You Know You're Taking a Science Exam in a CM School When the First Half Minute Is about the Government

One thing you learn early on with living books is that it's hard to confine them to one subject. They have a delightful way of taking all sorts of rabbit trails. Yesterday Pamela did several examinations. The one about a science book started off like this:

They making a, they doing a bill. Congress. They wrote for your vote. Congress, they're in Washington. House, they had the bill. C-SPAN, they have President. Senate.

Was Pamela adding filler to the exam like so many of us have done in our blue books in years past? Nope! The first chapter we read in this science book was about politics. What does science have to do with politics? Money! The topic of this book is technology, the kind of technology that alters forever how the world communicates. Sometimes, expansion of such technology is funded privately as consumers drive the widening of a network. At other times, the project is so grand, linking nation to nation, requiring large amounts of money, treaties, and legal minutia. The first topic of Pamela's exam narration accurately represents the material she read, taking into account her struggles with aphasia and how well she can communicate.

This week, Pamela and I will wrap up the last few exams for Term 1. Pamela did nothing to prepare for exam week as suggested by Charlotte Mason: "Children taught in this way are remarkable for their keenness after knowledge, and do well afterwards in any examination for which they may have to prepare" (Preface). She had been preparing for them during the entire term by reading and narrating living books every day. Whenever I gave her a choice of narrating one of two stories from a book for an exam, she opted to do both! During exam week, she has smiled often, chuckled and giggled many times, and talked about what she knew supplemented with the most lovely body language. If you doubt me, I dare you to watch the video.



Compare those sweet moments to your experience with exams as a student or as a homeschooling parent. Don't you wish you had had that much fun when you took exams in school? Compare it to the typical experience of cramming as described by Charlotte Mason,

When the schoolboy 'crams' for an examination, writes down what he has thus learned, and behold, it is gone from his gaze for ever: as Ruskin puts it, "They cram to pass, and not to know, they do pass, and they don't know"...we learn that we may know, not that we may grow; hence the parrot-like saying of lessons, the cramming of ill-digested facts for examinations, all the ways of taking in knowledge which the mind does not assimilate. (Pages 155-157)

Here are some points to keep in mind about elementary school examinations:

• The point is for the child to share what they know and what they think. Exams are a record of what the child knows, not an exercise in tricking the child or uncovering what they don't know.
• Young children narrate their exams orally: teachers or parents record the narration. In Pamela's case, I pay attention to nonverbal communication.
• Examinations are done at the end of a term.
• Questions are open-ended: "Tell the story of..." "Tell the history of [a particular person]." "Describe [a particular event]." "Describe a journey through/to [a particular place]." "Tell what you learned about [a particular place]." "Tell a fairy tale." "Describe your favorite scene from [a book or play]." "Tell about the..." "Draw a diagram or map of..." "Describe [a process in nature]." "What have you noticed yourself about..." [We did worms this term]" (Appendix II)
• Some things to be narrated involve opinions: "Why do you think?" "What do you think this means?" "What is [an idea] and give an example?"
• Examinations include singing a song or line from a instrumental composition, describing a favorite painting, reciting a poem, acting out a scene, and speaking or singing in a foreign language.
• Because of Pamela's theory of mind gaps and difficulties in sequencing thoughts, I do have to make additional declarative comments to help her share more fully what I know she knows.

Lessons Learned about Pamela

• Pamela takes great delight in narrating. She enjoyed exam week.
• Her sense of time and technology is exceptional. She easily spots anachronisms.
• She sees connections between books.
• Her nonverbal communication emphasizes what she expresses verbally. Her body language continues to blossom.
• Her ability to retrieve names, pronouns, and verbs is limited. She knows them but she struggles to retrieve them while narrating.
• Her sequencing is still confused.

My Lessons Learned for Me

• Doing handwork helps slow me down and refrain from talking too much.
• I need to think through a plan to work on word retrieval issues and sequencing.
• I am so thrilled that Pamela uses her body to express herself, even when her words are limited.

The point that I insist upon, however, is that from his sixth year the child should be an "educated child" for his age, should love his lesson books, and enjoy a terminal examination on the books he has read. Children brought up largely on books compare favourably with those educated on a few books and many lectures; they have generous enthusiasms, keen sympathies, a wide outlook and sound judgment, because they are treated from the first as beings of "large discourse looking before and after." They are persons of leisure too, with time for hobbies, because their work is easily done in the hours of morning school. (Page 305)

A Broad Range of Communication

Communication is more than text. We have been doing exams, which are narrations of what Pamela learned in Term 1. I have been recording the exams so I can write a transcript of them. We made it all the way through Act III, Scene I of Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar"—yes, we are really reading the entire play, unabridged, bits at a time, after watching a BBC recording of the passage. Reading just the transcript only tells you the words she used and what she remembered to share. Since Pamela struggles with aphasia, you might not be impressed by what she had to say.

He is marching: Caesar. Caesar! Caesar! Caesar! They saw Brutus. They saw a fortuneteller. Ides of March. Beware of the Ides of March. They had a fortuneteller because they had a rain. Caesar was sick because party. Brutus whack Caesar. Caesar death. They had Mark Antony. Mark Antony was angry. They are having a funeral.

There are many things you cannot tell from pure text. Does Pamela enjoy reading Shakespeare, or is it a deadly dull droning of meaningless words for her? Would she be able to act out any of the play? Does the story affect her emotions? Since Pamela said so little about over two acts of a five-act play, should I give up on the bard? Why give a person with autism a task that befuddles high schoolers who speak English and understand emotion perfectly well?

Now try reading the text with a description of Pamela's nonverbal communication. Clearly, she could act out some scenes in the play for Pamela was quite active even though she sat during her narration. Her emotions change appropriately throughout the narration. Her shifts of attention to me reveals a high level of comfort with the material.

