Ask me a Question from Donna - Re: Typing

Donna wrote me a comment:
Mike,

I had the pleasure of meeting you and your mother in the hallways of your college a week or two ago. She shared your blog information with me. I have a son who is your age and who is also an "autist" as you say it. I like the way you say it.
I have been reading him parts of your blog and he appears to like to hear them. He also liked it when I read the book The Mind Tree to him and you seem to have a lot in common with the author of that book.
I think that he is about as verbal as you are, but you have a much much more useful writing skill than he does. You are also very eloquent.
I did work with him for awhile today trying to see what typing skill he has and was pleased and surprised to find that he is less intimidated by the keyboard than he used to be.
We were able to type some simple sentences together. I asked him a question; he answered; I asked him to type his answer; we sounded out words together sometimes but otherwise he found the letters on his own.
My question is this: Do you have any suggestions for moving to a place where he can type his own words without my choosing the topic (and the answer)? Of course, he may have nothing that he wants to say. Still, I feel a renewed sense that this method of communication has potential for him. I am having trouble deciding how to approach this and would really appreciate any suggestions you could give us.
Thank you,
Donna

Donna,

You make me very happy today. To be able to make a difference, it means a lot. I can tell you how I learned to do it and what obstacles I face. It is a good place to start and your son can help you too to know whether he does or does not have some of what I face.

First, you need to understand, words are unnatural for autists. It is like a translation, one language to another for us. You as a neurotypical see an immediate use for words. But me as an autist, my wiring of brain works through pictures. Words are wholly inadequate to describe that mind set offering. So it takes a while for us to develop a sense of need for them. Too, there is the translation learning and filing that has to be developed and take place in our minds. Me, I've adapted by sticking a word spelling picture in my mind dictionary.

And, there is the emotion of it. I was afraid to share my thoughts would take away from me, from who I was. It does not. But you may want to tell your son as a precaution to reassure him in case he too has what was my misunderstanding.
I learned to type with spelling words. Sharing is emotion based and it was too much for me to do at the start, too anxious it made me.

Each has his own unique issues to overcome in typing. For me, I had to first share, then form my own consciousness as a separate thought process. I can read your thought through touch so I had to form a block to separate our consciousnesses.

Next, there is the sheer physical barriers to typing; it is a motor movement issue.
For me, to initiate, cross shifting, and to stop to hit each key was all a separate series of learning. To move to initiate my movement I used to feel off Mom's heartbeat. I shift with my mind; a jump with my mind moves me across center of the board now. It works, but that cue is up for more refinement. I am good with pulling back to the start point, but it is a problem for some I know.

If your son has his motor intact it will be a much easier task for him to learn to do it. Just prove it useful to him. For example, Do you want pie or ice cream for dessert? Me, I want both, but it was not in the question. So "both" becomes a useful typing word.

For me, FC helped explain my misunderstandings of reality. It opened up answers to questions I didn't know to ask at first. Finding the questions that need answers is a process of accidentally tripping over them at first.... Until you see them, and then they start to appear for you everywhere.

I know FC parents and friends read here sometimes. Please ask your FCer's if they want to add for her in answer. I will post your comments here for her. Thanks.

Mike

P.S. Mom says to tell you if you contact her at college she will give you different boards to try. Each requires different skill set and/or helps with different obstacles.

About Ask Me a Question from Jennifer

Jennifer asked " I am wondering... I have a 5 year old that was given the label pddnos. What ever that really means. I think it means they have no idea. my son is non verbal. He speaks a little to get his needs met. But not alot. So I guess my question is in your opinion does he understand the things I am saying at all? is he just ignoring me? Does he actually love me?? All harsh and unintelligent questions maybe but autism confuses me. I dont understand. which is sad cause that means I dont understand that part of my son."


Jennifer,

He is 5. You will grow together. When I was 5 I did not understand the meaning of words. At the age of 20 words are largely all I have to display my intelligence. I will ask Mom to find and post for you what I wrote so far on my first understandings. Maybe it will help. Time aids development, as does understanding. Learning about sensory integration may help if he is the same genre autism as me.

Does he love you? Of course. He may have difficulty as an autist in the world environment; maybe a poor sense of self and others even, but love is our source. Do not get discouraged. I only learned to be in the present for hugs much later in life and my mom says I am a great hug now. Love speaks without words or even touch sometimes. Trust in yourself to convey it and he will receive and reciprocate it in his own way and time. You are a good mom to want to know him as he is.

Mike.

Repecting and Preserving Personhood

Bill recently wrote an article for Huffington Post, "Autism: The Last Civil Rights Movement" that caused an unexpected response,at least unexpected to me.

