Sunday, May 25, 2008

David and the "Important .5"

David is being home-schooled. He is learning math from an on-line program called, "ALEKS." It's a pretty decent program with a lot of interactive / response code built. For example, if he fails to get a problem right, he will have to practice the problems associated with the concept more times; if he gets it quickly, he will only be required to do 2 exercises. There is an "Explain" option that explains the concept and walks through how to solve the problem.

The issue with David is that he learns the steps and does not always get the "concept." This is where Grandma comes in.

On this particular day, the program wanted David to calculate the surface area of a prism. He wanted to jump right in.

"David, how many sides does this figure have?"
"I don't know," was the immediate, frustrated response.
"Well, let's figure it out."
"One, two, three ..." he started counting, "... four, five, six, seven, eight, nine ..."
"David, don't count the edges [at least, I think that's what he *might* have been doing], count the sides. What shape is the back?"
"A square." [It was a rectangle but he knew that.]
"What shape are the sides?"
"Triangle." Etc.
"So, how many sides are there?"
"Five."
"So to get the area, we add up ..."
"The sides."

Ready to start the problem. He uses the calculator way too much for my liking.

Open paren. '9' '*' '5'
"David, HOW MUCH is 9*5?"
A glance. A momentary lull. "45!" he announced. Backspace, backspace, backspace ... "45" gets typed.

Perhaps I should have let that one go. As he started entering information about the five sides, he had to stop and figure out which sides he's already done. Had he left the "9 * 5" it might have been more obvious.

As he got to the triangular sides, he announced, "... and the .5, that's important."
"What?"
"The .5. You have to use it."
"Why?
"I don't know."
"OK, David, do you remember we talked about this before ... [drawing paper] Suppose we had a triangle with 3", 4" and 5" sides. If we complete a square using the two shorter sides, what is the area of the square?"

(3" * 4") = 12"

"And if we cut it in half with a diagonal line, that forms the traingle. See? That's where the .5 comes from."

Had to repeat it a couple of times, and may have to again. But he gets it. Score one for David (and for Grandma) today.

Harnessing Mikey

This is a follow up to "Mikey Escapes."

A while ago, we bought a harness for a large child. It looks pretty much like the fancier rigs that get used with dogs - the ones that go around the body, not the neck. We hadn't used it. However, my daughter (boys' aunt) and I are planning to take Mikey to a local amusement park in a couple of weeks, and I decided it was time to make sure he *would* wear it.

It took a while to get it on him, and - let's just say I plan to RTFM before putting it back on him.

"Mikey, do you want to go for a walk?"
"Yes."
"OK, you have to wear this harness."

He was very cooperative.

"Do you wear a harness at school?"
"Yes." (I'm not really sure he does - he goes to a special school for autistic kids. They do go on field trips.)

When it was on - still didn't quite feel right, but it was on - we went out the front door. He was actually very cooperative; and, unlike other times on walks when he's get too far ahead, now he simply slowed down when the lead "tugged" on him.

"Right," he said, indicating he wanted to go down the sidewalk.
"Right."
"Left."
"Mikey, what does the light show?"

We were at a street corner. Mikey doesn't "get" lights.

"Push the button, Mikey."
"Left!"
"Yes, Mikey, but first we go to the right to push the button so we can walk."

We did. He is very bright - the next light we came to, when asked to push the button, he did. I am hopefull this will eventually sink in.

"What do you see? Stop? Walk?"

Getting similar attention at a non-stoplight street corner, or by a parking lot driveway, is nearly impossible. But -- as we approached one parking lot driveway, and a car was coming, he did stop and wait. This is a major advance - he doesn't stop if a car is in the distance, but he was apparently aware of them close by.

"Right."
"Straight."
"Mikey, do you want to go to the park?"
"Yes." Quick turn of the head. "Thackerberry Farms!"

Thackerberry Farms is a strawberry stand. It's MILES away - like 3-5 miles.

"OK, Mikey, let's go home. Grandpa will take you to Thackerberry Farms to get strawberries."
"Straight!"
"No, Mikey, let's go back to Grandma's ..."
"Straight! STRAIGHT!"