He is marching: Caesar. [Turns her head to me abruptly. Almost like a soldier. Chants and pumps fist.] Caesar! Caesar! Caesar! [Giggles and recovers her composure.] They saw Brutus. [Gazes at me.] They saw a fortuneteller. [Laughs. Turns hand as if doing an aside.] Ides of March. [Looks to the camera. Imitates the tone of the fortuneteller in the BBC play.] Beware of the Ides of March. They had a fortuneteller because they had a rain. [Looks at me again.] Caesar was sick because party. [Leans head back. Strikes her chest.] Brutus whack Caesar. [Feigns death.] Caesar death. [Turns head to think. Looks at me again.] They had Mark Antony. [Quickens pace of speech.] Mark Antony was angry. [Acts angry and covers face.] They are having a funeral.

You still do not have a clear picture of how the play captures Pamela's imagination until you see how she narrates it. As you watch Pamela narrate, keep in mind, as my friend Di points out in her presentation on communication,

Children with ASD found to experience particular difficulty with:

• gaze shifts,
• shared positive affect,
• joint attention,
• using a range of communication means and functions,
• use of gestures/non-verbal's,
• social affective signaling and
• imitation.

Relationship Development Intervention helped me become a better guide to Pamela so that she could broaden her ability to communicate more effectively (among other things). By decreasing my verbal communication, I gave Pamela the chance to be an equal and competent partner. By increasing my nonverbal communication, Pamela learned to understand it and communicate nonverbally herself. By slowing down and feeling comfortable with long pauses, I gave her time to process what I communicated and think through her own response. (Check out Di's presentation for more specifics on this.)

I edited out my part in setting up and keeping the narration going. My role was completely opposite to what is usually recommended for teaching autistic children to speak.

• I began with a very open-ended question: "What do you know about the play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare?"
• I did not interrupt her to correct grammatical errors.
• I gazed at her attentively, smiled (because I truly enjoyed watching her narrate), and affirmed her with nods.
• I did not hit her with a bunch of nit-picky questions that would cause her to falter.

The whole point of narration is to share what you know, which comes instinctively to most of us anyway. If you are a bit foggy on this effective, quick, and inexpensive way to assess children, check out this classic article: We Narrate and Then We Know.

Making Laundry Soap

Since Pamela is working on ratios in math right now, I have been looking for concrete activities to practice these skills. Everyone is either going green or looking to save a few bucks, and the Internet is full of recipes for cheap, green cleaning products. Not only did we make the soap, we measured how many cups of each ingredient per purchase so that we can calculate the unit cost on Monday and do some comparison pricing.

Pamela and I tried this recipe for making dry laundry soap, and we have a load of laundry soaking in 1/4 cup of this concoction. I cannot attest to the quality of the mixture at present:

1 bar of grated soap (I chose Ivory)
1 cup of Borax
1 cup of baking soda

When I studied the video, I realized how many objectives we covered during this activity: measuring dry ingredients, adding, experience sharing, joint attention, life skills, vocabulary, and nonverbal communication. The highlight for me was a ten-second nonverbal conversation between Pamela and me:


I was surfing the net for any good links about nonverbal communication and autism, and a passage explaining the DSM-IV criteria from the book Autism: Understanding the Disorder helped me glimpse the big picture about the strides Pamela is making:

The first criterion [under reciprocal social interaction] is "marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction." In the area of eye to eye gaze, a person with autism may avoid eye contact or, conversely, may stare so intently into the eyes of his listeners as to make them uncomfortable. With regard to facial expression, a person with autism may display a flat, blunted affect or alternatively may show an inappropriate amount or intensity of laughter or distress. Body postures or gestures may lack nonverbal enhancements such as head nodding, pointing, or the shrugging of shoulders. (pages 21-22)

Let me catalog all of the awesome actions Pamela took to regulate our communication: Pamela turned her head to look where I held my gaze and assumed I wanted her to write something. She picked up the pencil with her right hand, switched it to her left hand, and momentarily leaned in to write. She shifted her gaze to watch me pick up the cup of baking soda. She pointed to the box of baking soda with her right hand, quickly glanced at me, and nodded and raised her eyebrows. She watched me shake my head and grab the baking soda, and she followed my movement with her eye gaze. When I put the box on the table, looked down on it and pointed to it, she glanced at me again, pointed to the cup, nodded, and raised her eyebrows again. She waited for my reaction and, when I pointed to her and then her paper, she turned her attention back to her paper.

And ALL of that took place in about ten seconds!

Some Minutia about Our Language Program

We are wrapping up our current objective in which Pamela takes responsibility for keeping me on track with joint attention. I found the coolest graphic illustrating the kind of joint attention Pamela learned: like the person with no hat, she is gazing at me (the purple-hat person) to make sure I am looking in the right direction.



We focused on Pamela using more elaborate language to redirect my attention. While she writes or types in complete sentences when narrating books, real-time interactions flow so quickly that Pamela either relies on vague language ("Over there" or "Wrong way") or nonverbals. RDI emphasizes nonverbal communication in early stages because nearly all autistic children missed the opportunity to learn it early in their development (or lost that ability). Teaching a child to talk without learning to read facial expressions and body language leads to awkward interactions. They end up ensnaring people in long monologues about their favorite topics without knowing whether they are enchanting their communication partner or boring them to tears. An autism remediation post listed you-tube clips breaking down nonverbals: introduction, body (emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, adaptors), face, eyes, touch (positive touch, controlling touch, playful touch, ritualistic touch, task-related touch, touch avoidance), space (territoriality), artifacts (space decoration, appearances, clothing, color, adornment, scent), and silence.

