stimming vs studying

Here’s yet another NEW Jman art story that I discovered very late last night. First a little history: Jman has been listening to a short audio cd that reads aloud a small Usborne book that has 4 short train stories in it. I bought this book/cd set more than a year ago, showed it to him, and he had no interest in it at that time, despite the fact that it was about trains. However, he ‘discovered’ it a few weeks ago and has been all over it ever since. One might call it a stim. How many times in a day can a mom listen to “The Old Steam Train” on the cd player before she loses her mind? I think we may have a chance to find out!

But here’s the thing: It’s not exactly a stim. Why? Because he’s not just doing the same thing over and over again. He’s actually studying this book, learning it, memorizing it, and even interpreting it.

First, he spent time figuring out what pages go with the audio tracks. He actually did have to think to do this because there are NOT ‘dings’ telling you when to turn the page, not to mention the fact that he was completely unfamiliar with 'read along' books anyway. After that he began figuring out which words go along with the audio track. I think he’s still working on that, because I’ll see him back tracking and self correcting sometimes as he runs his fingers under the words. That reminds me of how I learned to read when I was little. Jman has been interested enough in this ‘association’ process the last week or two that I began to realize he’s not just stimming, but is actually studying, trying to learn from this book and put it all together. With his language delay/disorder, that’s a very valuable thing.

But here’s the recent discovery that blows me away: Jman has begun drawing suns in the sky on each page of the stories, AND those suns are PAYING ATTENTION to what is going on in the story, AND those suns have facial expressions that almost perfectly match the ‘mood’ or situation on that page of the story.

Consider these few pages from one story. Up until this point in this story, the suns have been generally happy faces, reflecting the pleasant time the characters in the story are having. However, on this first page, the sun is noticing a bit of a problem. The dog Rusty is jumping through the train window. Notice how the sun is looking in the direction of the problem, and how he has a slightly worried expression on his face. On the next page the sun is still considering the problem of the dog on the train, with a less surprised expression, but still considering the problem.

On the next page the sun has a bit of a frown, indicating there's a problem. The sun's expression is almost identical to that of the lady on the platform who's facing the reader. I love the eyes of the sun on the following page! The pupils are centered, and the sun's mouth is a straight, expressionless line. The characters in the story are trying to problem solve, and the sun has a matching expression.

Finally the train returns, with the sun happily looking down. What I found interesting here is that the sun is looking down on the people, rather than at the train. It's as if the sun knows that the emotional state of the people is more important that the object of the train. The next page has a relaxed happy sun waiting for the offloading.

After that are a few more pages with happy suns as all the people reconnect with the missing puppy dogs, but I wanted to share this very last page of the story. Not only is the sun happily looking down on the happily resolved situation, but he's also located slightly behind the fence. I really don't know much about 'art' but I just find it absolutely fascinating when Jman tucks part of a drawing off the page or behind another object, rather that having to draw the whole object for display. With the sun tucked behind the fence like this but peeking over, it feels as though the sun is interested and happy, but recognizes that he is not really part of the story. It keeps the sun separate from the real characters in the story.
When I showed these pictures to Habeeb last night, Habeeb asked if the sun was Jman, watching the story. Perhaps he is. Or perhaps it's the baby in the sun from teletubbies! But here's the thing: Whether the sun is Jman or a baby-sun or just a sun watching the story, Jman's comprehension of the action in the story AND OF THE MINDS AND EMOTIONS OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE STORY is perfect. Do you have ANY idea how NOT autistic that is????? No, I'm not saying that Jman is not autistic, because he definitely is. But I what I want you to understand is that folks who have autism CAN think and feel and understand and comprehend. They are REAL people, fully human, with the same motivations as the rest of us. They are NOT some mutant or some robot or some space alien dropped here by mistake. The thing is, they have this neurological information processing disorder that just makes it REALLY HARD for them to figure out and apply all this all the time. But Jman has clearly demonstrated with these drawings that he is thinking and feeling and interpreting and understanding. It's just that in real life the info is too much and too fast for his current neural networking to process and keep up with without some help, support, guidance, scaffolding. That's what I'm for--to help him out when it's too much, and to back off when it's not.