Why do people associate respect for the human condition of autism as equating to the reprehensible refusal to treat that condition to develop it to full personhood? The two are different issues entirely; The first, addresses a means used to reach the ends, the second, refusing to address an ends. Why is cure, which equates in my own mind to a denial of self, the only answer offered by so many. Are they so blind to the child they are given as a gift, the potential of the child they are given that lies deeply hidden? Why are they so quick to want to trade that gift for another?

When I had my car accident and coma there was another girl on the hospital unit who my mother still frequently speaks of. Her accident was to her front temporal lobe, the area of the brain which controls our personality. Her mother was in grieving, but too guilty with her feelings of loss, because her child still stood physically before her. Only it was not her child. The girl had a new personhood because of the accident. Autism is like that. Treatment improper can rob one's personhood. The shame is that you celebrate it, oblivious to the loss. You fail to see what that woman saw in recognizing her lost child; NOT the undeveloped autist, but the never to be seen developed one had treatment taken a more respectful course.

What Bill asks is that we honor and develop the person present in respectful manner, not trade them in for a new model of false creation. The only thing that is worse than dealing with the binds of autism is dealing with the binds of a false persona. It is my opinion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-stillman/autism-the-last-human-rig_b_267266.html

The Process of Communication

I am sorry for my absence. I have been taking a college course in Communication and it is a lot of writing for me. It is a lot of learning too, about the neurotypical communication system. It is a process foreign to me. Why do you not teach it to us as a class like this?

Did you know eye contact has a word meaning all its own? It says I am listening in nonverbal language. It also cues the speaker that I want a turn to speak when increased in intensity and time. Why don't you tell us this directly? Then we can in tell you directly why it does not work for us as a process. That would be true communication.

My process is entirely different. I don't hear a word as a word. I see a word as a picture then translate the meaning to a word. To say it is raining cats and dogs ellicits that picture in literal fashion, which then gets translated down to downpour. I hear tone and volume and pitch, but I can not process it simultaneous with sight. I can alternate, but it takes great energy to do it. What you do simultaneously, I take in as a turn taking process. I am learning some accommodations though. If I am preprepared with my own agenda or fact background I can do a critical analysis of what is being said to me. It takes out a step that takes attention from the speaker. It makes it unnecessary for me to formulate the thought that is me. To focus on me is to ignore you. The critical analysis provides both in relationship but as one step.

It may explain the success of the social story this prestep set up. It may be useful in structuring meaningful interactive conversation, autistic to neurotypical as well.

Typing to the Music

We are trying something new today. Mom is having me type independently to music. It works like a heartbeat. To the rhythm I type each letter. I can tap my hand to the beat so I use it to type instead now. Mom is full of good ideas sometimes. I am able to write much faster this way and I get to listen to music while I work. Mom is smart, but I know too a good thing when I see it. Hunter says I can use music to build motor chains. How good an effect from something I love.
A slow song just came on the radio and my speed is now a slow dance, but it is still my motor at work. How long before this song ends? Because I am done.

Motor and Words

Most times I understand everything that is said to me. Moving to the words is another matter. For me, words are like tiny motor cues. But not all words have an action. Words like "stop" for example. I can not act to it. I need to hear or think an alternate action to stop. Or "Hand me the butter - I have to picture butter in a hand moving to act to it. "Get" is a tough word for me to follow too. It originates from me to a point, something I have trouble with. I sometimes focus so much on the "Get", that I lose the what I am supposed to get. "Get me a fork", Dad said the other night and I got lost in movement attempts to do it. It makes it look like I don't know fork when I do. Only sometimes I do lose a word. Its function I know, but the word itself escapes me. Only it is confusing for a few seconds, but then I see it, the word, written in my head. To read the word is to know it again. It is something I learned to do, to picture objects in written form, not as an object in my head. It is how I learned to read when young, by words on objects. So I started to do it in my head that way. It helps to ease a hiccup of thought.

An Indirect Approach Will Still Get You There

I heard my voice today. In speech they record and play it back to me. It is gravelly, gutteral is what Mom calls it, but it was also clear to hear what I was saying. I am amazed to hear me speaking words. I move to talk along with me. It is me initiating my own speech. How stange and wonderful it feels. How odd a way to do it. But if I can do it this way then why not another?

The other day I swam for the first time using my upper and lower body together. I cheated at first, using my walking across the bottom of the pool to get the motion started. To continue on into what was over my head is what got me swimming. It is another trick over my body. Only I can feel my excitement at the accomplishment.

The key to autism is often figuring out a way to do indirectly what can not be done directly. Once achieved the act overshadows the means and a whole new I can do attitude arises which sometimes eradicates whatever blockage existed in the first place. I hope this is what will happen with my speech. I know this is what will happen with my swimming. I can not wait for my daily pool trip!