Pamela has both autism and a severe language disorder. We never had her formally diagnosed but two SLPs who know Pamela very well (my husband Steve's sister and our RDI consultant) agree that Pamela has some form of aphasia. Five years ago, Pamela's challenges with language fit the description of syntactic aphasia perfectly (I put other definitions at the end of the post),

Difficulties in using words in the correct order and/or forms for effective communication. Certain classes of words such as prepositions, conjunctions and articles may be omitted. Example, "Car man hit" for "the man hit the car." (Teaching Language Deficient Children)

RDI is not necessarily doing special activities beyond your normal day. I have been hanging laundry since last fall because our clothes smell fresher perfumed by the great outdoors and it is easier on the pocketbook. One key to framing an activity with an objective mind is how you assign roles. All week long, Pamela has been the talker and I have been the doer, as she directs my attention to line up with hers. I find these activities work for teens and are not at all babyish, even though the objective reflects the development of a two-year-old child:

• Laundry (hanging, pull off the rack, folding, putting away)
• Car navigator (telling me directions)
• Shopping (making a list, getting items, putting away)
• Cooking (getting out recipe, following recipe, cleaning up)

In the clip, I try to give Pamela many opportunities to speak specifically about where to hang the laundry in several locations (the rack, bricks, railing, and rocking chairs). We focus on prepositions and nouns in this activity. I throw in lots of variations, which does not frustrate Pamela. What we did here worked on many kinds of words and phrases dynamically and contigently without static repetitions or rote memory.


Other Forms of Aphasia
Nominal aphasia - The inability to know the appropriate names of things or to find categorical terms. For example: 1) "We went to that place (library) to check out books." 2) "Please do the door" for "open" or "close the door."

Semantic aphasia - Difficulty with word meanings. Example pen for pencil.

Pragmatic aphasia - Syntax and semantic ability may be present, but they may be used inappropriately. Example: "Your birthday is Mary 1, 1921" repeated frequently and inappropriately in time and place. Neologism are substituted for meaningful words. Example: "That man is clipping the krepies."

Expressive aphasia/Expressive language disorder - The individual is limited in the ability to express ideas through spoken words or written symbols.

Receptive aphasia/Receptive language disorder - The individual has difficulty comprehending language through spoken or written symbols.

Expressive-receptive aphasia - Difficulties with both types of language skills, comprehending and expressing ideas.

Global aphasia - All language forms are seriously affected to the degree that it is impossible to use one of the preceding categories. There may be an automatic expression or two which may not be meaningful. Example: "The puthee the puthigh" as a response to any comment or question.

Fruit Smoothie

Yesterday, Pamela and I made fruit smoothies, gluten-free casein-free that the whole family enjoyed! Besides making and slurping down a yummy treat, we worked on joint attention (both of us looking at the same thing at the same time). To help her become more competent in sharing her perspective, Pamela must monitor how well her partner is paying attention and then use more elaborate language to redirect her partner.

First, we looked through a recipe book with kid's snacks. Pamela thoughtfully picked fruit smoothies after discarding recipes with forbidden ingredients. Yesterday, this activity did not go well because too many distractions diverted Pamela's interest, so I eased into my role of acting like a ditz. While some autism therapies focus on rapid response, RDI focuses on letting a person with autism process, appraise, and think of a reaction. At one point, I waited for forty seconds while she was thinking through something. We checked our supplies and made a shopping list. I talked more and acted obviously clueless for this clip.


We headed to the Pig (Piggly Wiggly, all you Greenbax lovers) to pick up fresh fruit and other essentials. You may notice that the photos in today's blog are crisper and framed well. My mother, who majored in photography in college, was kind enough to take pictures! I loved the shot of us at the meat counter because it captured the critical moment beautifully. Pamela is pointing to the direction where she wants me to head and I am pointing and looking in that direction. However, she is looking at me to make sure I am looking in the right place. That is what we call a critical moment in RDI and my goal is to create think space around that moment.






After we got home, Pamela and I made the fruit smoothie. I was much quieter in my inattention and basically looked the wrong way. She noticed when I did not pay attention and redirected me both nonverbally and verbally.

Pamela started her first conversation about Blu-ray DVD's with me. This could very well become a static conversation (it has that feel). Since the topic was completely new, I stayed engaged with it. I suspect I will end up having to find creative ways to stay off the Blu-ray express down the road.

My favorite moment was when the yogurt hit me in the neck. Pamela figured out what I meant when I pointed to my neck and said, "Pamela, I got been shot!" She appraised the situation and took appropriate action. However, it did not have the feel of experience sharing because it was more like Monk reacting to something out of place. She giggled, but it sounded strained to me. I probably should have slowed down and put think space around that funny moment. My mind was on the objective!


When we actually turned on the blender, Pamela became a tad hyper-focused with the grinding noise or the spinning of the smoothie. I tried to do subtle things to see how long it would take for her to realize the smoothie was finished and take action. We had a nice smell test and taste test to preview for our lesson on comparing perspectives down the road. We also transitioned to me serving her French fries and a burger.


Oh, the recipe:

Ingredients
1 8 oz container of vanilla soy yogurt
2 tangerines
2 1/2 cups strawberries
1 banana

Directions
Put the banana, strawberries, and yogurt in a blender. Squeeze the juice out of the tangerines and add enough water to make 1/2 cup of juice. Pour the juice in the blender. Run the blender until it looks like a smoothie! Yum!

Broadband Communication

Pamela is near the end of Stage 2 of RDI, which means that Pamela is starting to enter her terrible two's in her dynamic thinking (and we are seeing signs of it, but that is fodder for another day). I know it sounds odd: a nineteen-year-old--who can perform all operations on decimals, read upper elementary level books, drives down the highway on Google Earth, and can tell you the day of the week you were born if given the date--is, in some ways, a toddler. I know it's trite, but it is what it is.

A recent article on gestures and vocabulary development in toddlers points out the importance of broadband communication for young children. (So, why do speech therapists sometimes ignore this vital component of language development, I ask?) Just as scientists have discovered in typical children, I am finding that nonverbal forms of communication seem to be preceding expanded phrases and sentences for Pamela:

Don't just talk to your toddler--gesture, too. Pointing, waving bye-bye and other natural gestures seem to boost a budding vocabulary. Scientists found those tots who could convey more meaning with gestures at age 14 months went on to have a richer vocabulary as they prepared to start kindergarten. And intriguingly, whether a family is poor or middle class plays a role, the researchers report Friday.

