Cueing Motor Action

A recent entry 5/2009

I am so happy today. Why is that? My motor in speech is waking up I think. I am speaking on my own motor initiation more and more. Motor cues are essential to me. They govern my functioning. Omit a cue and I am lost. I use all sorts of actions to cue me; things move, people too. Only some of the cues I can control. I can choose to use or not use them.

I can not use a visual to cue my motor. They recently tried to help me initiate in speech by having me read my words. I had to translate their cue, the written word, to someone reading it to me in my head, in order to speak. I am in the minority that way I think. Most autists can use visual to cue motor action I think. But for the auditory or kinesthetic autist it may not work.

I can use visual to cue content information though. For example, the tag on my underwear tells me which side is back. But, mistakes in association are possible.In the case of my underwear, I put it on my head once because I saw a different style tag that resembled a shirt tag I had. Cues are only good to extent they are consistent and occur in many environments. My mom accompanies me everywhere so she is a great cue source. I can use her actions to initiate my own. Now, I try to pair my initiating with her. Sometimes I even beat her now; all initiation my own.

Cues don't have to be related either. My garage door, which is just beyond the bathroom is my destination when I go to the bathroom. I can move to flee so I flee in the direction of the bathroom when I have to go.

What I am telling you, all of this has changed and improved with time, but it is where I started.

Done is the hardest cue for me. What is finished? Am I constructing or dismantling? At the half way point it often looks the same. It is hard to keep track, at least for me. I needed an added cue to work as a reminder. Leftover. was hard for me too. I needed somewhere to put the extra pieces. It makes no sense, I know, but to the motorically challenged it does. I am done now so I will hide my board or I will feel compelled to write more.