Yes I like it

For all of those readers who just can't get enough Jman stories about his ProLoQuo2Go, let me share with you the latest.

Today, Veterans Day (thank you, vets!), we pulled the Christmas tree down out of the attic and put it up (sans decorations) in the living room. Yes, it's early--we know that. But for starters, Jman LOVES all things Christmas, so, why not? And for seconders, we figured if we put it up NOW, maybe SB3 would get used to the tree being around before we put a bunch of decorations on it for him to play with. So, we put the tree up (artificial pre-lit) without decorations.

We had told Jman we were going to put the tree up today, but we had some errands to run first. Along the way I was playing around with the ProLoQuo2Go on my iPod, finding the preprogrammed Christmasy words. I was thinking we could organize them a little better, customize things for Jman, and maybe create a useful 'activity page' for him to help him communicate more about Christmas with us. Once Jman saw what I was doing, he began trying to swap iPod with me, only this time it was because he wanted the Christmas words and not just because he wanted to watch youtube videos (blocked on his iPod).

While we were out and about, we went to Target. There, Jman remembered we had no star for the top of the tree (ours bit the dust last year or the year before), and he took it upon himself to pick out a new star. We came home, put up the tree, and Jman had Habeeb put the star on top. Jman promptly disappeared and returned with the camera, immediately taking this picture of the new cheap-o star atop our otherwise undecorated tree. Too funny!

Btw, Jman also promptly began building a train set under the tree, and doing his best to try to keep SB3 away from said train. It was pretty funny!

Now, back to the ProLoQuo2Go and the real communication lessons. This evening we were out and about again, and Jman asked to go back to Target, both with and without his ProLoQuo2Go. He was muttering something about 'balls.' Now, knowing Jman, I KNEW that he was talking about Christmas ornaments, but he just didn't know that word. On the way into the store, I quickly programmed in to his ProLoQuo2Go a quickie for answering the proprogammed question "What's that?"

When we got back to the Christmas section of the store, Jman went straight for a set of ornaments that he wanted to buy. I took advantage of the real-life context to work on the language contructs of "What's that?" and the corresponding "That is . . . " along with introducing the vocabulary word/phrase "Christmas ornament." There's no better time to teach someone something new than when they are personally interested in real life. Now, because he's still very much learning, I demonstrated for him both asking the question and answering the question. I navigated from the home page to "Questions" and pushed the preprogrammed button for "What's that?" Then I jumped back to the home page and navigated through "Starters" (for quick and easy sentence starters used frequently), where I programmed in "That is", which took me directly to "Categories", from which I chose "Holidays" and ultimately "Christmas ornaments." Yes, that's quite a few pages to navigate through to get out the simple sentence "That is Christmas ornament" but it works much more quickly than it reads here. With a Christmas specific activity page, we could converse on Christmas things with fewer button pushes, but then again, we have fewer options as well. This seemed a more 'general' way to work on "What's that?" and quick answers for future additional real life opportunities involving more than just Christmas ideas.

So, back to the scenario in the store. Jman paid attention to what I was showing him, and began echoing "ornament." So far, so good: He was indeed stowing away and practicing that new vocabulary word, increasing the chances of him being able to use it in the future.

We wandered around the Christmas section for a while, me debating whether to indulge him and buy any ornaments. I finally decided it wouldn't hurt to get one pack of non-breakable ornaments and take greater advantage of this fabulous learning opportunity for Jman. So, I told Jman he could "Pick one." I of course meant one SET (he was looking at sets of ornaments), but he was a little confused. He was concerned that I meant one piece from a set of ornaments, and he began pointing to each of the 10 ornaments in the set and saying, "that one, that one, that one, . . . " I chuckled and said yes, one SET of ornaments. (Thinking ahead here, this could be a great scenario for working on that math language of 'each' vs 'set').

As we were leaving the Christmas section I had a huge lightbulb moment: This would be a GREAT opportunity to work on some "experience sharing" communication with Jman, as opposed to just the question/answer/vocabulary word aspects (which are important, but stale and static compared to sharing thoughts and ideas and perspectives with each other, which is particularly hard for someone on the spectrum, even without language issues), and in particular with some other preprogrammed buttons he'd been stimming on and playing with in the "Comments" section--"I like it" and "I don't like it."

So, I said aloud, "I like the Christmas ornaments you picked." Then I navigated to the Comments page and punched in "I like it." I asked him if he liked them, and then demonstrated for him, "Yes, I like it." He was VERY interested, and he repeated aloud, "Yes, I like it." Then he and I said something about going home, and of course taking the ornaments he picked.

Well, since he'd been stimming on the "I like it/don't like it" buttons as a pair, he began to say, "No, I don't like it." Every time he'd do that, I'd stop and say, "Oh, if you don't like it, then let's go put them back." That'd stop him cold in his tracks and he'd say and/or punch back in, "Yes, I like it." Then I'd say, "Oh, you do like it. Okay, we'll let's go buy them and take them home." We'd start back towards the front of the store, and after a couple aisles or so, he'd go back to 'balancing' out the words and punching in "No, I don't like it." At which I'd stop and offer to put the ornaments back, and so on and so forth. This happened several times before we made it to the cash register, where we finally bought the ornaments and started home.