Through co-op classes, Pamela learned many ASL signs, but she never connected it to real life as a form of communication. I had hoped it would be the key for her, but it was not. She thought of signs as fun but because she was not actively reading and using broadband communication. It was a game to her, much like finger-spelling was a game to Helen Keller before the water pump moment. The study explained,

This is not baby sign-language; parents weren't formally training their tots. Instead, they used everyday gestures to point something out or illustrate a concept. A child points to a dog and mom says, "Yes, that's a dog." Or dad flaps his arms to mimic flying. Or pointing illustrates less concrete concepts like "up" or "down" or "big."

Today, I filmed Pamela while we shopped at Wally World. The objective was to allow Pamela to guide and direct me more both verbally and physically. I act like a bit of a blockhead, doing and saying the wrong thing, to give Pamela the chance to give me more specific feedback. I look the wrong way and stumble for words. I say the wrong place or thing, or I accidentally skip an aisle. If she could, Pamela would probably say "Over there" for ever! My cluelessness requires her to be more specific and explicit. Notice how well she uses gestures, facial expressions, and words!

Onions and Popup Ads

The First Layer
Working with Pamela feels like peeling back the layers of an onion sometimes. Last month, we agreed with our consultant to continue working on expressive gestures as a long-term project and to start working on a short-term objective like calling joint attention. Initially, I summarized this short-term objective in this way:

Simply put, when Pamela wants to point something out to me like a toy at the store or the truck that went off the side of the road, she needs to make sure that I am looking in the right direction! She needs to stay calm and help me redirect my focus until I am turning my attention to the same thing as her.

The Second Layer
In working on this objective, we discovered that Pamela's ability to have joint attention was not always consistent. So, I peeled back the layer from calling joint attention to sharing joint attention and altered the goal somewhat:

My objective was to focus on experience sharing by focusing on being together more than the activity itself. We are solidifying experience sharing before transferring more responsibility to Pamela in calling joint attention.

Pamela can share experiences beautifully on her terms. Tuesday, she came up to me with a crocheted scarf that a friend gave to her and asked, "What's this?" I said, "A warm scarf." She said, "No, it's a long tail." I looked and she had the other end sticking out of the back of her pants. I spotlighted my delight nonverbally and through comments about her pretty tail.

A little bit later, she came up to me and talked about her bee sting on her finger from last spring. I buzzed and pretended to sting her with my pincer grasp. She laughed. Then, I kissed it to make it better.

The Third Layer
Sometimes, Pamela becomes very static or verbally stims. In Monday's cookie video, Pamela went back to thoughts of salad several times. It might have been because I have not fed her in this manner in years, making it a very uncertain situation for her. Uncertainty may be the reason why she falls back on static conversations or verbal stimming. Our consultant remembered another child who struggled with uncertainty in the same way. She suggested I figure out what situations cause Pamela to go static and then work on helping her discover that uncertainty is not a bad thing. We are not even sure this is a formal objective, but we still need to address it!

Schedule
Pamela does not mind living in an unknown state of mind when it comes to do with the plan of the day. Years ago we used to have "I don't know" days to help reduce her dependence on a routine or schedule. Today, she will say, "It's to be announced," when I tell her I don't know exactly when something will happen.

New Way of Doing Things?
Pamela has a hard time when we are doing something deviating from what she generally expects. It is not that I have to be rigid, but, when something catches her by surprise, I see more static responses. The day she struggled to speak because of skeeter bites, I threw her off because I was sitting on the bed and talking to her. I hardly ever do that. When I followed her in the yard on Tuesday, simply to find opportunities for experience sharing, she got very mad at me. Wednesday, at Walmart, we explored some very cute Christmas shirts with lights. The problem is that I am not a shopper, so this was very unexpected behavior to her! She went back to her static statements ("I want Coke!"), much like she went back to her static, "I want salad!" when we ate cookies on Monday. Sharing experience lasts about forty-five seconds before her brain cannot handle the uncertainty any longer. It feels like an annoying pop-up ad that you can click off, but mysteriously appears a minute later.

Pamela is getting used to the shopping forays. Yesterday, Pamela completely adjusted to the idea of me and her exploring a section of Walmart. She had a moment or two of frustration and then went with the flow the moment she spotted Hannah Montana accessories. We flitted from Hannah to Christmas jewelry to generic jewelry: her "I want chips" popup add only happened once or twice.

Unknown Objects?
Pamela has no problems with not knowing what a hidden object is. I tested it out twice. I put a toy spider in my pocket and said mysteriously, "I have something in my pocket." Pamela asked a couple of questions and I gave her a few blank "I don't know" answers. She went right back to her school work. We received a book for her in the mail, and she had no problem waiting to find out what it was. She had only three book popup ads with a lot of time in between.

Phone Calls?
Pamela MUST know who is on the phone when they call. If I ignore her, she will bug me with, "Answer me." I do not get many phone calls, so I have not been able to assess if she goes static. I hope you can live with the uncertainty!

Where Are We Going?
I am fairly certain this is an area where she needs certainty. Pamela's sense of direction is so keen that her "Where are we going?" popup ad happens as sooon as I make a wrong turn. One of the things I will have to work into our periods of uncertainty is finding ways to drive somewhere without telling her exactly where. I anticipate lots of popup ads! LOL!

The Fourth Layer
Friday, I reflected on what a fellow RDI mom has written on trust. Now, Pamela trusts me in most situations. Perhaps, that trust is shaken when I behave in unpredictable ways. Maybe, I compensate too much and, when I don't, she goes static. This friend discussed how when she first started RDI her goal was to coexist in the same room without making any demands. So, I borrowed her idea and applied it to the yard since Pamela got riled up at me the other day.

As predicted, Pamela grew very angry and obnoxious. She was furious when I announced we were going to go out because it was "after school hours"--an unpredictable time. I decided to push this, but then, once we hit the yard, I LEFT HER ALONE. I figured I needed to win her trust, so I did my own exploration and she did hers. After about five minutes, she was near me doing her own thing. I saw a dead vine branch hanging from the tree top, and I grabbed it because I know she has a thing for sticks. I began pulling it. She was very interested and joined me. First I pulled, then she pulled, and we pulled together. We moved to different locations to test the best direction for bringing it down. Her face flushed with joy at our success. I left her alone to play with the very long branch because I wanted to end on a positive note.



