspie to school. She hated school. She looked at me and said, "I don't like school. I don't want to go to school. If I don't like it and I don't want it. I don't know why I have to go." A first inclination might be, "if you want to do well, you need to learn." or whatever it might be. Instead, what I told her was, "well, you see, the government actually has laws in place to protect the growth and education of our children. And, it is under that law that you must attend school and if you didn't attend school you and/or me might get in trouble."
At which point she tilted her head, thought about it and shrugged her shoulders and I never heard another comment like it again.
Of course, the flip-side to that is when she was scheduled for Spanish class. I got a call from the teacher that she was refusing to participate in class, did none of the school work, etc. I asked her what was going on and my little Aspie said, "I am going to class. But I don't want to learn spanish. I don't like it. I much prefer the gutteral languages and want to learn German. I told the teacher I would learn German instead during her class, but the teacher isn't willing to let me."
At which point.... I really had no counter and that was a particular battle that at the end of the day, I didn't worry about. I bought her a german translation book she could look at and I didn't sweat the failing grade in Spanish. There were more important things to focus on than that particular event.
Some rigidity may be from a pattern a parent makes. For example, my dad wants me to respect him, but he does something I see as harmful. Then, he expects me to deal with it because it's his house. In my mind I think, if it's his house and he's doing this, not respecting me or even hearing my thoughts on the matter, than it means that he is saying to me, " I'm not sharing, it's not your house too." So, when he would say good morning and expect something back I wouldn't say it back because of this. He's very stubborn and mean when changing his habits or even his way of doing things on a regular basis to be happy or make others happy. It's all about him is his attitude. That's just an example. I'm not implying anyone here is this way.
09 Sep 2018, 7:50 pm
) talk about how he might achieve the first stages and 
