Casein Free Diets

Andrew is beginning his Casein free diet and has been taken off of Risperol. What a dramatic change for the worse! He is acting like he did 2 years ago. I had to pull out his kindergarten social stories today. At lunch, he was angry about a number of things including drinking OJ instead of milk. So he poured his juice all over himself and threw his lunch off the table. I watch 3 children at lunch, so it was pretty stressful removing him from the environment so none of the other children got hurt. I was worried that the other 2 were going to wander off. Only the one wandered but she went to the right place. I love independent children :)

Wild Mood Swings

Things have been very rough with Andrew lately. He has PDD.NOS. He is in second grade but follows a first grade curriculum which is at times too difficult for him. Yesterday, I follwed him through his day, simply observing and not interacting, to collect data on his progress. It averaged out that he spends only about 56% of the day attending to what is happening the rest of the time is spent being emotional, impulsive or lost in his own head. It was strange to sit there with a stop watch timinghow long he could focus on an activity. I was surprised to see how little of his time in school he actually engages in learning or interacting with others.

Today, he probably spent less than 56% of his time engaged. He stims orally so often that his lips and face around his lips are chapped and bloody. At one point he picked his nose and wiped the boogers on his desk. I made his get up, use a tissue and wash his hands. While he was washing his hands, I used a Clorox towel to wipe his desk clean. In the few seconds it took me to put the towel in the trash, he was back at his seat rubbing the wet desk on his raw mouth! He went to the nurse and she gave him some Vaseline. When I was in charge of Andrew's behavior plan, he had a water bottle to drink from when he needed something to do with his mouth. This year, his teacher decided she wants complete control of him and did away with most of my interventions and replacement behaviors. She believes that just being really strict with him, saying "put your hands down or leave your mouth alone" anytime he touches his mouth, will stop the behavior. She is my supervisor and his Autistic Support teacher so I don't argue. But I am so sad when I see his poor face. I wrote a note home to his parents about my concern for his face, hopefully they agree. The teacher will not be in tomorrow so I think I will bring out te water bottle once again.

Aside from the oral stimming he has been crying and injuring himself for attention. I was afraid he broke his hands today when he slammed both down on the desk. It was such a loud slam and he screamed like crazy after it happened. It is so difficult to ignore attention seeking behaviors like these. After he slammed the desk, he flipped it over and started throwing the contents around the room. I calmly said " throwing tantrums is preschool behavior, second graders clean up their messes, take deep breaths and calm their bodies down, so they can do things with their friends". He used to have tantrums that lasted for hours, but I learned that they can easily be prevented (in his case) by simply saying they cannot happen. He heard me, cleaned up the mess, started to cry, I took some deep breaths, he copied them and calmed himself down. I then smiled at him until he smiled back. This took about 3 or 4 minutes. He gave me angry eyes, I smiled and pointed to my mouth, his teacher smiled and pointed to her mouth. The two of us just kept smiling until he smiled. Then he was able to get up from his desk and join the other children.

Eliminating red and yellow dyes

Since the red dye #40 and yellow dye #5 have been eliminated from Jane's diet, I have seen very little erratic behavior. Before this diet I would have sheets of ABC charts filled up by the end of the week. Now I have filled up two for the entire month of October! She hasn't screamed nonsense or laid on the floor in a tantrum. It has been a pleasure to be around her. Lately, I have just been prompting her to talk to peers. There is even a girl in her class that came over and put her arm around Jane when the teacher was pairing kids up to let the teacher know to pair them together. I nearly cried. In the past, children would move away from her or tease her. She told me later that that girl is now her best friend and she hopes they can play at each other's houses. Honestly, I never thought she even wanted friends.

Bill Gates has Autism

Bill Gates has Asperger's, which is a form of Autism. He is one of the most successful people in the United States. I was just watching some videos on Autism and I found this one of Bill gates rocking back and forth in a business meating. Videos of the Miscrosoft moqul, Bill gates, displaying the rocking sterotopy reinforce the idea that self stimmulatory behaviors can exist without impeading a person's success. In school, I see teachers telling kids to put their hands stop or to sit still. Maybe we shouldn't put our focus into trying to make these autistic kids look "normal". You should watch this video, it might give you some new perspective on socially accepted behaviors.


I enjoyed this video of Bill gates because it shows his sense of humor. People tend to think that the autistic have no sense of humor.