In this video, I strung together pictures to give you an idea of how our explorations went on this beautiful fall day.

How to Avoid Getting Tied Up in Knots!

Right now, I am working on three RDI objectives: two for Pamela and one for me. Yes, my consultant keeps an objective open for me. I am your garden-variety, neurotypical parent with no major shadow traits of autism, but I still have objectives. Like many parents of autistic children, Steve and I have successfully reared a neurotypical child (our 16-yo son, David). The issue is that, with Pamela, we are having to go back, find holes in her development, and "redo" certain milestones to see if she can learn them now. The good news is that she can (which I blogged earlier in the month). To guide her through that process, I need to be very mindful of how I interact to make sure we are giving her every opportunity in this second chance. The parent objectives are geared toward making sure I am successful at guiding her.

My most recent parent objective was learning about broadband communication. In the autism world, we have become obsessed over speaking, so obsessed that we are overlooking the building blocks that support the words that we speak. Everyone knows that how you say is just as important as what you say. Your facial expression, your voice inflection, pacing, and volume, your gestures, your gaze, your space and touch, etc. can all influence what you really mean when you say what you say. If you do not believe me, go and watch a political debate. I used to believe all children in the autism spectrum could not learn to do this, but now I know some can and Pamela is one of them!

My consultant sat down with Steve and I and taught us the first few objectives. Now, we are watching e-learning modules, multimedia presentations that focus on a particular topic. When finished, we type up our answers to questions and upload them to a computer system that keeps track of all of our objectives and Pamela's objectives. Occasionally, we submit videos that demonstrate our ability to perform certain actions.

In this case, I filmed three clips of Pamela and I tying knots while waiting for the pizza to finish. I love this first one because Pamela reads my broadband communication to figure out what I am thinking! She is slowly growing more adept at reading my mind! YIPPEE!!!


In the second clip, I am trying to play around with how many different ways we can interact while tying knots on the blanket for baby Ines.



In the third clip, we start off with lots of language because we are talking about what color thread we should use for the monogram. After we start tying knots, I work on the next level of knot tying. On the first day, all she had to do was the last step: pulling the fringe after I set up the knot. In this second day of tying knots, I have her hold the set-up knot with her left hand and pull with her right hand. In the future, when we make her next blanket with overhand knots, I plan to transfer more and more steps, working from the last to first, until she can do the whole thing independently.

While I am NOT (adamantly and forcefully repeat NOT) a fan of ABA (applied behavior analysis), I am using an ABA technique called backward chaining to teach Pamela to tie knots. We also back-chain memorizing the lines of a poem, learning the last line first and the first line last. When you watch the video, notice that making a knot (a static skill) is the framework in which we work to spotlight the more important objective: learning to read one another's broadband communication. I do not let learning to tie knots override the joy of our quiet interaction while listening to lovely Lily twitter in the background. That is the quality of life I treasure in our daily interactions. I value the sweet, precious moments when we work together much more than how quickly and efficiently Pamela masters tying knots! In fact, focusing on these intangibles that are not easily measured, boxed, sorted, and analyzed keeps my statistics-oriented brain (yes, I have the degree to prove it) from getting tied up in knots!

What Stims Mean!

Not everything goes as smoothly as I hope, and Tuesday was a case in point. I wanted to give Pamela a preview of my plans for her to make "no sew" tied reversible fleece blankets. I copied a bunch of pictures off the Internet and put them on two pages for us to review. To strengthen episodic memory, it can help to spotlight various stages of an activity. My objective was two-fold: do the preview and see what gestures Pamela makes in casual conversation.

The problem was that Pamela was itchy from her skeeter bites. She was very distracted and stimming up a storm. While she used some echolalia productively and appropriately "Please stand by," "Cut," "Don't say that," and "Don't do that to me again," she blurted out some off the wall stuff: "Maizie," "Yes or no," "Director," "It's to be announced," "Big bad wolf," and "Rollercoaster." She even reverted back to the earliest syntax she first learned when we started the association method: "I saw a . . ." and "I have a . . ." It is interesting that her syntax feel apart when she felt confused.

I did see some positive things. Even thought Pamela did not want to engage, she trusted me enough to hang in there. She did use some declarative language in the midst of all that stimming. She told me, "I don't feel so good." and used "we" language when she suggested, "Let's go somewhere else." When she was confused, she said, "It's stucked," and I think she meant, "I'm stuck." She also used lots of single nouns and "this" when a word escaped her.

Her nonverbals were there, too. Pamela paid very close attention to me when I looked at her and made sounds. Sometimes, she nodded or raised her eyebrows. She caught on right away when I was using eye gaze to give her a clue about making a blanket for her babies for she asked, "What?" and then started naming things in her room. She hit her leg to show frustration when she saw the dog in the room, scolded the dog, and shifted right back to joint attention with me. She also did that when she was mad at me! I ignored her, so she tapped me for attention. She used several gestures: point, hitting her leg gently, grabbing the page to tell me to turn it, cut with her fingers when she read the instruction about cutting, and poking me. These were all natural gestures that I did not pull out of her or demand.

I had hoped she might immediately figure out my idea about making blankets for her babies. She did not. First, I pointed to the babies. That did not work. Then, I started looking at the pictures. That did not work. So, I asked, "I wonder which one baby David would like." Then she caught on.

When we read the directions and talked about what we had on hand, I had hoped she might immediately figure out shopping for cloth over the weekend. She did not. I said, "When we go shopping," and paused. She did not react, so I added, "What could we do on Saturday?" I tried sticking with declarative, but I had to ask questions because she wasn't tracking. I ended up giving lots of explanation at the very end, rather than dragging it out, because I thought it would have pushed her patience too much.

The very next day, Wednesday, we had a lovely conversation: Pamela was not itchy and was much more engaged.


Objective:
I want us to have a conversation that is not an obvious RDI thing to see what gestures arise. We are talking about two emails Janet and Alyson sent to her.

