Current Challenges and Some Fun Things

Reacting appropriately when something goes wrong is one challenge we face with Samuel. One morning last week a favorite DVD of his got scratched and he threw an absolute fit over the fact that it would not work. He came close to pushing the DVD player off the shelf it is kept upon. He hasn't done anything like that in a long time and it was quite frightening. It especially frightened my two year old daughter, who has not seen Samuel agitated to that degree recently. Our in-home helper assisted in trying to calm Samuel down. It took almost 45 minutes and it pushed everyone's school work behind that day.

Another challenge has been to keep Samuel from scripting too much. I do not have a problem with Samuel scripting from time to time, but it can get in the way of him doing things that he needs to do. Getting through a session of school work can take three or four times longer because he will not focus on his work. Sometimes I try to get his attention by holding visual aids in front of him and at other times (when there is an especially reinforcing activity to follow) I wait him out.

Appropriate behavior in public is another area of concern. Going to the library has been a good place to practise appropriate behavior. There was a time I had to stop taking him because his behavior was too disruptive. He hit a child there one time when I told him he had to stop playing on the computer. In-home helpers assisted us by going with us several times. They helped us make up a visual schedule and now, two years later, most trips go well. Recently, Samuel has started trying to talk to other children. He is curious about videos that others check out and he asks them about them. Today he tried talking to a very young girl who was playing on the computer. He just wanted to know what she was playing, but I could tell he was frightening her.

I took him out to McDonalds after the library, and as we were leaving he went to the booth next to ours and took a french fry from a young boy's lunch! I was so embarrassed! Fortunately his Mom was very understanding. Interestingly, Samuel was remorseful about it by the time we got to the car. He wanted to go back inside and apologize! I had asked him to do so while we were still inside, but he resisted. I did not want to cause any more of a scene so we did not go back in. I had already apologized to the Mom. Samuel kept talking about it for a good portion of the trip home. He wanted to know if I was going to tell his Dad about it! He is expressing remorse frequently. He will say "I'm sorry" after he has done something wrong. Sometimes he will perseverate on that remorse and get emotional (yell or cry). I tell him that it's good to be sorry and I try to remind him to think about what he is doing before he acts.

Samuel and his two year old sister have had some cute discussions lately. I have overheard them sitting together looking at his videos. She asked him about them and he seemed to like answering her questions. They also sit together in front of her dollhouse. They don't exactly play together, most of the time it is fighting over things. She gets a little possessive when she sees Samuel go to play with it. I try to redirect her away from the particular dolls and pieces that Samuel has, but of course those are THE ones she wants!

Samuel has become much more conversant lately. When we are out in public or when others arrive at our home he is very quick to say "hello!" The other day someone arrived to do a termite inspection at our house and Samuel greeted him with, "Hello, we're so glad to see you!" He also tried greeting people at the table next to ours at a restaurant, and he did so with people at church. I would like to think his motives for doing so were good, and I'm sure they were, but afterwards he told me, "Look Mom, I'm talking to strangers!" He has just read The Berenstain Bears book about strangers! I can see that we will need to do some fine tuning of Samuel's behavior in public, but I am sure glad that I can take him places now!

Video Vacation, Day 2

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had informed Samuel of an upcoming "video vacation." I had the calendar marked, so he had ample opportunity to "digest" the idea. Two nights ago I told Samuel, "It's time to pack up your videos and DVDs!" I had envisioned tears, frustration, and a long drawn out battle to hide the two boxes and their contents that had taken over our foyer closet and the surrounding area. I started walking over to the closet to begin.

Samuel surprised me by saying, "I want to pack them up!" He did just that! He took the boxes down to the basement. I didn't even follow him down. When he was finished he came back upstairs and I didn't hear anything else about the videos all night. Samuel has been taking a few videos to bed with him at night for several months now, I really thought he be lost without them but that hasn't been the case.

When he took the videos down to the basement I thought, "Right, he'll be down there whenever he gets the chance." That hasn't happened though! His in-home helper told me that he went into the storage room one time on Monday, but other than that he hasn't tried getting in there at all!