Fun with Autism

Friday was full of excitement. Andrew perseverates on the grills of cars because they look like smiles. He talks to them, yells at them and laughs at them (even if they are not in his sight). I can't imagine having a brain that keeps me stuck on one thing for so long. Its hard for him to learn, do work or talk to friends because he is only thinking about the smiling cars. In the lunchroom, he can see the parking lot filled with happy cars, from his seat so he even had a hard time eating because he was so busy laughing with the cars. After lunch, I took his best friend (does not have autism) and him outside to look at the cars. I asked his best friend to show us the right way to look at cars and to tell us what he was thinking about the cars. Then I asked Andrew if it made sense what his friend was saying, he said yes. For the rest of the afternoon, when he started to get silly about the cars, I would ask him if that was the way his friend would act. That kept him focused for the afternoon. What would you do?

No worksheets

I have had time to work with Andrew again. He has PDD.NOS which is a confusing form of Autism. His language skills are very low and he gets frustrated very easily because it seems that he understands exactly what you are saying to him but he has no idea how to respond. Math is very difficult for him, he figures out the addition problems on his fingers says the answer than immediately forgets what he says. He usually ends up tearing up his paper and screaming. So we have started writing math facts on Popsicle sticks. He pulls a stick out of the container, reads the problem, solves the answer and doesn't have to write it down. We got through 20 math problems today in about 5 minutes, I remember it used to take over an hour for him to write the answer to just one problem. The best solution for him is no worksheets. We then played number games with a giant number grid and he actually had fun with math instead of throwing a tantrum.

Slow Motion Writting

Sometimes people with autism think much faster than people without autism. Jane has pretty terrible handwriting, she has a great imagination so its a shame that no one can read what she writes. When she unscrambles words in seconds, I began thinking about how quickly her autistic brain works. I noticed that she is writing way faster than any of the other kids. She gets all of her work done in half the time. So this week I told her to slow her writing down so we can read it. She said "Do you mean write in slow motion?" "Yes!" Now I just remind her to write in slow motion before she starts and her handwriting is beautiful. The occupational therapist was try all sorts of different pencil grips and pencil wrist slings to get her writing under control when all she needed was to write in slow motion.

Child Abuse

I just learned that Mahesh's behaviors began when his grandmom came from India to live with his family. She took on the role as disciplinarian and started physically disciplining him. Last year his teacher took him to the nurse to document a gash on his face from something she had done to him. I have not seen any physical marks on him yet but as soon as I do, I will take him to the nurse to document it and call child protection services. This will be my second call this school year and it is only October. Sometimes working with children is so sad.

On a happy note, Mahesh has had no severe behavior problems for the past two days. Tuesday as we were walking out to the bus, I noticed he was mesmerized by the safeties. So I told him that the only way to become a safety is by having good behavior and making good choices everyday. On Wednesday, I got a safety belt out of the closet to hang on his chair to remind him of his goal. I also had Andrew in regular ed for almost two hours today, he tried his best, answered some questions and even did partner work with a typical child. i just had to constantly remind him to use his self control. That was fantastic.

Bizarre Impulses

On Friday, Jane was having a hard time. Her pencil was not sharp enough to write with. When she was given a new sharp pencil, it was somehow too sharp. She screamed AHHHHHHHHHHH ITS TOO SHARP and stabbed her self in the hand with it. Blood was all over her writing assignment. I can't imagine feeling the need to stab your self just because something is sharp. The other children are afraid of her. To be honest, I used to be afraid of her until I started working with her daily. Now I understand that most of her behaviors are a result of her anxiety and I can reassure her that I am here to help her. This reassurance calms her a bit.

Today (and almost any given day), Andrew was sitting on the floor listening to a story, he turned around quickly to no one and started screaming Patsy Cline's "Crazy" someday he will burst into "Cry Me a Wiver (River)" or "I'm a Joker, I'm a Smoker, I'm a midnight Toker". The children in his class no longer even react when he breaks into song, it is very amazing.