Overall Impression:
Pamela struggled much less than yesterday and you could tell by her quick thinking! She followed my nonverbals well!

What Worked:
Pamela had no idea what was in my hand. She started off with one of her stims, "New York," and I went with it. I figured I could nonverbally guide her into guessing Louisiana. I was really shocked that it worked so well! :-) Immediately, she thought of the wedding. Again, she used some declarative language about her cousin, aunt, and her princess attire.

Pamela paid very close attention to me when I looked at her and made sounds. Sometimes, she nodded or raised her eyebrows. She was much more engaged with me than yesterday.

When she changed gears from wanting to bake a cake to shopping at Piggly Wiggly, I played dumb. She did follow my nonverbals and got a little annoyed with me. She grimaced once at me in frustration, so I pointed. Right away, she poked me and then adjusted my chin! I have never seen her do that. That would be expressive imperative because she is telling me not to pout!

She used the following gestures: point, pointing to herself, poking me, adjusting my chin, and slight frustration flaps. These were all natural gestures that I did not pull out of her or demand. There was one gesture that I felt I demanded: pointing to her teeth.

What Did Not Work:
She stimmed a little, "New York. Don't say no. Change it. Don't say that. Yes or no." She stimmed a lot less than yesterday!

My bottomline conclusion is to agree with something Dr. Gutstein said at a breakfast for my consultant and parents in her practice. Self-stimulation is a secondary issue, and, as the brain organizes, it usually goes away. In Pamela's case, physical discomfort or illness distracts her brain and her verbal stims increase!

Getting Ready for Hanna

One element of RDI is building episodic memory. Autistic children often excel at procedural memory (memorizing facts, learning verbal scripts, standard responses and phrasing, etc.). Procedural memory focuses on the predictable: factual details, procedures, scripts, and formulas. Episodic memory (recalling a vacation, describing a visit, sharing a funny story that happened at the store, etc.) focuses on the intangible: big picture, meaningful details, and narrative nature of what happened. Since we are in election fever right now, think of politician reading off the teleprompter and what happens when the teleprompter breaks. Some politicians hem and haw and fumble or even come to a screeching stop. The same thing happens when something unexpected throws off our children. Others politicians with the gift of gab fly by the seat of their pants, share the gist and emotion of the canned script, and throw in a couple of ad-libs and touching moments.

Tropical storms and hurricanes are a fact of life when you live in the Carolinas (like my family) or Louisiana (like Steve's family). We do not live in an area prone to flooding. The last devastating hurricane that tore this part of South Carolina was Hugo. I decided it might be a good idea to build memories on how to prepare for the severe weather we have the potential to face this time of the year.

On Friday, I checked out the weather forecast and, except for the tornado watch, I knew Hanna would be a pussycat in our county (the highest winds predicted were 22 mph). Why not show Pamela how we stow FOD--Foreign Object Damage--Navy for stuff that can blow away in strong wind--in preparation for tropical storm winds? Not only can she help us prepare, but she can store memories of a positive outcome so that she will stay calm for a major storm that heads our way.

What may interest you in this clip is how I handled Pamela's frustration once we transitioned to the front porch. There was too much uncertainty for her and, just as we discovered recently, Pamela used her meltdown alert cue "I don't think it's a good idea." You see, my consultant thought she scripted a lot on the "good idea" phrasing too much. I spent a day analyzing Pamela's phrasing when something goes wrong and she uses a wide variety of sentences, except when her anxiety levels begin to rise. When I hear her say the "good idea" line, then I know she is getting overwhelmed. So, I made a point to try to reassure her because I now recognize her automatic response when heading into fight or flight mode.

Here is the analysis of what happened that I sent to my consultant with the video clip:

Objective:
Pamela is the teller using imperative gestures. The activity is putting things away that might get wet or blown away in a tropical storm.

Overall impression:
Pamela is comfortable thinking through a new process, figuring out the right signs, and adding words when necessary. She notices when I am unsure and gives me more direction. Switching to directing David threw her off her game, but she recovered when we switched back to me.

What worked:
Pamela knows what needs to be put away in a situation we have never practiced. She figures out what to put away, where things should go, and when my arms are too full. She conveys instructions on what to pick up nonverbally--she has signals for "pick up," "pull," "open," and "close." She points me in the right direction and combines hand signals with head nods and shakes. When she used words only, I tried to do the wrong thing so she could come up with signs for me.

What did not work:
Pamela does not like getting wet and her anxiety increased when we felt sprinkles. I did not help matters because I felt rushed (David and I had more to put away that was beyond the scope of what I needed Pamela to do). I think she was unsure about the front porch which increased her anxiety. She understood we needed to move the ferns, but my lack of stature and the need to throw David into the equation frustrated her. He was not as responsive as I was. While she was at ease in the backyard, the transition to the front and all of the uncertainties rattled her enough to fall back into her "I don't think this is a very good idea" cue. The good thing is that, after we switched roles from David to me, Pamela got right back on track in directing me calmly and finished on a positive note. I always try to finish on a positive note.

Questions and comments:
How frustrating was this for her on a 1-10 scale? The back porch was a three, and the front porch was about an eight.


The neat thing is what happened the morning after Hanna whimpered. Pamela noticed the overcast skies and gentle rain and said to me, "Tropical storm freeze. Soft rain. No strong wind." (She uses the word "freeze" for "stop.") Pamela used declarative language to tell me what she observed. Then, I said to her, "I bet you are glad the storm wasn't bad." She agreed. Now she has a memory of a positive outcome from disaster preparedness upon which we can build.

Pickles and Olives and Broth, Oh My!

What does this seemingly unrelated odd collection of objects have in common? You'll see. . .

Our RDI consultant wanted to get to know Pamela better, so they spent two and a half hours together, out and about town. They had lots of fun and laughs. Our consultant thinks Pamela is hilarious, sweet, and gentle. How wonderful that a professional likes Pamela and enjoys her company!