Tantrum.
Pulling.
Attempt to run - harness is a good thing, and holds up against the struggle.
Drop to the ground.
Screaming.
Tries to get harness off. (Will he resists wearing it again?)
Pounds his head on the ground.
More screaming.
Rolls.
(Quiet voice here, continuously) "Mikey, we are going back to Grandma's house." (Repeat)

OKay, kids, today's lesson is ... the same one we always learn. Or refine: Set expectations with Mikey.

Later in the day, he wanted to go for a walk again. He agreed to the harness.

Grandpa says, "OK, Mikey, we are going to take a walk AROUND THE BLOCK."

Everything goes well and cooperatively. I have high hopes for the amusement park; and yes, we'll try this harness thing again next week in preparation.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Water Balloon Baseball

David is "high-functioning." He and his brother, Mikey, both had the same kind of behavioral therapy; we assume Mikey is more neurologically impacted than David. David is completely verbal - in fact, he "topped out" his latest assessment tests on verbal ability; that is, they can't find his "top." He has been home-schooled since this past Fall; he has completed 6th grade math and is 3/4 of the way through 7th grade math.


David's autistic issues are behavioral - his own, and understanding other peoples'. He has an almost-photographic memory, and can tell you all about a story - but doesn't understand things like irony or motivation. David's world is pure: he has no capacity to understand why someone would be anything but truthful or do anything manipulative.


David lives a lot in his own world. He is not "into" sports at all. However, this weekend, we had a little bit of sports activity.


Near record breaking highs brought us close to 100 degrees F. this weekend. We got out the "pool" - an 18" X 8' pool. Both boys played in it for quite a while. After it was full, I took on the task of creating water balloons. The boys both like water balloons - Mikey loves to make them splat on the ground. He asked for one "untied" - I made him say a whole sentence to get one like that - and he either drinks or squirts the water, but never at other people.


David, OTOH, has learned that they can be tossed at PEOPLE.


Anyhow, David brought a paddle in the pool - it is plastic and came with a ball; it is called a "Sonic Paddle" because it makes a lot of noise when the ball is hit with it. He was sortof "air batting" with it, so I asked him to try to hit a water balloon with it when I tossed it. He did!


He loved this game. He even decided, on his own, that he would run "bases" in the yard - home being back in the pool.


He had a pretty good hit ratio, and the balloons against the Sonic paddle made a weird noise and a splash. When he hit one, he would run the bases, and I'd grab another balloon and try to hit him with it to tag him out.


The funny part came when he missed one. When he missed, the balloon fell into the pool and did not break. He decided the appropriate thing to do was to pick it up and toss it at me! He demanded I "freeze" (i.e., hold still) so he could hit me - and he did!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Mikey escapes