Mahesh has been in isolation for uncontrollable behavior including hiding a pencil in his shorts then stabbing his teacher in the back with it as she walked down the hall. He has not been allowed out for recess because he is endangering other children, so I have been giving him a private boot camp to give him exercise and to let him know that he is not in charge. Today, I was going to have him walk up and down the stairs 20 times but at 19 times he started refusing, so I told him that no was the wrong answer and he had to do 11 more, he said no again which was the wrong answer, so he had to eat lunch in isolation. At the beginning of each step from there on he said" Yes is the right answer I will do it again". This I could not believe after seeing so much Oppositional Defiance from him. He then did 20 wall push ups and marching in place for 2 minutes. When he went into the regular ed room with his special ed teacher closely supervising, he told her that he was going to do the right thing so he can make her happy! Progress was made, hopefully he won't have to work in an isolation box for much longer.

Does hyperlexia influence behaviors? And a story about my day.

I was walking Andrew to class this morning, he stopped to drink from the fountain but ended up puking in it. We turned around to go to the nurses office. The office was just in sight and he puked all over the lobby floor (and onto my pants). As we walked into the room the nurse was trying to stop a kid from bleeding all over the floor when Andrew projectile vomited in the nurses direction. I sent him to lay down on a cot and he just kept saying "sorry for being throw up". He is such a sweet heart. I sat with him for an hour and a half, convincing him that it is okay to be sick sometimes and that the best thing to do is rest, (he wanted to go learn with his friends) until his dad came to get him. Finally I got into the class room and Jane was crying because she did not understand the directions, I got her straight on the directions (she needs an incredible amount of positive reinforcement to do anything) and it was my lunch break already. During my lunch Mahesh was running around his classroom screaming and arguing with his teacher so he had to be pulled into the special ed room. After my lunch, I went to take Mahesh to lunch. He cannot go alone anymore because he hurts other kids at his table. His teacher told me that he drew all over another kids lunch box. So he lost his privilege of eating with other children. While walking his cupcake feel into his pile of cheese and I explained to him how bad things happen to people who make bad choices. ( I am a true believer in karma, I wish he was). He ate his lunch alone then filled out a behavior sheet and I sent him to class. I then go to Jane's class and learn that she was scribbling and screaming so she was sent back to the special ed room. I went there got her to do her work by making simple demands and ignoring the things she was saying to me like "are you squawky?" We made it back to the classroom in time for a math assessment. She refused to start it, she just started laughing hysterically then yelling some nonsense. I took her into the study area and gave her the assessment privately. She cried and screamed at first, then I just told her "write the number" she wrote the wrong number every time for the first section (she does not understand this particular concept) and got everything else correct. We then talked about how she needs to ask for help when she doesn't understand stuff instead of screaming and crying. With coaching, she decided that she needed to write her teachers sorry notes. Finally we get back into the regular ed room and my supervisor comes to the door and tells me they need my help with Mahesh again. When I get into his room, he is running around the room scribbling on kids papers and laughing. His teacher and the math assistant and running after him telling him no and to stop. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the room. We went to the stairwell and he filled out a behavior sheet. When I came to read what he wrote he ran out the exit towards the parking lot. I ran after him and caught him. I held his arm and brought him straight to the principals office (since we had to walk around the entire building because only the main entrance is unlocked during school hours). The principal told him that if he left the school alone, he could get killed by a car in the parking lot or taken by a stranger. Mahesh really didn't care. The principal told him that he would lose recess and told him to make good choices from now on. UGH thanks principal. Since Mahesh was not responding to any punishment, I took him to the counselor's office. She pretty much repeated what the principal said but scheduled an appointment for him tomorrow. I figure there is some emotional drive to these behaviors. We'll see what happens with that. There was about a half hour left of school and Mahesh was still being completely defiant (No I will not make good choices, laughing and refusing to follow demands) he could not go to regular ed and I could not find his special ed teacher. So he had to march in place, after a few minutes he refused to march so I made him do jumping jacks, after a few minutes he refused to do jumping jacks, so I took him to the stairs and made him walk up and down the stairs. He did this about 7 times and he was worn out. Finally he had no energy to be defiant and it was time to send him home. After school, his mother read the note I sent home about his behavior, she called the special ed teacher and told her that all of these behaviors were her fault. The night before, she had read him a story in which the child made everyone of those bad choices that he made today!

Proper Lunch Behavior

I had to pull Mahesh out of lunch today for pinching the child next to him. He did it only because the lunch lady had to remind another boy of the rules. I took him to the empty stairwell again to fill out his behavior form. I also had him draw a picture of the proper behavior for the lunch table. This is him keeping his hands to himself and letting everyone be happy. Although he again wrote on his behavior form that he broke the rules because he likes to make bad choices, he also wrote that he will make good choices from now on. We'll see.