First, they drove to a lake. Pamela became the iPod navigator in the car and found nothing she recognized. She turned it off because it seems our taste in music is different from that of our consultant. Pamela did not want to go walking, so she told our consultant that it's "not a very good idea," "a bad idea," and "too danger." They sat in the car and negotiated for a bit.

The suggestion of the Dollar Tree triggered another "not a great idea" semi-automatic response until Pamela realized it was a store, not a tree. Pamela picked out a really cool bright pink and blue sensory bracelet for herself. She could not find a gift for David. LOL.

They headed to Wally World, and our consultant told Pamela she would be happy to buy her a toy. Pamela suggested DVD but that was out for many reasons. They checked out the DVD’s and moved onto the toys. One surprising toy that caught her eye was a cupcake baker, probably because all of the baking we do. Pamela then insisted it was time for me to get food and helped pick up item's our consultant's grocery list. To my surprise, Pamela became a food Nazi and would not let her buy Lucky Charms, even though we buy gluten, casein, and junk-laced cereal at home! She explained that Lucky Charms would make you sick. One thing was clear to the consultant: Pamela's got referencing skills nailed!

Pamela finally picked out her momentos from our consultant in her favorite grocery aisle.

Was it candy? NOPE!

Was it soy ice cream? NOPE, not even chocolate soy ice cream.

What about potato chips or tortilla chips? NOPE!

She went down the condiment aisle! She probably picked the oddest things of all the kids our consultant has seen . . .

• pickles
• green olives
• beef broth (she even pointed out the "gluten-free" description on the label to convince her it was okay).

After Wal-Mart, they had lunch. Our consultant already knew about the gf/cf thing and ordered the burger without then bun. I told her about the drink with no ice, but I forgot to mention the extra small fries. So, when Pamela saw only two fries, she kept saying, "There's a mistake." Our consultant could not figure out what, so Pamela did what we always do. I usually take a couple of fries and give her mine to avoid starting Chernobyl. Since our consultant did not know about my sacrificial tendencies, Pamela kept "stealing" her fries and our consultant would laugh and say, "You're a French Fry thief!" Pamela thought that was hilarious. That weird-looking, big-headed Star Wars bobble-head was the toy from her kid's meal. I guess Pamela got a toy after all!

When our consultant told Pamela they were going back, Pamela said, "We are at the end of our tape." When our consultant said, "Our date," she insisted, "No! Our cassette tape . . . Comedy!" and cracked up at her joke. Her great smile made it clear that Pamela was deliberately telling a joke.

There are two things I appreciated from this visit:

(1) Our consultant sees my description of Pamela as accurate sketches of her character: "Pamela is really easy to be around, and a very funny girl. We had some honest moments of connection that were invaluable to me. . . I think your descriptions are right on, and I really like your kid."

(2) Our consultant sees that Pamela is ready to move onto more gestures because she has the whole listening posture down! I am doing another language assessment on how she expresses not wanting to do something to see if we can expand her phrases and body gestures for this.

In fact, here is an excerpt of our last submission to the consultant and I have to "catch" Pamela at not listening. In 34 minutes of film, she has only three lapses in listening posture! At the end, I tacked on a blip of Pamela and her budding interest in comedy.

Baking David's GF/CF Birthday Cake from Scratch

Yesterday, David turned sixteen! Saturday, we are taking David, three of his friends, and Pamela to Carowinds. He requested a carrot cake, which I plan to bake today. Pamela wanted to bake a cake for him, and we went gf/cf so that we can keep a piece for her for Saturday's celebration. She pulled out a gf/cf baking mix and pointed to a chocolate cake recipe for us to make from scratch! The baking mix we used includes fava and garbanzo bean flours, and even my picky Dad scarfed it down with gusto! We slightly adjusted the recipe:

GF/CF Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose GF Baking Flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon xanthum gum (a little bit goes a long way)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/3 stick Buttery Sticks
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup soy milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two round cake pans. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer. Pour into the cake pans and bake for 30 minutes (or until the toothpick inserted in the cake's center comes out clean). Servings: 12.

I used the same frosting recipe as before, except we used Buttery Sticks instead of coconut milk.

One thing that struck me about watching these video clips is how much more comfortable Pamela is in the kitchen. When we first started baking in March 2007, I scaffolded by getting all the ingredients and utensils out. Now, she finds the ingredients on her own and searches the drawers for utensils. She can crack an egg with one hand! She can put a pan into a hot oven (although I am still pulling them out for her). She knows how to turn on the oven and set either timer (the oven or microwave). She is even starting to read the recipes and decide the next step to take!

Here is what I wrote about the cake baking clip:

Objective: To spotlight when I am not listening and when I am listening so Pamela learns to spot the differences in my body language.

What Worked: I was much more subtle today in my non-listening spells. Pamela did very well. She responded well when I complained about her jabs. She has had a lighter touch since then.

What Frustrated Pamela: I had to be careful to reassure Pamela when she got frustrated at glitches: a mom who doesn't listen, a pesky can opener, a mixer that spewed, etc. She did recover without melting down and finished all of the steps in baking a cake. I have to walk a fine line of working on the objective without pushing her off the cliff.

Comment: I loved when she cracked an egg one handed and make a pun on the word can. Her confidence in the kitchen is soaring!


We had a minor glitch between making the cake and the frosting. Pamela and her consultant were going to spend three hours doing things together like eating lunch, browsing at Wal-Mart or the store, and playing at the park. Something came up and our consultant had to postpone their visit by a week. Pamela cried and talked about being broken-hearted. I soothed her with stim phrases to help change her thoughts, rubbed her arm, and spoke to her gently. I also promised a trip to the health food store in Columbia today to make up for it.

As you can see in the clip, she is back to normal. Last night, we all went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. While I was telling Steve about the altered plans, I mentioned that Pamela was broken-hearted. She said loudly, "I'm not broken-hearted." So, her heart is healed! :-)

Another interesting thing was that Steve was being silly and nearly knocked over the salsa. Pamela laughed loudly and laughed with us. Then, she said, "Comedy!"

