Communication Block, Please Help...

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cartersmom
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18 Sep 2007, 9:29 pm

This sounds a little to me like a "stimming" activity, like my son used to do with (!) pennies. He would line the pennies up like little soldiers and move them around but if I questioned it, he would just say, "Yeah, playing with the pennies". She is probably just layering and lining up the tissue and thinking her own thoughts and so when she has to explain it, she really can't. She's been in the bathroom, her safe place, and lost in her world a little bit, so trying to explain that is really not possible verbally. Maybe you could give her a little box or basket to put the tissue in, so that she could even "reuse" her sheets or whatever or take them out to be with you. She probably knows TP belongs in the potty, but knows not to play in the potty, so she's been "hiding" the tissue because she's in a quandry. So just help her work through it.
She'll move on soon enough, when she gets more language. The paper will get boring.



siuan
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19 Sep 2007, 1:29 pm

cartersmom wrote:
This sounds a little to me like a "stimming" activity, like my son used to do with (!) pennies. He would line the pennies up like little soldiers and move them around but if I questioned it, he would just say, "Yeah, playing with the pennies". She is probably just layering and lining up the tissue and thinking her own thoughts and so when she has to explain it, she really can't. She's been in the bathroom, her safe place, and lost in her world a little bit, so trying to explain that is really not possible verbally. Maybe you could give her a little box or basket to put the tissue in, so that she could even "reuse" her sheets or whatever or take them out to be with you. She probably knows TP belongs in the potty, but knows not to play in the potty, so she's been "hiding" the tissue because she's in a quandry. So just help her work through it.
She'll move on soon enough, when she gets more language. The paper will get boring.


The bathroom does seem to be her safe place for some reason. She will go in there and stand at the sink and just transfer water from cup to cup for half an hour. Same with the toilet paper, she seems to spend a good half an hour with her squares. Maybe if I just go with it? I like the idea for a box to put her squares in, I bet she'd think that's pretty cool.


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annie2
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20 Sep 2007, 7:45 pm

Regarding communication, I agree about struggling with getting "why" answers. When my son was first diagnosed, I read some stuff about how Aspie's struggle with admitting that they can't explain or don't know something. That was my son to a T. Ask him anything he couldn't explain or didn't know and it would just be met with silence to the extent that I thought he may have had a hearing problem! Once I'd read the info, I started concentrating on teaching him that it was okay to say, "I don't know" to any question that he felt he couldn't answer. From then on, whenever I got the silent treatment, I would just remind him that he could say, "I don't know" and he would usually end up saying that. I don't need to remind him as much now as he has now learnt that it is okay to say that.
Relating that to the toilet paper . . . dunno, but maybe your daughter needs taught the same thing about it being ok to say, "I don't know". It's a perfectly reasonable explanation, and then you can take it from there and teach her that toilet paper either stays on the roll or in the toilet (whatever it is that you're wanting to achieve). Don't know if that is any help. All just ideas in the great melting pot of trial and error of what to do.



Triangular_Trees
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20 Sep 2007, 7:57 pm

Quote:
Regarding communication, I agree about struggling with getting "why" answers. When my son was first diagnosed, I read some stuff about how Aspie's struggle with admitting that they can't explain or don't know something. That was my son to a T. Ask him anything he couldn't explain or didn't know and it would just be met with silence to the extent that I thought he may have had a hearing problem!


I have a little bit of a broader perspective on this because of a conversation I had with my bf's dad yesterday. He's the only person I've ever been able to verbally tell just about anything and everything to in my 25 years of life. The first "why" question he asked me upset me because it forced me to think about the fact I don't have a parent of my own to go to for advice. Something that had been bothering me in the minutes before our phone conversation began. So I just said nothing as I thought the answer to his question and didn't speak until he asked "Are you still there?" Then he asked me if he was upsetting me and I just said "Maybe" because it didn't seem such a simple yes/no question to me, and I didn't think I could answer it without telling him it bothered me that my parents weren't like him.

Then I said something like, "I don't think I want to talk anymore." Meaning I had no intention of ever talking with him again, so he steered the conversation to another topic for a few minutes than went back to the original question. He asked me what he could be doing on an issue that he wasn't already doing. I felt like an answer was expected of me, and I had none, so again I was silent. This time I wasn't upset though. When he pressed a little bit I told him I'd have to spend more tim thinking about it (I was trying to think about it). He then asked if I was embarassed to tell him "I don't know." I wanted to respond to that question with "I don't know." :) He then said it was okay to not have an answer and to say "I don't know." I felt much more comfortable telling him I didn't know, or I wasn't sure, after that