Good News on Academics

Parent/teacher conferences were last week. The good news is that when James's teachers were able to get him to cooperate on a few standardized tests, he scored higher than expected. Bad news is that they still spend more time with his behavior than any other kid in the classroom: he is the highest functioning kid in class but is also the most challenging because of his behavior. It has also been difficult for them to find coherent patterns in his behavior, so each day is a new surprise, and on some days, maybe every fifteen minutes.

James is currently in a "functional life skills unit," but his teachers have determined that it is below his ability level. They feel that a Social Behavioral Skills (SBS) program may be more appropriate for James than the SCORES (Social Communications something... something...) program that he is currently under. He also needs more time with inclusion in the general education environment. Next week or so I'll be visiting a new school that has an SBS program with inclusion support.

This is good news. Although James has his quirks, his teachers love working with him. He'll be missed. He has a good sense of humor and can be very endearing and affectionate at times, even though he scares some of the other kids. James's age-level is first grade, but he's repeating some kindergarten material because of non-participation and behavior/social problems last year. His curriculum will be readjusted to fit his needs. If they could only just get him to comply.

Here are my notes from the meeting:

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Brigance Tests

• Word recognition:
  2nd grade level. 9/10 words correct, 10th word correct on 2nd try (playing games).
  3rd grade level: didn't want to participate.
  
  
• Oral:
  A, lower first [grade level], no errors
  A, upper first [grade level], didn't want to participate
  
  
• Addition: up to 18 without grouping, but with manipulatives.
  Subtraction: some with help, beginning skills.
  
  A small digression: The math skills are recent. I remember chuckling at James's daily notes the first few weeks they tried to get him to do math. There were a lot of code "1"s annotated on his daily schedule for that block, which according to the legend, stands for "ran away." The grumpy professor I had for the first semester of Discrete Mathematics was so dry and uninspiring that I wanted to run away. James's teachers are much nicer, but I can still empathize with his situation.

Behaviors of Concern

• Agression/Threatening.
• General Non-compliance.
• Targeting the defenseless.
• Not responding consistently to positive or negative reinforcement.

Positive Behavior

• Works well in general education with assistance.
• Can express needs and wants functionally.
• Enjoys jokes and humor.
• Is flexible with transition and change.

Some Observations on Behavior

• Always weighing his options, talks about them out loud, planning ahead, over and over.
• His autistic "obsession" seems to be with rewards & consequences rather than merely objects. Sometimes deliberate sabotage behavior.
• No magic bullet, varies day-to-day, somewhat unpredictable.
• He may be using rewards/consequences to establish normalcy.

Academic Areas of Concern

• Generalization of academic skills.
• Pragmatic use of social language.
• Lack of group-work skills due to time in general ed.
  (James may require extra time to complete a task because of his distractability, problems focusing on activities he doesn't like, etc.)

Positive Academic Skills

• Math and calendar skills above grade level.
  
  Another digression: James has the calendar memorized months in advance and can tell you what day of the week a special or important date will fall on. He has a desktop calendar at home that he writes in. When I got him the calendar for this year he would not let go of it. That night he went to bed with it. On several occasions he has written down the opening dates of kid movies based on previews at the theater or TV spots--this even includes long-range previews from last year. While riding in the car he blabs on and on about movie dates and special events in his own version of broken English. On several occasions he has marked out things he doesn't like, including his last trip to the dentist. (The whole dentist experience was odd so I may post about that later.)
  
  Three months ago James finally showed interest in clocks. He already knows that at 60 minutes a new hour will begin. He is also able to associate time with posted restaurant or shop hours. Prior to his sudden interest in the clock, much of my efforts to get him interested in it failed; he picked up these skills suddenly on his own, his way, by osmosis.
  
  
• Reading and comprehension near grade level.
• Outstanding decoding abilities.
• Good receptive and expressive vocabulary.

What teachers have tried

• Ignoring behaviors.
• Time-out routines.
• Taking away reinforces.
• Adding more frequent reinforcers (surprise box at noon, treasure chest at end of day). They had to add a noon reward because James would realize when he wouldn't have enough points for the rest of the day and just give up early--smart kid.
• SCORES classroom visitation.
• Increasing positive interactions and student selected activities/choices.