What do you do when they say "I don't want friends?"

This afternoon, I got called back to help with Mahesh. He was hitting and punching other kids, running away from his teacher and arguing with her, along with general defiance. She seemed reluctant to admit to defeat but he finally said, please take him away. I took him into an empty stairwell, the only thing there to read is the EXIT sign, we pulled a desk in there, and he filled out a paper that was made up for him. His answers from the first time are in blue. He had to do it again because of the scribbles and non-compliance, his answers the second time are in red. And again, his third answers are in green.
I Broke the rule:
do not punch and listen to the teacher the first time
do not punch and listen to the teacher the first time
do not punch and listen to the teacher the first time

I Broke the rule because:
I like to make bad choices I do not want to follow the rules XXXXXXXXXX(SCRIBBLES)
I like to make bad choices
I like to make bad choices


What should happen because I broke the rule?
XXXXXXXXXXX(SCRIBBLES)
Not allowed in first grade
Put my head down

From now on I will:
Not make good choices
Not make good choices XXXXXXXXXXXXX(SCRIBLES)
Make good choices

Here is my apology :
I am sorry to Andy and Evan
I am sorry to Evan and Colin
I am sorry to Evan and Andy

Signature____Mahesh____
Date___9/17_________ Time_1:00__1:20__1:45____

I had a long talk with him about how you need to make good choices and be a nice person so you can have fun with your friends. He said he doesn't want friends, he just want to make bad choices and not go to first grade, he just wants to go to second grade. I am wondering if first grade is too easy for him? He reading and writing skills are way above the other children's but his math and drawing skills are very low. After the talk, he told his teacher that he is not going to make good choices today, she said that was sad and she was very disappointed in him and he smiled. So I took him back to the empty stairwell and let him do math all by himself for 20 minutes. I talked to him again and he still insisted saying that he was not going to make good choices, so he had to put his head down until school was over. Nothing was solved and I have no real ideas on what to do.

More to follow about the red dye #40 and erratic behavior

Today I have been reassigned. I asked the district for another aide and action has been taken. I am no longer working with Mahesh and his ODD and Hyperlexia. Now I am working with Jane who is supposedly reactive to red dye #40 and I am also working with Andrew (my original 1:1 PDD.NOS assignment). This has made me very happy. Some research was done into the food ingredients and it was found that nothing has contained the Red Dye #40 or any other red dyes, so the dye can not be blamed for Jane's recent erratic behaviors. Her parents are insisting that it is allergy related instead of seizure related (which I suspect) so I think they will be eliminating wheat and dairy from her diet to eliminate that probability. Jane was pretty calm today, she responds so well to written instructions. When she gets off topic or behaves inappropriately, I just write what she should be doing and she does it. The funniest thing was, during math, she started copying her neighbors paper so I moved her to a table by herself and she said "I'm busted!"

I like to make bad choices

Today was a rough day. Mahesh was constantly defiant. At the lunch table, he was hitting other kids and touching their food. I told him that if he made one more bad choice, he was leaving lunch, he immediatly smiled and touched the kid next to him's food. I threw his lunch away and took him back to the special ed room. I had no idea what to do with him, so I asked the special ed teacher and she said give him his social story book, I said "he knows the right way to act, this book is no good" she said, "just show him the pictures of good choices" So I let him look at the "right way to eat lunch" story. Then I gave him a task to complete. I know that he enjoys writing and reading and strongly dislikes drawing, so his job was to draw the correct lunchroom behavior using no words or numbers. (he likes to lable children in his drawings with their age and bus number). It took him about 45 minutes to comply. Once he made his drawing, I asked him "why do you made bad choices when you know the right thing to do?"
He told me "I like to make bad choices."
Then I said "tell me why you like to make bad choices."
He said "Because I get to read my book"
I said "You are not going to read this book again. I know you like reading and it can be a reward for you. If you are feeling bored in lunch, you can ask me for a reading break. If you are feeling bored or like you need to read, let me know and you can work for a reading break anytime during the day."
By the time we were done this conversation, it was time for me to go to math with different students, so I didn't get a chance to work out the reading breaks with him.
The girl (I will call her Jane) that I help with math, fell asleep during instruction. I took her out into the hall way and made her hold me hands and jump 20 times, I helped her go higher every time. This woke her up. Jane always calls me Mrs. Squawky, I try to be firm and tell her to use my right name, but I am always laughing on the inside.

