the “stern” look
belle and i have been working on why she feels the staff get frustrated with her and i drew her a chart that showed
belle 
+ “yes” +”ok”= staff
She seemed to respond well to that, but i also explained that the staff can also get frustrated about things unrelated to her and that if they ask her to do her work they are not always frustrated. Then we reviewed the nanny 911 concepts of communication and respect.
Hard concepts…… i wrote to her teachers to explain what Belle and I had talked about so we could send similar messages.
Her teacher wrote back: Belle talked with me this morning about “stern” looks and what that means. We explored that sometimes people don’t look happy or sad or angry while they are giving her time (ie: to engage in tasks, check her schedule, make a choice, etc.). She ended up calling that the “blank” face. it was a good discussion.
If that’s not communication and respect I don’t know what is.
Nanny 911
My daughter always amazes me by being attracted to TV shows that fill some of the academic, behavioral or language gaps in her life. She loved poko who taught her about sharing and feelings, She loves funniest home video when she needs to bridge the gap with family members and share a laugh. She learned how to read and greatly improve her vocabulary by watching between the lions religiously. And now she is really into nanny 911. It’s interesting that a child who is very rigid, has poor frustration tolerance and trouble seeing other’s perspective would love a show that shows just that in other children. She invites me to watch along and we discuss the feelings, facial expressions and communication abilities of the family members. She’s starting to see the recipe for success -rules, respect,+reinforcement, and communication. Belle went off to school this morning a little concerned about a problem she had with a staff member yesterday and we both agreed respect and communication is all that’s needed. She came home glowing!
Thanks nanny 911!
who doesn’t avoid work
it’s very interesting to me that one of belle’s greatest struggles is work avoidance and if the teachers of her past hadn’t avoided the work that was necessary to support her correctly we wouldn’t be in this boat.
we all avoid work- what are the ways adults to avoid work? well, they say they are going to do something and just not do it, say that it doesn’t need to be done, say “it’s not my job”, say that it won’t help anyways- or even sabotage the plan or retaliate against the person making the request. Maribel is smart, and she is normal in that she wants to avoid what is too hard, uninteresting, doesn’t seem to make sense, doesn’t have a purpose or that she might fail at. We just need to teach her acceptable and appropriate ways to communicate it.
Give her an out, or give her the tools to succeed, that’s all she’s asking for.
She wants to succeed, she wants to please you and she wants to learn!
what a great day!
I can’t deny that this was an amazing day and since i’m in the process of setting up a new behavior plan it will be a great day to start so I can give lots of points right off the bat. what went well?
- get up and get dressed-ok
- dirty clothes in the basket-ok
- play with the bunny (a daily responsibility)-ok
- turn off wii to do some work with mom-ok
- let’s discuss appropriate subjects to talk about with people we don’t know-ok
- let’s start a money chart-ok
- let’s discuss florida some more since you say you don’t want to go-ok
- cooperated for the tutor- read and dictated, was happy and friendly
- transitioned right back to me when i got home
- went to art
- went to music- participated perfectly in both
- went to the barn and gave her horse a work out with perfect social behavior. sharing her tools and saying hi first and responding when others did first
- talked about why kids don’t like horror films and then let it go (whew)
- got herself a nutritious choice for dinner
- agreed on how to use her last hours before bed
I couldn’t ask for a better way to start a behavior plan!
rounding up!
We’re celebrating Belle learning a new concept- rounding up. $6.99=$7, .99=$1. etc. Having struggled with math, she didn’t understand the way the store labels things is deceiving and that if your really want to budget your money and compare prices you usually need to add a penny. I’ve been trying to explain it for several months and yesterday she said to me, “so this one says 3.99 and that means $4, right?”
I was so happy that she got that abstract concept.Then i went on to introduce the subject of taxes and the government- we have a long way to go there, but it’s amazing how trading card shopping can motivate someone to learn very diffficult concepts! Go webkinz!
analyzing behavior
Behavior has always been intriguing and challenging to me as a Mom. I have a nursing background so when my boys were young I often did somewhat of a nursing care plan in order to chart behaviors and strategize ways to eliminate or replace the behavior. My husband and i even took parenting classes so that we would have the same goals and parenting techniques, understood consequences and how to apply them, both natural and logical. If all else failed we would turn to a reward system and some appropriate reinforcers and whala! three happy, loving, respectful, mature young men developed.
…and then I was blessed with a little girl with autism. Consequences didn’t make sense, communication was a huge roadblock, reasons for behaviors became allusive, and reinforcers took a lot of creativity to figure out and usually needed to be changed frequently. Along with that was the curious delema of my daughter exhibiting defiant behaviors at school that she never does at home and loving, trusting, mature behaviors at home that she doesn’t exhibit at school. Mix that with middle school,depression, lack of confidence, inconsistent communication (and academic) skills and extreme passions and you have a pretty miserable child (and school personal)
For years I’ve been asking for staff familiar with behavior analysis- looking beyond the specific behavior to what the function of the behavior is (usually power, fear of failure, to make a demand, to escape or refuse, or for self- gratification) and then finding replacement behaviors that are appropriate.