What's really neat is some of the things he is doing now instead of "looking at videos." This morning he went to the basement and built something with his legos. He told me that it is an art museum. He is building things like he has seen on a Lego Creator computer game that he and his brothers play. I also saw him playing with his sister's "Dress Up Elmo" doll. It's not that Samuel never plays with toys, it's just that it's nice to see him play with other things at the times he used to ALWAYS look at his videos.

I haven't completely banished videos either. He has been allowed to watch one video each of the last two days, after which we put it away promptly. Today we even went to the library and he was allowed to check out 5 new videos. When we got home I let him pick out one to watch and told him the remaining videos had to be put away. He was a little upset, but got over it pretty quickly.

"Video Vacation" was presented to Samuel as being a week long. I'm sure he's counting down the days. I already told him, however, that we won't be going back to having 20 + videos floating around all the time. His access to them is going to be more restricted than it had been. I'll be giving some thought the rest of this week as to how to do that.

In restricting his access to videos, I'm not trying to squash down some interest that Samuel has, I just want to channel his interest a bit. I won't say that this is so that he will be more "normal". I will say though, that I don't want his interest or obsession with videos, to get in the way of some other interests that he has.

Current Video Favorite

One of Samuel's current favorite activities is watching film company "identifications" (is that the right word?) on You Tube. These are the short clips you see at the beginnings of movies. He really likes the "Pegasus" on Tri Star's logo. I found this image of Tri Star with Columbia, the company it merged with in the late 1980s.


Samuel has made his own Pegasus with a toy horse figure. The wings are Lincoln Log pieces. I have seen him use other toys to represent the woman in the Columbia image.

Where Did this Past Week Go?

Wow, time is flying on by! I have been very absorbed in trying to clean and organize my house.. an ongoing project for me. I'm also working hard to finish my oldest son's school year, and have been busy making lessons up for Samuel and his youger brother, who will start kindergarten this fall.

Samuel has been very caught up in a Playstation game, Jack and Daxter. He and his younger brother like to play it. It involves visiting various locations, so Samuel now "plays" this game while he is outside. There are 4 or 5 locations in the backyard he sits and goes through this game in his mind. Each location he plays at represents a particular location in the game. While he is doing this he sifts through the dirt or pine straw or sand that happens to be there. This week I'll be breaking the news to Samuel and his younger brother that starting next week we'll be taking a "break" from this game!

One night last week I had Samuel try something new for dinner, meatloaf. His brothers ate it without a problem. I had to provide soda as a reinforcer for trying it. He has not liked hamburgers lately so I figured he wouldn't be very willing to try meatloaf. As I asked him to eat it I made sure he knew a sip of soda would follow. He was not happy! He leaned over, SMELLED it and said "I don't want to eat STINKYBURGERS!" Now there's a new name for meatloaf!

I have noticed an increased sensitivity to smell with Samuel in the last few months. He smells his food, he smells other people's skin (usually their arms), and he smells his own skin and his armpits! While I was kind of sad he didn't like my cooking (though I didn't care for meatloaf as a child either!), it was enlightening to know WHY he didn't like it and I was glad that he was able to tell me this.

In the last week or so Samuel's interest in watching videos has returned. Watching videos has taken a back seat to playing on the computer for quite some time now. As his interest in videos increased his interest in playing on the computer has decreased. As always, he likes carrying around videos with him. He took quite a selection with him on our vacation. I limited it to what he could carry in a small canvas bag. He likes to carry them with him when we go out at home too. I make sure I specify to him that they STAY IN THE CAR.

First Full Week of Vacation

I'm still very happy to have Samuel at home after a week of him being out of school, but I will admit that I'm quite exhausted and a bit frustrated. Samuel's mission the past couple days has been to spend as much time as possible on something electronic. He has a choice between Playstation and two different computers. Samuel's two brothers are doing the same thing. It's not so bad on weekdays. It is easier to ration out time on the computers and Playstation because there is a bit more structure to our days. Now I need to get a routine for the weekend going. I also need to figure out how to make our computers accessible only by password.