My objective was again to demonstrate non-listening body language, more subtly. This time I gave different reasons for it. Pamela does recognize when I am not listening, so I think I will start pointing out when "I can't tell if you're listening."


Finally, we have the birthday boy being serenaded. We took him out to eat at the local Mexican restaurant and threatened to alert the waiters about his birthday, so they could pull out the silly sombrero and serenade him. But, we did not. Why he is embarrassed at our singing, I cannot fathom. But, he recovered sufficiently to blow out all the candles in one breath.

Back to School!

Pamela's greater interest in people has spilled over into launching our homeschool program this year. About three weeks ago, she picked out a pink lunch bag with the Disney princesses and told me it was for school. Two weeks ago, she put in special requests for our homeschooling program like using Eric Carle books for studied dictation and Nature's Children books for science. Then, she told me we should not start up on August 4 (my plan) because school starts on August 18 for the public schooled children in the area.

I decided to combine her fascination with being like other kids going back to school with working on my RDI objective of Pamela learning to recognize listening body language. I bought typical school supplies like a pink zippered notebook, Disney princess spiral notebooks, all kinds of school goodies, etc. Then, without Pamela noticing, I set up a book bag (Barbie collection book club one that she got ten years ago) with her books, put papers and goodies in the notebook, etc. I filmed us going through all of the school stuff--she just loved it!



To frame this activity around my objective, I told Pamela that I would sometimes pretend I was not listening. At first, I was really obvious with my unlistening body language but I got more subtle as we went along. She found her finger quite effective in letting me know to straighten up and pay attention to her. Once I caught her in the act of not listening!

How Our Walks Are Working Out

You may be wondering how our walks that address declarative gestures are working out. Then again, you may have better things to do with your time on a Saturday night . . . Obviously, I don't! *Ahem*

Our objective was to expand the function of three gestures that Pamela already uses from only imperative communication (telling me what she wants) to declarative communication (showing me something she observes). We hope she will discover that she can share what she notices and that I am interested in finding out what she observes. Because Pamela is more relaxed with nonverbal communication, we thought she would make this discovery more easily with gestures. In time, we hope she will start doing this verbally, too. We focused on three common gestures:

Pointing - Draws my attention to whatever she is sharing with me.


Nodding - Tells me I verbally identified what she is seeing.


Shaking her head - Tells me I am on the wrong track in what she is seeing.


The other evening, we counted the varieties of trees in our yard! Steve filmed the walk and provided some uncertainty. The walk lasted about 15 minutes. Pamela seems to enjoy our walks, except on very hot days. I noticed near the end Pamela was tiring because our little early bird tuckers out sooner than the rest of us. You can get an idea of how this works in the following clip.


I try to make sure Pamela has many responsibilities that she can handle. She picks the subject and, if necessary, I help her narrow it down. She gives me a list of attributes (in this case, the names of the trees she thinks will be in the yard) and I make a list before we leave. When we walk, she points things out to me. If she forgets, I vary my indirect cue. Sometimes I will say to her, "You're in charge," or I will slow my pace or come to a halt.

To liven things up, we add productive uncertainty. Sometimes, I say something very silly like, "A bicycle tree?" Steve pointed out the watermelons, which were definitely not trees. I walked to the telephone pole and asked about a telephone tree. That was near the end of our walk, and she was too tired to laugh uproariously.

The walks also offer opportunities to solve problems. For example, she pointed to the thicket in our neighbor's yard. I did not want to count all that mess and, after all, they were not even in our yard. I also wanted her to process and think about what we should do, so I told her, "The thicket is in Cathy's yard. Should we count Cathy's yard?" She did not want to count them either. WHEW!

I still have to work very hard at encouraging declarative pointing when we are not walking with a purpose. She is getting a tad better with this. Yesterday, Pamela volunteered that magnolia leaves are crunchy (stepped on one and said, "Crunch"). I responded to her by talking about how magnolias are different because they drop leaves in the spring. Then, we took turns searching for a fallen leaf to step on and crunch. By responding so warmly and excitedly to Pamela's observation, I spotlighted my interest in what she showed me.

Most of the time I'm having to slow my pace which she knows means I'm waiting for her to point out something--anything. The more tired she is, the more slowly she reacts. During the day, I try to spend time in the same room (or porch) as her to give her more opportunities to share something she notices.

As I have said before, the beauty of homeschooling is how we can work our walks into her math lesson the next day!

Household Ways

Charlotte Mason viewed the natural conditions of the home and household ways as valuable opportunities for learning.

We all know the natural conditions under which a child should live; how he shares household ways with his mother, romps with his father, is teased by his brothers and petted by his sisters; is taught by his tumbles; learns self-denial by the baby's needs, the delightfulness of furniture by playing at battle and siege with sofa and table; learns veneration for the old by the visits of his great-grandmother; how to live with his equals by the chums he gathers round him; learns intimacy with animals from his dog and cat; delight in the fields where the buttercups grow and greater delight in the blackberry hedges (page 96).

One reason why I love RDI is because it focuses parents on lifestyle as a target-rich environment for framing objectives. Before lunch yesterday, Pamela and I sat on the rocking chairs on the back porch, working on her math. We watched my dad trim the pecan tree over the garage. Then, Pamela and I carried the limbs to the curb and cleaned up for him. I thought it would be a great opportunity to work on upper body because some the limbs were awkward to carry. She helped me haul all of that debris to the curb for trash pickup!


We are continuing to do our daily walks, timing them for the coolest time of the day on oppressively hot ones! The thermometer nearly hit 100 yesterday, and it sure felt like it! We have learned so many interesting things about our neighborhood and met Treebeard. David told me that the hardware store a block from the house sells these things. Pamela calls it the talking tree and you can bet her imagination is flying back to Middle Earth and Narnia (Pamela loved Prince Caspian by the way). The day after our walk, I write up a math problem sheet so Pamela can see how math is part of every day life (click the picture to see it enlarged).


Since she is doing different operations with fractions, I have been writing up sheets that focus on how we use fractions in real life, too.