From what i can tell my daughter’s having 2-3 meltdowns a day in school where she picks some arbitrary reason for not complying with their requests (you need a snake, or my friend is mad at me), then ends up in the office on the floor and gets the aide on the verge of tears. Three staff members take turns dealing with her (she sure knows how to get attention and control) usually without success in compliance, but some deescalation of the behavior. I’m trying to guide the team to figure out the function of the behaviors and to identify, teach and reinforce replacement behaviors, but i don’t really know how to do that myself and I know they don’t, so it goes into it’s negative cycle.
my goal- find the help we need, find the environment that has what she needs and avoids what she doesn’t 9sensory overload), find experienced staff that has seen this before, learn as much as i can about behavior, it’s function and teaching replacement behaviors, and doing what i can at home to teach the skills my daughter needs to succeed in a more uncomfortable, scary environment (how to refuse, how to request, how to compromise)
action- we have a behavioral therapist coming over next week. Continue to work with the school team, request a behavior plan update at school overseen by an autism behavior expert. Get a message and then meditate.
We have to do this for our future, for her future!
pulling rank and testing behaviors at school
My daughter’s aide asked me today if she should try to get belle to do things for herself and gave the example of throwing away her garbage.
this is what i wrote to them:
I’ll use the garbage example to explain the strategies that i would use to increase compliance and why. I’m really glad she asked my advice before deciding how to handle the situation, her patience and maturity is greatly appreciated.
my recommendations-
- continue to build trust and respect- the more maribel feels safe around you the more she will want to do things for you when asked or even independently.
- make requests in a positive proactive way- “Belle, how about if we move the garbage can right next to your desk for a while then when you need to throw away your garbage it will be right there.” In that way your are making the assumption that eventually she will be independent in throwing things away and assuming also that it was only a logistics problem as apposed to her being defiant.
- make things rule based- ” the janitors have a rule that we throw away all of our garbage or we can’t eat or play here anymore – and we don’t want to get ants.”
- break it down into small steps or make it a team effort- “belle, i’m gonna get your milk carton, can you grab the plate and throw it away?”
- ask for help instead of giving orders- “I’m so busy right now- can you help me clean up here so we can move on to —-?”
- reinforce- “thanks for helping, cleaning, following the rules!” “you earned a __”
- appreciate small steps toward compliance, respect and cooperation throughout the day.
- model what you would like to see and hear-
- make it fun? that could be tricky, but we have lots of fun at home doing boring things
basically i think: familiarize, desensitize, reinforce.
I often think of that movie “My Big fat Greek wedding” when she says that her trick to get her husband to do anything she wants him to is to make him think it was his idea. It works with men and Belle!
of course, you don’t have to do all the things above with every issue, but one or two should help move things in the right direction.
Also, it helps that I’m aware of the problem because i can really emphasize at home that she needs to be responsible for herself and not to expect others to do things for her- even me!
mom’s view/ dad’s view
me- belle has so much trouble figuring out what other kids are saying. she invites them to watch a movie and they say ok, but don’t smile so she thinks they don’t want to or that they don’t like her or that they don’t like the movie. It’s frustrating to have her so confused when words and facial expressions don’t match.
Daddy- at least she cares how they feel- for so long she didn’t! she’s making progress!
me-well, that is true. i agree, let’s celebrate.
developemental delay dilemmas
my 12 year old has a developmental delay which causes a huge dilemma in how she is treated daily. most people treat her younger than she is because of her speech delay. what does she want and expect?
- to be talked to like a 4th grader
- to be treated with the respect of an adult
- to have the fun and freedom of a 5th grader
- to go to middle school with her peers
- to watch pg-13 shows (at least when she’s 13)
It’s hard to expect someone who meets a girl who is obviously very immature for her age to treat her with the respect that they would their spouse, but my daughter doesn’t want to be shushed, scolded or threatened with loss of priviledges anymore than an adult would. I don’t blame her.
do unto others
how do you teach someone who is oblivious to their effect on other people that they should be kind, thoughtful, generous, caring, and patient?
well, it’s not threats, punishment, consequences or scolding. For a child with autism those methods only lead to defensiveness and anger and the child seperates the punishment from the behavior. And… they still don’t understand the effect their rudeness or mean remarks have on others.
what does work? positive behavior support!!! PBS/ABA!!! Model the bahavior, script the behavior, and reward the behavior that you want to see in your child. Catch them doing something right. It’s one of the things that will work with all kids, but it’s one of the only things that will work with kids with autism.