My parents visited earlier this week. They live about a 3 hour drive from here so we only see them a few times each year. We all had a nice time together and Samuel seemed to enjoy their visit as well. He became agitated one time when we tried playing a game with him. He scattered the game pieces. I know that it is going against most of our natures to take a situation like that and deal with it only by speaking to the perpetrator in a monotone voice. Samuel's helper was here when it happened. She removed him from the room for a break. We finished the game without Samuel and then put it away. As soon as she returned with him I realized "Uh oh, he needs to 'finish' his game!" We quickly pulled the game out again and played another with no further incident. We put several things on his schedule for him to interact with my parents.. things like playing a game and having a conversation. All of these things went by very quickly, but he followed his schedule quite well! Best of all, Samuel didn't try hitting them! We had a problem with that a few visits ago.



I'll be busy in the coming week getting ready for our vacation up to Maine. It will be good to get out of town for a few days!


I don't think I've mentioned Samuel's current favorites in a while. Samuel is still very intrigued by retail locations that have gone out of business. In addition to the restaurant he likes to ask about he now asks about a motorcycle shop that closed. It is next to the place we get doughnuts after church on Sunday. On the days that just he and I go we take a walk over to the closed motorcycle shop and read the sign posted:"___________ will close effective ___________ 16, 2006. We are sorry for any inconvenience..." Samuel also likes Noggin, the TV station with kid's shows between 6am and 6pm. Samuel likes to ask me when the kids shows start and when they end. He, of course, knows all of this but for some reason likes to have me repeat the info. He also likes Nick Jr. He looks the schedule up on the computer and will tell me when the shows he likes are on. So far he cannot change channels on the TV, but that day will come soon.

Tonight when we were all playing outside I asked him what he was playing. He told me that he was planning to open a restaurant, a "Crusty Crab" (from Sponge Bob Square Pants) in an empty house that is behind a house we used to live in. When it came time to try to engage Samuel in play outside, rather than force him to play catch, the other boys and I joined his game and held a "board meeting" at our picnic table to discuss the opening of the new restaurant. Samuel thought this was great fun and played right along with it. The only trouble came from his 5 year old brother who did not want to wait his turn to talk!

Wondering About Heaven

The pastor of my church gives wonderful homilies (the Catholic version of sermons), and this past Sunday one of the topics discussed was heaven! This has been a subject of great interest to Samuel lately. Now that he can sit through almost half of mass in the church I have been wondering how I could get him to pay more attention. The timing of this homily was perfect! He wants to know if our bodies go to heaven when we die. He has become upset when I tell him that they do not. Our pastor's homily clarified that eventually, our bodies and souls will be reunited in heaven. Samuel also asks about what a soul is. I better brush up on my knowledge of theology and be ready for more questions and answers!

Super Scripting

I wish that the word "super" in the title for this posting meant "fantastic," but it actually means "an extraordinary amount." Samuel, and all my boys for that matter, really love The Upside Down Show. I let them watch it on the afternoons when our in-home helpers aren't here, and once they get ready each morning they run outside to play it in the back yard for a few minutes before we drive Samuel to school. Getting to play is a great reinforcer for Samuel to do the finishing touches on getting ready.

I'm seeing signs now that it's getting out of hand. Samuel had a behavioral incident in school yesterday because he just wouldn't snap out of a scripting spell. His teachers didn't know what he was talking about, but a fellow autistic classmate was able to tell them it was from The Upside Down Show. He also scripts an awful lot at home. While we did some homework late yesterday afternoon I also couldn't get him to snap out of a scripting spell.

It's a constant struggle to maintain some kind of balance with the things Samuel enjoys. They quickly turn into obsessions that cause him to tune out. I went through this a few months ago with his videos. When I see this happen I have to create some kind of regulatory procedure. He now has to "earn" videos. I will give him a few each day to look at, after he does something required of him on his schedule. The tricky part is remembering to gather them up at the end of the day and put them away. Samuel now takes them up to bed with him! I try to discourage that and have him keep them downstairs where I can easily put them away. If I miss getting them before bedtime then I just put them away while he is at school.

Looks like I am facing that now with The Upside Down Show. It is going to be harder to regulate this because the other boys like it also. At school the teachers are talking to Samuel about not scripting during class time. I should make sure they have a social story for this, and perhaps see if there is some kind of free time where they would let him do it for a short spell. I'll probably come up with something at home where he can script for a few minutes when he gets home and then I'll have to try to come up with a way of making him understand that "scripting time is finished, time to________" Maybe that scripting time could be turned into a reinforcer.