A day at the beach
We spent the day at the Court South beach yesterday. I didn’t work that much even though I brought my computer just in case. I spent the whole time in the pool or eating. Nice…it was like a mini vacation. The motivation was that the Beach closes for the off season after Labor Day and I thought that we ought to take the kids just in case we didn’t make it over the weekend.
It was great to see the progression in The Elder’s social skills. Last time we were there, The Elder wanted to play with this Dad and his little boy so bad but of course didn’t know how to approach them. Well verbally that is. He had no qualms and approaching them physically – I mean to the point of getting in between them. I’m trying to get The Elder’s attention and apologizing to the dad. But i explained to The Elder, if you want to play with them, then go introduce yourself, say, “Hi my name is The Elder” (It was pointed out to me that AS kids will start doing that to everyone - even the ones you don’t want them to – so I’ll have to change that strategy.) He still wasn’t comfortable even though I had given him the words to use, so I went up to the little boy and introduced them. What was hilarious was that he didn’t want to play with the little boy. He wanted to play with the dad!!
So fast forward a few weeks to yesterday. There was a little boy there with his parents that The Elder seemed to be interested in playing with and it was cute because they were swimming together. So I asked The Elder, if he introduced himself, and he turned to the parents and said, Hi my name is The Elder. Then the rest of the time played with the boy’s parents! It was a riot.
I must say I am sooooo proud of The Elder. We got him some water goggles on clearance at Walmart the other day (with Spongebob on them). The Elder loves them (The Younger hates them). They are magic goggles! They gave him the confidence to “dive” and he is swimming (with water wings), but he gets in the #4 pool (4ft area of the pool – not the #1 pool or the #2 or #3 pool – those are for babies you know…) and will kick his legs and put his head under the water and SWIM! I don’t know who taught him how to hold his breath that long (or even the concept of holding your breath underwater). I guess he learned it from tub time. But anyhoo, I had to take the goggles away near the 3rd hour because he was getting reverse raccoon marks. Yes, the white butts have also been exaggerated.
Well, that explains ALOT…
I googled Executive Function and then Executive Dysfunction and then Executive Dysfunction and Autism and came up with some very interesting reading…
Lazy Kid or Executive Dysfunction? – I like this article. It was both revealing and depressing BUT at least it provides strategies of where to go from here.Neurodiversity - This is just a list of articles regarding the executive function in autistics that I should probably read in the future but thought I would post here for easy researching for others (and myself for later.)
Evaluating the theory of executive dysfunction in autism – This report is very thorough and well organized.
What is Executive Function? (From this link) “Executive functions (EF) are central processes that are most intimately involved in giving organization and order to our actions and behavior. They have been compared to the “maestro” who conducts the orchestra. But what are these processes? The whole topic is very controversial, but there seems to be a consensus that executive functions involve (at the very least): “If we break down the skills or functions into subfunctions, we might say that executive functions tap into the following abilities or skills: “We will consider these skills in more detail later in this article, but for now, it should also be noted that in considering executive functions, we will also be talking about “working memory,” which is not purely an executive function but overlaps executive functions, attention, and memory. Also, although “emotional control” is included in this list, it is not a purely executive function.” FUNCTIONS AND SIGNS OF DYSFUNCTION Let us take a closer look at each of the functions we identified earlier, and consider what dysfunction might look like. In looking at this chart, keep in mind that there are only a few examples of what dysfunction might look like. Function Description Possible Signs or Symptoms of Dysfunction Goal Identify goal or set goal. Acts as if “future-blind” (Barkley, 2002), i.e. not working towards the future. Plan Develop steps towards goal, identify materials needed, set completion date. - May start project without necessary materials Sequence Arrange (and enact) steps in proper order spatially or temporally. - May skip steps in multi-step task Prioritize Establish ranking of needs or tasks. - May waste time doing small project and fail to do big project Organize Obtain and maintain necessary materials and aids to completing sequence and achieving goal. - May lose important papers or possessions Initiate Begin or start task. Difficulty getting started on tasks may appear as oppositional behavior Inhibit Stop oneself from responding to distractors. Delay gratification in service of more important, long-term goal. - May appear distractible and/or impulsive Pace Establish and adjust work or production rate so that goal is met by specified completion time or date. May run out of time Shift Move from one task to another smoothly and quickly. Respond to feedback by adjusting plan or steps. May have difficulty making transitions and/or coping with unforeseen events Self-Monitor Assessing one’s performance and progress towards goal. - Doesn’t check to insure that each step is completed Emotional Control Regulating and modulating responses to situations. May exhibit inappropriate or over-reactive response to situations Complete Reaching the self-set or other-set goal. May start tasks but not finish them In other articles in this section of the web site, you can find helpful tips and strategies for addressing some of the deficits identified in the chart above.