I was discussing this with Habeeb last night in light of a question someone asked on an autism board. The question was, "What are your current challenges with your children on the spectrum?" The answers people were giving included school, or potty training, or behaviors, or whatever--the typical answers one hears. I didn't answer, because I couldn't really think of anything. I could list some of those typical answers too, don't get me wrong. But I don't really categorize them as 'challenges' I suppose. Habeeb jokingly offered up stimming on the computer (Jman is into re-edited veggietales videos on youtube too, right now), and I suggested "The Old Steam Train" (because I've heard it SO many times).

But then we discussed whether some of these stims were really stims. In Jman's case, I'm beginning to see growth happening out of some of these apparent or so-called stims. Stims are generally defined as repetitive behaviors that are often calming to the person (like tapping your foot or drumming your fingers if you're 'normal', or flapping your hands or spinning things if you're 'autistic'). In Jman's case, it might be listening to the same track over and over and over again. But increasingly I'm seeing some of Jman's 'stims' be 'productive.' He's reviewing and studying, and getting enough time to practice, and is building new meaning and new information from his so-called stims. I just find it absolutely fascinating. Jman isn't trying to drown the world out. He's actually trying figure the world out. Gee, go figure! Why should I be surprised? He IS a person, ya know!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Variations and Thinking

Yesterday I took the boys to a very small autism playgroup that just started up. We went last week as well, and Jman spent a lot of the time drawing pictures. This week we began with an inpromptu tea party, and later Jman requested the drawing materials again.

He and I sat down with some paper and markers. I'm not much of an artist, but I enjoy playing with paper. I thought maybe I'd make a book instead of a picture, and proceeded to fold my sheet of paper in half. I did not tell Jman to look at what I was doing. I did not tell Jman to DO anything. We were simply together, sitting beside each other, getting ready to draw our own things. Think of it as parallel play, if you'd like.

What does Jman do? He notices that I'm doing something a little different. Immediately, he adopts the idea and folds his piece of paper in half as well. I'm not quite sure why that surprised me, but it did, and I gave him a bit of a hard time about it, saying to him, "Oh man! Monkey see, Monkey do!!" Jman didn't mind my teasing and proceeded to work on whatever his new idea was. He didn't continue to copy my variations, because I proceeded to tear my paper along the first fold, and then folded the two half sheets in half again to make a four-leaf booklet. He kept his once-folded, not torn paper and was beginning a drawing.

I changed my mind again on what I was going to do. SB3 has his first birthday in a few days, so I decided to make him a card. When I finished, I showed it to Jman, thinking maybe he'd copy my idea and make a card too, since he'd copied me before. Briefly it flashed through my mind how often autistic kids are told what to think, what to do, what to draw, how to draw it. Everyone in a class has to work on producing identical projects. They even do it to 'normal' kids in regular classes too! What a drag. Instead, I just showed him my card. He could like it, copy it, hate it, ignore it--whatever. I was simply sharing my idea, and he could think for himself.











Jman was indeed thinking for himself, as I soon discovered. After a while, I noticed he was very close to finishing the drawing he was working on--more VeggieTales stuff. In particular, he was drawing a scene from "The Grapes of Wrath." I thought to myself, "Great--more VeggieTales. But hey, it could always be a VeggieTales card, I guess. They make 'theme' cards like that." Again, my thinking was too limited.Jman finished his drawing, then opened the piece of paper and drew a couple of concentric circles and a line inside. I had to stop and think for a second, and then it hit me: He made a DVD case! The DVD's we have for VeggieTales look just like the concentric circles with the line on the bottom. How cool is that? It totally reminds me of the kinds of things I'd make with paper when I was a kid--houses, radios, you name it. Nothing like paper and tape to entertain!So, anyway, this was very exciting for me on several fronts. First, Jman noticed my variations on his own, and adopted those he found interesting on his own. Also, he didn't copy me just for the sake of copying me. He took a bit of my idea and added his own thinking to it in order to produce his own unique creative project. And finally, I was even pleased with myself and how I shared with him without limiting or directing him. Another little tidbit is that while he was still drawing (so before I knew it was going to be a DVD case), I offered to do some of the time-consuming coloring for him, and he was just fine with it. I remember the days when other people were not allowed to interfere in what he was doing. Now, perhaps because I was respecting him and what he was doing, my input and assistance were welcome instead of rejected.

