Tag

spectrum

Things that made me cry today, in no particular order

Posted by — No Comments

lake

-Listening to one of our campers play and sing a song she wrote on her ukelele, about how much she loves camp.

-Watching one of our little 6-year-olds silently cry. And when I said, “I’m feeling really sad about camp ending. Are you?” he heavily sighed, wiped his eye, and said, “Yeah, I am.”

-Watching another one of our little 6-year-olds say goodbye to our therapy dog. He knelt down, and whispered in Cadet’s ear, “Bye, Cadet. It’s my last day of camp.” He then told us, “Cadet is so sad it’s the end of camp. Cadet wishes he could come back every day. Cadet is going to miss camp.”

-A thirteen-year-old camper saying, “I don’t want to go to school. I wish camp could be forever.”

-Four nine- through thirteen-year-olds making a conga line in the water during free swim

-Taking one last picture of our backyard this morning, and one last picture of the lake yesterday afternoon.

-The idea that yet another summer is done, in the blink of an eye

backyard

A Social Thinking Lesson

Posted by — 2 Comments

Disclaimer: As per usual, this post is completely unedited. And I’m tired. So it is likely hard to follow and doesn’t make sense. And I realize that I say that all the time but this time it REALLY is a mess. Like, for real. And it’s hard topic and post to write about coherently because it involves so much dialogue and inner thoughts. So, apologies in advance. But, hopefully the content and the ideas behind it come through. 

———————————————-

One (of about a billion) things I LOVE about my job is that we deal with anything and everything. When situations arise, as they do with the kids we work with, we problem solve, and address immediately. And we’re lucky to be able to do that, in an environment that solely focuses on stress management, social competency, and self-awareness, without the academic demands. But more on that another time.

So when it came to my attention that staff members had overheard their pre-teen male (ASD) campers making jokes about rape and sex, we acted quick. That day I spoke to my boss, who is a clinician, who spoke to several other colleagues of ours, she got back to me, and I created a Social Thinking lesson based on another lesson from a colleague to do with the groups. The very next day, conversations were had with all of the participants and I did two groups on that topic. 

I don’t tend to talk about specific things I do with clients/students/campers in therapy or groups, but I felt really proud of this lesson and got a lot of good feedback from parents, staff, and most importantly, the campers themselves. So, I will share. 

I’ve done the lesson so far with two groups. To frame this: Both groups are five or six pre-teen or teenagers, one group is all boys and one group is all girls. All of the campers have social cognitive/competency deficits, and most of them have an Aspergers, ASD, or related diagnosis. 

We began with a discussion about what humor is. That was easy for them. I then took out my whiteboard and drew two columns, “Positive” and “Negative”. I explained that there can be positive and negative effects of humor, based on how it’s used, what the topic is, and who the joke is shared with. I was SO impressed at how quickly they thought of things. “Positive” effects that they thought of included: people will like you; make friends; get out of an awkward situation; avoid dealing with something hard; and “Negative” effects included: people think you’re a bully, people not wanting to be around you, getting in trouble with the law, getting suspended or expelled, getting a bad reputation. This was with pretty much no prompting. They had SO much to say. 

After we had flushed out that discussion, I introduced the idea of “deadly jokes.” The concept being, that there are certain topics that if joked about, almost always can have negative effects with friends, family members, teachers, colleagues, etc. I told them there were at least 7, and challenged them to come up with them. The boys group immediately came up with race/religion/nationality and sexual orientation. The girls instantly talked about disorder/disability, mental health, and sex. Overall, between both groups, our list included:race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, sex, disorder/disability, mental health conditions, coworkers/colleagues/teachers/students, physical looks, violent crimes. Again – this was with almost no prompting. 

During the boys group, one of the guys said, “I know those are jokes that certain people would find offensive. But I would never joke about the topic that the person found offensive.” So we had a big conversation about perspective taking and theory of mind – that you can’t KNOW what a person is dealing with, you can’t KNOW that offends a person unless you know them inside and out – and even then, you can’t be sure. I got some rigidity and push-back, so we went through each category. “Can you ALWAYS know someone’s religion based on looking at them? Can you ALWAYS know someone’s sexual orientation by looking at them?” (by the way – that answer that I got was ‘yes, sometimes’ so we had a conversation about stereotypes and how they are often based in fact but can’t be our sole piece of information). We talked about things you can know by looking at a person and things that might offend them that are “invisible,” that you would never know otherwise. They were very interested in the idea that jokes could ultimately involve the police or authorities, and one of them brought up what would happen if you joked about a bomb at an airport. Another boy responded, “But you’d be joking!” So – another conversation about perspective taking, how a bystander or official wouldn’t KNOW you were joking, and there are protocols they must follow.

And then I brought up rape. Because that’s where this all stemmed from. The interesting thing? When I asked, “What about joking about rape?” they ALL vehemently shook their heads and said, “No no no! You can’t joke about that!!” but when I then follow up with, “Okay. Who knows what rape is?” not a single one of them knew. 

And that’s why we do these lessons. The things our kids say – it’s not that we let them get away with it, or make excuses, but so often they just don’t know. Some of the boys admitted they thought rape and sex were the same thing. Some said they heard of it and knew it was bad but didn’t know what it was. So we talked about it. We talked about why you can’t joke about it. And they all left with an understanding.