“Executive functions are the higher-order processes that enable us to plan, sequence, initiate, and sustain our behavior towards some goal, incorporating feedback and making adjustments along the way.”
With greater understanding, comes greater responsibility (and patience).
“The foundations for learning are attention, memory, and executive function. While most parents would immediately have some sense of what “attention” and “memory” mean, they may never have heard of executive functions. And yet without these functions, so many aspects of our functioning would be impossible or significantly impaired.
- May not leave enough time to complete
- May not make plans for the weekend with peers
- May have difficulty relating story chronologically
- May “jump the gun” socially
- May have difficulty identifying what material to record in note-taking
- May fail to turn in completed work
- May create unrealistic schedule
- May pick smaller, immediate reward over larger, delayed reward
- Doesn’t monitor pace to determine if goal will be met on time,
- Doesn’t check work before submitting it
Balance
It has been a cathartic past few days. I literally stayed in my room all day on Thursday. The Hub stayed home from work to take care of his “sick” wife. I left the room at about 5:30pm and we left the house to eat (at Pelancho’s, speaking of margaritas, Kara, I just had a few sips though because I’m such a lightweight) and go to Borders to do some research. I usually work on Thursday evenings hosting a training event, but I have some wonderful people that I work with and they “took over” for me so that I could veg. I think I had just gotten to the point where I didn’t have anything left to give and literally and physically had to shut off to recharge.
So on Friday I’m out of the house by 9am and took the kids over to the church to play while I volunteered for the mom’s group at the children’s clothing sale we had this weekend and then came home long enough to feed the kiddos and then took The Elder to the eye doc to get his new glasses. I’m excited about these with the cable arms because 1) The Elder picked them out when I blatantly had him choose between 2 identical frames but one with the cables and he chose these each time I asked him (you have to take a large enough sample size to get an accurate estimate when you have to dish out over $200 for frames and it is the 3rd pair you’ve purchased in 1 year) and 2) hopefully with the cables we will have less trips to the eye doc for adjustments, less falling off the face, therefore less losing of the glasses, and less glasses purchases! Anyhoo, then we got back and The AP took them to the park while I typed up an “The Elder manual” for his teachers for Monday and got ready for date night. The Hub and I went to the pre-sale and got The Elder a bike for $5!!!! and of course some Thomas stuff and some non-button shirts suitable for church and the game Hullabaloo (I’ve wanted this game ever since it came out and The Elder was about a year old!). Then we went for sushi (we do this every friday for date night) to a new place (new to us, that is) in Farragut by Steinmart – nice – they had a Go Vols Roll which we got. And of course went to a different Borders to continue our research.
On Saturday I marveled at the 2 days on the extreme ends of social interaction and how incredibly balanced I felt at that point (actually makes me a little anxious though). Anyhoo we had a great weekend at Volunteer Landing for the Dragon Boat races. The kids played in the waterfall there and put some training wheels on The Elder’s bike and played Hullabaloo (so fun!).
I had followed a thread in the angry wives club forum and in the effort to be positive and helpful to someone who was debating on leaving her man, I reinforced to myself just how blessed I am to have The Hub and that he is willing to work on this together for our benefit and the benefit of our family. Like the Mozart and the Whale quote “Aspergers is a funny animal,” how can someone appear so “normal” on the outside have autism? Where I have a daily struggle in communicating with HIM, his daily struggle is with communicating with EVERYONE. What is harder is sometimes he is aware of the struggle and sometimes he isn’t. If you haven’t watched the movie with the screenwriter’s commentary, I recommend that you do. It was very insightful for me personally into the the leading lady’s role, who is more like The Hub – Appears normal, though eccentric and quirky, but has a real disability in certain situations which his comments helped me to understand the deeper meaning behind her character. She made eye contact, she had a job, she had friends at work, she had compassion and empathy for others in the group and could often communicate gracefully to them (and other times not so much). I am learning to stay on my toes and be flexible and adjust my responsibilities in our family without enabling him or being condescending. That goes for The Elder too.
I’ll need to finish the The Elder Manual before his first day of school tomorrow. I used 2 books as reference: Understanding Autism for Dummies, which I was incredibly impressed with chapter 5 on Aspergers and the “Rage Cycle” and how to deal with it at each of the 3 stages, and Parenting your Asperger Child, which had a very insightful 2 chapters on “Identifying Asperger Subtypes” and “Reasons behind the Behavior.” I am taking things from each book that are specifically The Elder (since it is a spectrum, most books can be incredibly general and vague when you are trying to understand just one child). We bought the latter book. The 2 have probably been the most helpful to me in dealing with the day to day issues both the major and minor. It is interesting, the more I understand AS, the more traits I see in The Elder and the more compassionate I become for what he has to overcome daily. It is a funny animal. I’m so grateful that he is being raised in a generation where there is more ASD awareness than in my generation. Now I just have to reach more of my generation to enlighten…..