Once we were out of the store, he again said he didn't like it, and I offered to take them back. He began to get a little distressed, because he really DID like the ornaments, and he was really wanting to decorate the tree with them, but he also had this autistic NEED to 'balance' the words out, or 'cancel' the words, and he really WAS not liking the 'excitement level' he was having to process at the time, made even harder by my stepping up the challenge with not only language but with 'commenting' or 'experience sharing language' to boot. He was trying really hard to deal with all those challenges, and began to get a little overwhelmed. Then things got even more interesting.

We climbed into the car, Jman holding his ornaments and intently looking at me trying to get ME to parrot for him, "I don't like it" (because I had only said that I did like the ornaments). I was trying to not 'give in' to his manipulative request, but he was getting more distraught.

Now, another area on ProLoQuo2Go is a category for "Feelings." We had demonstrated for Jman a few times in the past, "I feel hungry." He cataloged that, and was interested, and had copied it a time or two, but mostly hadn't done too much with the "Feelings" page to date. However, the "Feelings" page is very conducive to some of that "experience sharing" communication we'd particularly like to help him develop. Yes, it's great to be able to get one's needs met, but we as humans also have a 'need' to share our ideas and thoughts and feelings with others too, even those on the spectrum, even though that is one of their most challenging areas.

So, Jman, increasingly distraught, navigated to the "Feelings" page and punched in "I feel" (one preprogrammed button) and then hesitated briefly over the symbol for "frustrated" (a snarling, frustrated looking face) before moving on to "sad" (a word he's familiar with). He proceeded to tell me, therefore, "I feel sad." He couldn't tell me WHY, of course, but he was able to say, "I feel sad." Now, he's told us before that he was 'sad,' but it was only by saying the single word, "sad" OR by echoing a couple lines from a favorite story, "so, so sad, so so bad." This was new because he included "I feel" and also said aloud, "I feel sad" after punching it in.

I tried to talk with him a little about it, and along the way he also informed me that he was hungry (he didn't eat a lot of dinner, and it was 10pm by this time). I told him (and showed him on ProLoQuo2Go) that I was "sleepy." He noticed that "sleepy" and "tired" had the same symbol. He punched in "I feel sleepy sad tired," all of which were probably true! We decided to come on home, and I did along the way indulge him by saying "I don't like it" just to give him a little 'rest' from his 'frustration' (which was the real thing he was feeling, I think).

So, now in one little jaunt to Target, we'd worked on the language constructs "What's that?" and "That is . . .", we'd been introduced to a new vocabularly word "ornament," and we'd introduced the experience sharing language of "I like it" or "I don't like it" and worked a bit more on "feelings." All for the low low price of $5 worth of cheap-o plastic glittery Christmas ornaments! Wow!

One other little tidbit of info, for the autstically interested crowd: Folks with autism had an underdeveloped sense of "Self." Kind of funny when you think about it. Folks tend to think that someone with autism is ONLY interested in 'themselves' but that's not really accurate. Instead, they have a hard time actually learning who they are and who they aren't in comparison to other people and their likes/dislikes/experiences. So, working on "I like it" and "I don't like it" will be great for helping Jman develop a better sense of who he is IN RELATION TO who others are. For now, we can work on him saying what he likes (or doesn't) when he likes it (or doesn't). Down the road we can compare that to what someone ELSE may like or dislike. That will help him develop both a sense of his own Self and a sense of who others are, and whether he and others are 'the same' or 'not the same.'

Oh, that reminds me of one other 'aside' in the ProLoQuo2Go language lessons for the evening. While we were at the Chrsitmas section of the star, we noticed a box of ornaments in the wrong place. I glanced around and determined where they belonged, which happened to be next to where Jman had moved to. I carried the box over and showed them to Jman and also pointed out the matching sets on the shelf. I had navigated to his math lessons ahead of time, and, pointing to the matching sets of ornaments, I asked him, "Are they the same?" He looked, and quickly punched in his reply, "They are the same." And so we placed the ornaments back where they belonged. Is that cool or what? An opportunity to apply our little 'at home' focus lesson in the real world!

Okay, so, sorry this is such a long post, but I'm just amazed at the opportunities we're finding for communicating and for expanding communication and for learning language and for sharing experiences with this fabulous little ProLoQuo2Go app. It's fascinating to watch him both when he's learning/using it 'properly' and when he's just 'stimming' on it, laughing at the funny (to him) things he can make it say. When he's stimming on it, I remind myself that babies learning language for the first time do much the same thing--they 'babble.' Jman stimming on his ProLoQuo2Go is his version of 'babbling,' and we're already seeing little glimpses of his babbling growing into 'real' language. And just like a baby takes a year and a half to start talking, and even longer to make sentences, and even longer to ask questions, or tell a consistent tale, so to I expect this to be a 'long haul' process with Jman and not an overnight miracle. But boy, some of the little highlights along the way are just as fabulous as some of SB3's emerging language (which deserves it's own blog post sometime!).