Being together, not forcing someone to comply, respecting each other's ideas, sharing and building off of each other's creativity, and even working together a bit--it just doesn't sound very autistic sometimes! (But trust me--he is VERY autistic!)

math and time

Sly has been studying Japan recently in Sonlight Core 5. In the process he read the book, "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by ______. The back of the book includes instructions for how to fold an origami paper crane, and Sly of course went on a paper crane folding kick.

One of SL's suggestions for an activity related to Japan, origami, and paper cranes consisted of a bunch of math problems. First you memorize how to fold a paper crane, and do it enough times that you are pretty decent at it. Then you time yourself and see how long it takes to fold one crane. Gradually you do the math to determine how long it would take to fold 10 cranes, 20 cranes, 50 cranes, 100 cranes, and finally 1000 cranes.

Sly of course knows that there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, etc. But we haven't really done much 'math' with 'time measurements.' I was curious to see how he would try to solve these math problems. Would he just borrow and carry as if he were working in base ten still, or would he think and realize that when he borrowed from the minutes column he was borrowing 60 seconds that needed to be added to the seconds column?

His initial problem was to find the elapsed time between 23:54 and 26:28. He DID think and realize that he was borrowing 60 seconds, not 10 of something. However, he didn't think about the effect of dropping a 6 in front of the 2 (in :28). I stopped him and asked about how he got 628 seconds. He thought. He realized that didn't make sense. I guided him through, saying, "You had 28 seconds, right? And you borrowed 60 seconds to add to that, right?" And then the light bulb went on and he said, "It's 88 seconds! Not 628!" Exactly. Quickly he did the right math and found that it took him 2:34 to make one paper crane.

After that, he was on a roll. He set up his next math problem to find the time it would take to fold 10 cranes: 2:34 x 10. He recognized that when you multiply by 10, you can just add a zero. But I questioned whether 23:40 was correct. I jotted down the problem like this:
2:34
x10x10

and his eyes lit up. Very quickly he calculated that 34 seconds x10 was 340 seconds, and that 340 seconds divided by 60 would be 5:40. Then he solved 2 minutes x10 and added that to his 5:40. Presto: 25:40, NOT 23:40. How long to do 20 cranes? He solved that one easily enough: 25:40 + 25:40 = 50:80 = 51:20. He had the idea about simplifying his time units down pat. When he next calculated the time for 50 cranes, he recognized off the bat that he had to simplify 128 minutes into hours and minutes. He then doubled the time for 50 cranes to find the time for 100, and then multiplied that by 10, multiplying hours, minutes, and seconds separately. The first try around he gooned up his simplifying the time units, but once he got started, he fixed his error. It would take Sly 42 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds to fold 1000 paper cranes.Now, if you stayed with me through all that, here is the point I really wanted to make: Just like Jman had a reason to learn to cut with scissors today, Sly had a reason to learn and understand the in's and out's of doing math operations using time measurements today. He was interested. There was a real life application (because he CHOSE to do the origami project suggested vs other projects or one of his own design). Sly always does much better with understanding and doing math when it is applied math instead of math for the sake of progressing through a textbook on schedule. It is yet another reminder to me that learning is SO much easier and more effective when you use real life with a kid who is developmentally ready and interested because the real topic is meaningful to him.