The girls group was different. One girl brought up how friends joke with each other about things that others couldn’t joke about – like girls saying to each other, “Omg, you’re such a bitch” can be joking and harmless or harmful depending on the relationship. Another girl referenced “Mean Girls” and how they call each other “sluts.” A third girl said that she would be really upset if anyone made a joke about mental health conditions. And a fourth girl shook her head and said she wouldn’t care about that, but if anyone joked about learning disabilities she would rip their head off. Again, a conversation about differences, how one size does not fit all, how each person is different. The girls role-played what they could do if they overheard jokes like those, if they bothered them, or if they didn’t. We talked about how it’s okay to not laugh at a joke, even if everyone else is.

These are things our kids don’t know. These are things that if they aren’t taught, they won’t learn. And saying to them, “We don’t say that!” or “That’s inappropriate!” isn’t enough – because they don’t know WHY. It’s meaningless and unclear to them. We have to clarify. Even if it’s uncomfortable, even if we want to maintain innocence. We have to. For their sake. 

 

Babbles about autism

Posted by — 3 Comments

Warning: this is not going to be coherent. (Although, if you’ve read any of my posts, that won’t surprise you). This is a stream of consciousness, not edited, not thought-out, not planned. Just thoughts spewing out.

I was told about a woman who wrote a book called Autism: Pathways to Recovery. I was immediately apprehensive, because anytime the words “autism” and “recovery” are in the same sentence, my heart starts to beat a little bit faster. I glanced through the book, and I do like some of this woman’s thoughts. Being the daughter of a well-known, truly incredible (not just saying that….really) naturopathic/homeopathic doctor, who has helped countless people with various physical and mental conditions, by treating the whole person, the underlying causes, the deeper issues within the system, I do firmly believe in naturopathy. I also do believe that autism is a genetic/environmental interaction. Maybe some people are wired for autism and don’t present as autistic, maybe some are wired for autism and with toxins and environmental substances and issues, they do present with autistic behaviors. I think that’s part of it, and I also think there’s part we don’t know, and I also think that it’s more important to help promote autism acceptance and support rather than harping on a specific gene that may or may not cause autism. HOWEVER. I do not believe that every person’s autism is caused by environmental toxins. I do not believe that autism is something that can all of a sudden “disappear” with the right treatment. Yes, I think that there are some people (because I know of some) who do have a better quality of life with diet modifications, reducing inflammation, healing the digestive system, and treating various bacterial overgrowths. But doesn’t anyone?! I mean – my quality of life is better now that my digestive system is healing. Most people feel better when they stop eating refined sugars and genetically modified foods. So, yes, of course, autistic individuals will also have some improvement in their quality of life when those modifications are made. But there is a BIG difference between improving quality of life, and recovering from a disease. Autism is not a disease.

I know some may disagree. I know some see autistic individuals, particularly those who are completely unable to care for themselves, who can’t speak, struggle to communicate, hurt themselves, and think that autism is an awful affliction. And, I understand that. And, I understand that we need to do everything we can to make their lives as full of life as possible, whatever that means for each individual.

But it’s so dangerous when we start talking about autism as a disease, as something we need to recover from. And that’s what this author does. Over and over, she promises recovery, she promises that children will get the chance to get better, to recover, to be free from this condition. And that’s not fair to all of the autistic individuals out there. Autism is a part of them. It’s not a disease. We can’t equate autism to cancer, to depression, to Alzheimer’s. I think of my students with autism. Their lives are hard. I’m not denying that. These issues are not mutually exclusive. It’s not a “but”, it’s an “and”. It is hard to be autistic. AND, it’s not something we need to “save” our kids from. Autism is a part of who they are – if we took away the autism from them, I don’t know who they would be. They’d lose their personality, their characteristics, their amazing quirks and brilliant insights. They wouldn’t be themselves.

I stopped reading when the author wrote, “I will not give up until every child is given the chance to recover; until all of the
pieces of the puzzle fit together, and this chronic condition no longer threatens the next generation.” I was then fuming, and immediately started typing this blog post.

I have no doubt that this author is a brilliant doctor. I firmly believe, even without knowing her, that she means well. That she works hard. That she comes from a place of caring. That she has good insights. That she’s done years of research. That her research is substantiated. That she is a research-based doctor, not a clinical doctor. That that makes a difference.

But there’s danger in only seeing her side.

(I’m not even going back and re-reading what I wrote, because it’s likely so disorganized that it makes no sense, and I probably omitted key points and facts and I will likely get a lot of flack for it, but that’s okay, so here we go, posting it now. Please share your thoughts – I am certainly no expert, nor am I coherently expressing my thoughts, and I would love to hear what you think, whether you angrily disagree with what I wrote or whether some of it resonated with you. I’m all about the stream of consciousness)

 

My place on the spectrum

Posted by — 3 Comments

I am not autistic. That’s a statement that would never be questioned by anyone. I simply, would not qualify for a diagnosis of autism.

However.

I firmly, truly, in my core, believe in what so many of us think and know: that autism is a spectrum. And it includes neurotypicals. NTs and autistics are not fundamentally different – they just fall on different parts of the spectrum. 

So, if it’s a spectrum – that means that at some point there’s a midline, right? A midline where one thing becomes the other. Where Neutorypical meets Autistic. And that’s near where I fall. I am not autistic. But I am close enough to that midline to GET that other side of the spectrum. 

I believe that’s why I love working with autistic kids. I believe that’s why I understand them. I believe that’s why they understand me. I believe that’s why sometimes I intuitively just KNOW why they do or say something. 

I believe that I’m lucky to land on the spectrum where I do. I believe that I get the benefits of both the NT and the autistic aspects. I believe that despite not being autistic, I can firmly consider myself an understander, and an ally, because I Get It.

I believe that I’m lucky.

I believe in Autism Awesomeness.