What the teachers would like to try

• Additional time in general education.
• Looking into a Social Behavioral Skills (SBS) program for James.
  

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Anyway, good news.

Red Words, Green Words

A couple of weeks ago James's teachers came up with Red Word and Green Word lists at school to help him with his "contracts" or token economy system. He is pretty good about communicating his intentions; they aren't merely threats, it's him talking aloud and planning out his actions. Rather than just blurting out inappropriate threats when he is frustrated or doesn't get his way, the teachers hope that they can get him to choose more appropriate behaviors.

Most autistic kids tend to fixate on certain things. Although James likes things like toy cars, it almost seems as if one of his stronger fixations involve the social system of rewards, consequences (punishment), and to a lesser extent, people's reactions. It isn't just negative attention-seeking. He tends to announce his behavior and mulls over what he is going to do, over and over again, and sometimes you can hear him talking himself in and out of behavior he knows to be inappropriate. This leads to inconsistent, unpredictable, and sometimes manipulative behavior. The following is a transcript of James's Red Word/Green Word List--a simple Social Story. He understands it quite well and is even saying them out loud as I type this. He also finds great humor in teasing that he'll "use red words in school."

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Red Word List for James

James should not use Red Words at school. If James uses Red Words, there are consequences like no WOW [recess], no lunch for with friends, thinking time [time out], more independent work and no special toys, cars, or puzzles.

Hitting
Breaking
Throwing
Touching
Hurting
Coughing
Kicking
Spitting
Biting
Pushing
Tearing
Cutting

[Consequence:] Go to Mr B's room.

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Green Word List for James

Teachers and students are happy when James uses Green Words instead of Red Words. If James uses Green Words only, there are special prizes like surprise box, treasure chest, special treats, cars, puzzles, and extra computer time.

Be nice to friends
Say hi to friends
I need a break
I feel mad
I don't like it
Please stop

[Consequence:] Stay in classroom.

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James has dozed off already, but he enjoyed reading this. I guess this still counts as reading or story time.

Tantrum Video

When a coworker asked how bad my son's tantrums could possibly be, I showed him this video. It is practically a play-by-play reenactment.


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Car Troubles

During our road trip over the holidays James was usually happy. For some reason I ended up taking pictures of when he was not. Here James is crying because I wouldn't buy a crappy, "pre-broken" $30 toy car at a truck stop. Notice that he is holding another $30 toy car I purchased just three hours earlier at another gas station. It lasted less than a week.





A few hours later I had to pull over because James stuck the end of his sweatpant's drawstring through the spokes of his toy car's wheel and couldn't get it out. He began screaming, "Help! Help!"


A minute later, after Dad fixes the problem, he is happy again and laughs at his wardrobe malfunction.

Car Photography

I made the mistake of leaving my digital camera in the back seat with James. Each time I caught him playing with it I made him put it back into the case. When I finally looked at the images I realized he took a lot more pictures than I had thought, across several days. I was surprised that more than half of them came out--the camera's autofocusing features are a bit tricky. I was impressed.

James Made It

James plays differently than a typical kid his age. He does some pretend play now, but it is mostly scene or object-oriented rather than role-playing. He will follow some simple role-playing scenarios when lead, but would rather talk about or talk to a character rather than talking for it. On the other hand, he does use his imagination for construction and visual arts. He likes to make things. Here are a couple of quick things he's done recently, spontaneously without prompting by anyone:

One day James told me that we needed to go upstairs to room 104. When I saw what he had done, James said that he "made a hotel house."

Last year at a previous day care, James put "Men" and "Women" signs on the restrooms (they were previously unlabeled and unisex). The other kids didn't like it when he insisted that they follow his signs.

This is one of a half dozen or so configurations James has come up with for playing his favorite video games, "Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition" and "Street Racing Syndicate". Since he insists on stopping at all the red lights, he hasn't yet won many street races.

In an earlier, more elaborate setup, he fabricated a trunk using an ice chest. But the dog was missing. When I asked James where the dog was, he said, "in the trunk."