A follow up on this math lesson could be determining how long it would take to perform different katas (from karate) of varying lengths of time, or how long a workshop would take if you wanted to cover so many katas. Perhaps calculating how much time you should allow for a kumite (sparring) tournament if there are x number of competitors and a sparring round lasts y number of minutes. Or, being the road trippers that we are, we could calculate the arrival time based upon speed and distance traveled given a certain start time. There are all sorts of opportunities to work on math operations using time measurements that are REAL, and much more interesting than some dry textbook. But above all it's important to recognize the kid's ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development, what they are ready for and interested in having you guide them through so they can learn for themselves). The difference between trying to teach, which may be well intentioned but inappropriate at the time, and learning, sometimes despite the teaching.

Learning when you have a reason to

There are all sorts of ways to teach something to someone. But there's a difference between teaching someone (or trying to) and someone actually learning. For starters, the would-be learner has to be ready and able and willing to learn.

Over the years, Jman has had trouble cutting with scissors. He could do basic straight cuts, but manipulating the item to be cut, maneuvering around curves, problem solving how to cut something and then being able to execute the cutting were all very difficult for him. He would hand me the scissors instead and tell me to "Mommy cut" or "Cutting."

But recently I've noticed a few of Jman's drawings cut out. And today he is cutting and assembling a montage of his monster drawings from the VeggieTales "Where's God when I'm S-s-scared?" video. He's been drawing the pictures of Junior Asparagus, FrankenCelery, and bunches of little round monsters. Now he's over there cutting out his drawings, all by himself, maneuvering around curves, getting into points, working very hard, and quite successfully.I happened upon him first when he was half way done with cutting out a funky colored FrankenCelery. He nearly cut off one of the bolts on the side of his head, but he didn't get flustered or upset. He just continued to carefully go around the drawing, until he had it entirely cut out.

Then I followed him as he went looking for a piece of tape to repair his cut bolt. He found a piece of old tape on a piece of furniture, but I offered him a new clean piece. He considered, and then used the new tape.

Next he began to tape up the bolt on the front of his drawing. I thought it would be better if he put the tape on the back, and stopped him. Once again, he didn't protest my suggestion. He considered the new idea, and decided it was indeed a better solution, I suppose, because he chose to put the repair tape on the back of his cut out drawing.

Next I tried to think of what he might do with his drawing. There were some thumbtacks nearby. Jman recently got a desk in his room with a cork board area under a hutch. I pulled out one of the thumbtacks and showed it to him, telling him, "This is a thumbtack. Thumbtack." (Never pass up an opportunity to work on language!) Then I pointed him over towards the corkboard. He totally got the idea and liked it, and promptly mounted FrankenCelery on the hutch.

Since then he's been working on those additional drawings, cutting them out, and adding them to his Veggie montage at his desk. As I've been watching him, and sharing a few suggestions with him (like the tape and the thumbtack), I've been considering how over the years we've occasionally tried to teach him the skill of cutting with scissors. He knew what the scissors were for, but he never really used them beyond opening bags of chips or such. But NOW he is learning how to cut because he's motivated to cut. It wasn't something I could teach him or force him to do or learn. But he's learned anyway, when he had a reason for himself to learn.

It's something to consider in trying to teach or school our kids. Often, when we push them before they are ready (physically, mentally, or emotionally), we not only fail in teaching them what we wanted them to learn, but we may succeed in teaching them some things we don't want them to learn--that they're stupid, or we're mean, for example. Also, we can get way too focused on 'skills for the sake of skills' and forget that what we're really trying to do is grow a PERSON, not program a computer.

