A Favorite Thing: Scripting!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of friends visiting and joining us for lunch. I watched some of my friend's children while she went out for a while and then she returned and visited with me for a bit. Our children are good friends and they had a great time playing together.

Later in the day, at dinner time, my husband had to stay late at work so I tried getting some conversation going at the table.

Me: "What was your favorite part of today?"

Oldest son: "The (friends) coming over!"

Youngest son: "Yeah, the (friends) coming over!"

Daughter: "The (friends) coming over!"

Me: "Samuel, what was your favorite part of today?"

Samuel: "Scripting! Watching videos without the television
on!"

It is very apparent to all of us that Samuel likes to script, he is absorbed in it for much of his day. While I do not want it to get in the way of the things he needs to do, I try not to let it worry me too much. I try to redirect him when I can. While we are at the table doing school work, I will stop and wait for him to pay attention when he is scripting before we continue with our work. Sometimes this works and sometimes we wait quite while. I have noticed that when Samuel has something VERY reinforcing following school work, he is much more motivated to pay attention and attend to his work.

I have talked to a few moms with children older than Samuel who have had this issue to deal with. Some of their children have gotten to a point where they realize that there are appropriate times and places to script. Perhaps they are given a period of time each day where they can go to their room and take some time to script.

Samuel really enjoys scripting, so I don't want to try and take it away from him completely, but at the same time I want him to understand that it cannot take over his life.

Is this an issue for any of you? How do you deal with it?

I have heard that it is best not to draw attention directly to the behavior. In other words, we shouldn't go around all the time saying, "Stop scripting, stop scripting...," redirecting is a better strategy. However, I have noticed in the last year or so that I can have conversations with Samuel about the fact that there are appropriate times and places to script. It's better if I have these conversations with him at times that I'm not correcting him to stop.

Back to Samuel's answer at the table, I'm going to have to find out what he meant by "watching videos without the television on." I wonder if he was refering to scripting or if he was talking about looking at video cases.

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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To those in the U.S., I hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving! If you're not in the U.S., well then I hope you're having a wonderful day as well! Samuel's Godfather (who joins us for most holidays) is with us. We tried going to mass this morning. Samuel was scripting an episode from "Rugrats" that included Reptar making monster noises, so we weren't able to stay in church for very long.

I had the kids make these wreaths so they could be mindful of what they are thankful for. My eldest is the one thankful for his go-kart; Samuel is the one thankful for National Geographic (he has several of their videos from the library right now); my youngest boy is grateful for his TEDDY bears; and I figured my little girl is probably thankful for her new baby doll, which she asks for every bedtime and nap time.

After the kids made their wreaths they got to play with shaving cream on the table. It has been a while since they have done this so they had a good old time!

Samuel Drew a Picture and Wrote a Story!

As I was talking on the phone with my parents on Sunday. Samuel came up to me and said "I want to draw a picture." I nodded an "okay," thinking that I would have to help him find the things necessary to do this once I was off the phone.

However, he surprised me by going and finding paper and a marker all on his own. He drew in the hallway outside of the room where I was talking and I could tell he was very excited about his endeavor. When I got off the phone he proudly told me that he had drawn a picture and had written a story! Here are pictures of his work. The first page is a picture of Wow! Wow! Wubbsy! (his current TV favorite.. it has replaced The Upside Down Show). The next two pages are a story about him. The first page says "Nick Jr. Wow Wow Wubbsy, a cat." Samuel read the second page to me but I could not understand what he said and I cannot make out any other words except "The End."

Samuel has been encouraged to draw and of course has been learning how to write in school for years, but this is the first time that he has come up with the idea of drawing a picture on his own, and I'm pretty sure it is the first time he has written any more than one or two sentences from his own idea. I have reorganized some shelving in the kitchen so he can more easily access paper in the future!

He undertook this activity after I made him stop playing on the computer after about a half hour session. I'm sure he was playing on the Nick Jr. website. I like that instead of sitting and scripting he took his thoughts and did something as creative as this. Samuel's big brother has been doing things like this since he was four years old so we're used to seeing all kinds of drawings and stories and games that he creates. Seeing it from Samuel is brand new and it's awesome! I'm left wondering if we really need to worry about the scripting as much as I might have thought. I'll continue to place limitations on how much time he is on the computer, but perhaps I should follow his computer time with encouragement to draw, write, or talk about what he has just done.

Time to Pull out the Wright's Law Book Again

I spent an hour and a half on the phone tonight with the Mom of a special needs boy who had been in Samuel's class up until this school year. She has not had her son diagnosed with autism yet, and is facing problems with the services he is receiving at school because of it. For confidentiality reasons I cannot say any more about it, but our discussion reminded me that I need to once again start reading "From Emotions to Advocacy" and start questioning things that I see and don't see in Samuel's IEP.

Samuel has been very challenging the past few days. He is constantly scripting at home (I am told he has not been doing this at school). The last two weekends he would not get himself dressed on Saturday mornings (the only day I can leave him to dress himself). He also remains very unfocused when we do his homework. The token board, with its promise of an occasional bite of snack as a reinforcer, is not helping him the way it had been a few months ago. Maybe Samuel needs a new reinforcer. He may have been tired one or two of the days, but that isn't the only thing going on here. I won't let him watch "The Upside Down Show" anymore. However, his brothers still like to imitate things they see on it so it's been very hard keeping Samuel from imitating it himself. He also tries to watch it on Noggin's website during his computer playtime. We only made it through about 10 minutes of mass last Sunday, he kept screaming. He had only gotten a little sleep the night before so I knew it wouldn't be worth staying there.

He is starting to ask questions about school ending. There are only 5 more weeks!

I was very saddened by the shootings at Virginia Tech last week. I had to stop watching the news about it after a couple days because I was starting to get desensitized to the story. Early this past Monday morning, however, I watched a portion of CNN's show about the shooting victims. Although it was overwhelmingly sad, I was glad to hear about the real story in all of this, the senseless loss of such beautiful lives.

The Regulator in Action

I am on the offensive to deal with The Upside Down Show scripting. Thanks "FarmWife2" for reminding me about strategies that our in-home helpers have discussed with me previously. Like I said yesterday, sometimes its easy to slip into allowing things that might not be the best thing, just because they make Samuel happy.

I had a talk with Samuel's instructional aid this morning and she does let Samuel script during his sensory breaks. I was very pleased to hear that during recess, however, she discourages the scripting so that he can try to interact with his classmates. Now I'm just waiting to hear from the special education teacher to make sure they can verbally remind Samuel during the day that he will be allowed to script during sensory times (as opposed to just discouraging scripting). I think that if he is reminded that there IS an appropriate scripting time he will be more likely to NOT SCRIPT when that is being asked of him. I'm also waiting to hear what she thinks about doing a social story.

Last night at dinner I announced, "Tomorrow morning is the last day that you can play The Upside Down Show before we get in the car." Samuel fussed about that a bit, so I told him, "why don't you play hopscotch instead?" We'll see how that works. In the car this morning Samuel asked, "Can I still watch The Upside Down Show?" I told him, "Yes, you can watch it tomorrow (Friday) afternoon." For now I'll let him watch it and see if cutting out the morning play of it helps to reduce the incidence of scripting it at school.

This afternoon we are going to the park and then off to a "book fair" event at school in the evening. The boys always like going to the book fairs. They make wish lists and I usually let them get one or two books each. This is the first time I'll have an in-home helper with me and that will make it so much easier!

We went from 45 degrees (7 deg. C) yesterday to an anticipated 70 degrees (21 deg. C) today!

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.