At home, there is our daughter-in-law and our two identical twin autistic grandsons, David and Michael (sometimes, "Mikey"; David is usually, "David). There are deadbolts on all the doors and locks on all the windows. It's probably not the best from a fire-safety perspective, but it beats the heck out of the safety perspective of not letting Mikey get out on his own.
The boys are 11. David is (now) high-functioning; Mikey is not. Mikey is intelligent. At his school, they had to create special curriculum for his highly autistic behavior but just-about-grade-level work. Mikey does have language - he talks like a 3 year old: always present tense; one to three word utterances with an occasional short sentence thrown in. He can speak longer sentences if he is repeating something that interests him - like the dialog from a show or the words from a favorite book. He has reasonable receptive language, as long as you discount that he has no concept of time or tense.
Saturday is "our" day with the boys. Mom drops them off around 11 am - Noon, and we take them home in their PJs. This Saturday was no exception.
Our house doesn't have as many locks as their house, and there are two of us. We have cast-contcrete (decorative - looks like stone) 6' fences around the yard and locking (deadbolt) cast-iron gates. We recently added a lock to the front door since the lock only locks from outside; inside it doesn't need the key.
Saturday evening, after dinner, David on the computer upstairs with Grandpa, Mikey running around the back yard, and grandma sitting overlooking the back yard.
All of a sudden ... too much quiet. Look around the yard - no Mikey.
Call upstairs, "Is Mikey up there with you?" No Mikey. We double-checked. We looked over the fences into the neighbor's yards - no Mikey. One neighbor had the side door to her garage open - no Mikey.
Split up - get in cars. Go around neighborhood; look at parks we visit.
Mikey is very autistic - he has no sense of things outside who he is and what he wants. He doesn't, "Stop, Look and Listen" - for cars or anything else. He is 5' tall, slender and fast as a whip. We call him "the stealth kid."
Where is he? OMG, there is a house under construction and all I can see is the frame - is he there? Driving slowly past the park - probably caused the other folks there to wonder what the heck I was doing - nope, not there either. Could someone have? no, can't think that - "God, please..."
Grandpa (Marc) was back at the house and called me to see if I'd had any luck - no. "Call the police. I'm coming back to the house."
Marc called me before I got back - and said, “They have him – well, they know where he is.”
The local police have joint communications with the next community and the road behind my house is the border between the two. Across the street is the edge of a joint forces training base. They rent out a lot of the space to companies that grow strawberries. Our grandson was with the soldiers who found him on the base ...
He crossed a ususally busy, 4 lane road with a divider to get to the "other" side. He went about 4/10 mile up the street and then went back a road. At some point - obviously we don't know exactly where - he must have squeezed through a gate to get in - because the cyclone fences around the base have barbed wire. He was barefoot.
The soldiers found him on some farm equipment where the road ends. They - fortunately - recognized the autism - remember, Mikey doesn't really talk unless you have some clue how to talk to him - and took him to the guard shack at the entrance to the base. They must have contacted the local police.
More on David in another post; however, he did provide one small spot of comic relief: On the way to pick up Mikey, David said, “I wonder what they’re doing with Mikey??”
Marc and I both cracked up – Mikey is on drugs so strong for the hyperactivity that, when David – who is fairly active himself – accidentally took ONE of his pills, he was groggy for two days. It takes two of us to take him anywhere "special" just to keep up with him. Yea, I wonder what THEY did with Mikey.
When we picked him up, and got him back into the car, he said, “Farm!” Earlier in the day he had come to me and said, "Plant beans." We seldom know where Mikey gets his ideas from, although we do sometimes figure it out after-the-fact. We did plant beans last year, but he lost interest in them right away. He had asked me right before dinner, and we were busy fixing food - so I had tried to tell him, "Next week." Not that he understands time, but he's been a little better about, "not immediately but later."
From our back yard, we can see the "farm" at the base. We *think* - because there is no way of knowing - that he used a Step 2 slide we have in the back yard to get over the top of the fence, and then just dropped - bare foot, mind you - to the sidewalk to start this journey.
After questioning, we took Mikey back into the car. As we got on our way, he said, "Farm!"
We said, “Home.”
He said, “FARM!!”
We finally got him to say, “Farm is closed.” That's his way of acknowledging, sort of, that he's not getting something Right Now.
ANYHOW – got them back to our house and completed our ‘regular’ bath routine, then took them home and told Mom. On the way back, I said, “I don’t care what the house looks like; I’m going to bed.” But this was not to be. I thought it was the toilet running. It was not. Suffice it to say that the plumber looked at things today and we are turning the water off except to shower. The plumber will be back Wednesday.

FAQ / In the beginning

Labor Day, 1998

"What did the doctor say? I was waiting for your call and didn't hear from you."


"Well, Mom, we were going to wait until you were back from vacation ..."


"Tell me now."


"The doctor said the boys are autistic."


Autistic. Rainman. Can't be ... Why them? Why us? What should we do?


Hours of searching on the Internet and a flight to catch in the AM to start ... a VACATION?


ABA .. behavioral diagnosis .. diet ... vaccines .. sleepless night.


Alarm. Get up. Get to airport. Catch plane. Labor Day weekend, 1998. Delayed landing. Moving in a fog between the disbelieve and exhaustion ... dinner ... bed .. woke up at 10:30 am EAST coast time (1:30 pm Pacific)


The beginning.