Anyway, rather than create some mandatory "you ought to learn how to cut with scissors" lessons, I let it slide over the years. We'd cut things out every once in a while, but I didn't force it. And now, despite the fact that I didn't 'teach' it to him, Jman can indeed cut with scissors. He was ready, able, and interested, and had a reason to do learn it now. There's a lot to be said for 'learning' instead of 'teaching.' And I think his montage is pretty terrific!
A couple other observations, which don't have to do with the skill of cutting with scissors: Jman kept his cool and didn't get flustered when things weren't just perfect. Jman didn't balk at my interest or suggestions. In fact, one time he did ask me to help with cutting an extra bit of white paper from a spike on a monster. I helped him, and when he wanted me to trim up another spike for him I declined. I told him it was fine the way it was. Once again, he didn't get flustered or frustrated, but instead let the cut job be 'good enough.' There was a lot of thinking that Jman was doing in his drawing, cutting, and assembling his montage. There was also some thinking that I was doing with/for him along the way. Perhaps I should have made fewer suggestions. BUT Jman is not one to simply comply because someone makes a suggestion. He's a hard-headed little cuss. The fact that he considered and accepted my ideas without protest says a lot about how he was being his own person while still valueing my guidance and perspective.

Not bad, for an old man!

This weekend Habeeb and Sly participated in a board breaking competition at the US Yoshukai Karate Association 2009 Summer Camp at Henry Horton State Park in Tennessee.

Sly came in 4th place in his division (boys 10-13, underbelts (less than blackbelt)). He did very well for his first ever board breaking competition (and only the third time he has ever broken boards at all). It should be noted that many if not most participants at all levels (including some blackbelts) didn't break all their boards, and very few participants broke all their boards on their first try. Blackbelts had only one chance per board (because they should be able to do this, right?!), whereas underbelts had two chances. Sly broke two of six boards. His routine he designed/choreographed was very good. Next time, he'll perform with greater confidence, and likely break more boards too.

Habeeb, also in his first competition, came in 1st place in his division (adult men, underbelts). He broke 5 of 6 boards the first try, and broke the other board once they got a second person to brace it for him. Check out this video of Habeeb in action--not bad, for an old man!

Jman art: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (give or take a few)

Jman may be a man of few words, but he sure can say a lot with one of his drawings. Yesterday afternoon when we were together, he stopped what we were doing and began to draw a picture. I looked over and watched him as he finished. I knew exactly what he was drawing, and when I said, "Bacon and eggs?" he enthusiastically repeated, "Bacon and eggs!" The poor boy was hungry, and apparently enjoyed breakfast so much that morning that he wanted some more.

What totally blew me away with his picture, though, was the great detail. Notice he included a bottle of Frank's Red Hot. He LOVES Red Hot, and scrambled eggs just aren't the same if they aren't engulfed in Red Hot. He has a big pile of eggs on one plate at the top, and the bacon on another plate at the bottom, like they are when they come off the stove. There's an empty bowl from when the eggs were scrambled before cooking. He also included a couple knives (one for cutting the bacon in half before we cook it), and a fork and spoon for eating with. In the upper left hand corner is the spatula and in the upper right is the iron skillet. The drawing of the iron skillet I find particularly fascinating because he didn't draw the whole thing. Part of it is off the page. I love that he could think outside the box enough to not have to draw the whole skillet. It kind of points out that the skillet is now out of the picture, so to speak, because the hot food is ready to eat. And the food IS hot, btw--notice the little wavy heat lines over the strip of bacon and the pile of eggs. A meal fit for a Jman!I don't know about yall, but Jman impresses me, not only with his drawings, but with his ability to communicate so clearly through them. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for him with all these real thoughts in his head and not being able to simply put those thoughts out there into words. I'm so glad that he's moved his drawing up from just copying pictures and words he's seen somewhere else to actually putting them together creatively from nothing to express his own unique thoughts and observations. I never thought about it before, but perhaps it's a visual version of the ideas of teaching kids how to write (as in how to compose the written word) by beginning with copywork. Jman began with self-imposed copywork, which he does still enjoy, but is now clearly moving on and up into creative 'compositions' of his own. I think it's simply amazing. It just goes to show how truly smart and how truly fully human he really is (and others on the spectrum as well for that matter, including the so-called 'nonverbal').