Oppositional Defiance is getting me down

Today was very rough. Mahesh was extremly oppositional. His teacher asked them to draw a picture of the "person of the day" for her book. Most of the kids spent about 10 minutes working on this with no arguments. It took Mahesh an hour to complete the drawing with much protest. I had to remove him from the room when all he would do is write words and scribble. now I understand that he has hyperlexia and that words are very interesting to him but he needs to understand that he needs to do what is asked of him. I gave him a new paper and let him try again, he wrote words and scribbled again. I wrote the directions on the white board for him, he read them and said following these rules is not a good choice. I drew a picture of the "person of the day" and described how I was drawing it, he said no. I picked up his hand and drew a picture with him, then told him to draw. He said no. I then ignored him, leaving him with the written instructions, the example and his crayons and paper. He wrote boring boring boring (which is impressive for a first grader, he is so hyperlexic) all over his paper, so I quietly took it away and gave him a new one. He did it again and again. After 45 minutes of this, I went to lunch and left him with his Autistic Support teacher. She sat down on the floor next to him and quietly drew a picture of the "person of the day" and finally he decided to comply. Things like this went on all day but this was the longest incident of defiance. I wonder if there was a better way to handle this?

Red Dye # 40 causes erratic behavior

I learned that Red Dye #40 in food possibly causes erratic behavior in some people with autism as well as people with typical brains. I was working with a child that I do not usually work with. I came in to help her out with math. She was sitting on her chair hiding her face in her legs, when I wrote to her to sit correctly, she started screaming and crossing her eyes. She then jumped off of her chair and started hoping around the room like a frog. The class was told to come to the floor to listen to the teacher. She went to the floor but started spitting on the ground. I told her this is not acceptable behavior and she said to me laughing "Is it completely terrible?" So I sent her back to her seat. She sat in her seat for a minute then started running around laughing. She would not respond to anything, I or her teacher was saying, so i picked her up and took her to the nurses office. I was fearing that she was having some sort of seizure. She was calm in the office. The nurse took her temperature and it was 100.3 so she laid in the office for the rest of the day, since her mom was too far away to pick her up before the buses arrived. The next day her mom said the behavior was most likely caused by the red dye #40 in the pasta sauce she had that day. Now I am not completely sure that this is the true cause but it is an interesting theory.

ODD Management

Today the Oppositional Defience Disorder was really put into full effect. Since it is the begining of the school year the classroom teacher has to go over the class rules and the playground rules. Since the boy I work with, (I will call him Mahesh, for story sake) needs to challenge and defy everything, he acted out every bad choice that was presented to the first grade. The teacher said on the playground we keep our hands to ourselves, then gave many examples of the wrong ways to interact. As soon, as her speech was over and the kids were told to line up for the playground, Mahesh went over and pushed another kid. Mahesh is very tiny, maybe 45 pounds? So when he pushed the larger boy, that boy just belted him. I figured that was punishment enough for him, so I acted like I didn't see it. I don't know if that was proper behavior management but no one is giving me much support on how to work with him. Later in the day, the teacher assigned a coloring project, she talked about how people are not green so don't use green to color your skin, use tan, brown or peach. As soon as Mahesh got his paper he began coloring the hair green. I used the advice from the pulling in the reins article, and took the green away and left the rest of the crayons to choose from, he then laughed and chose purple, so I then took away all of his crayons except brown and black. Then he chose black to color his hair. I like giving him options and it does work pretty well to give him very limited undesirable choices. Just when it comes to hitting, there are no choices I can give him; You can hit and get punished or you can not hit and have recess time, he would choose punishment because he enjoys being punished. I guess I need to figure out what he likes about punishment.

Hyperlexia Management

I started working with this first grade boy, who is diagnosed with pdd.nos but I am very positive that he has hyperlexia. All day he was obsessed with reading every poster, every paper, every book, anything with words on it. The teacher was reading a story to the children while they sat on the floor, he was busy reading the board. She handed out books for the children to read along, he read his out loud very quickly before everyone even got their books. The other children were amazed that he could even read, since most of them can only read a few words. This sounds very hyperlexic to me. When the teacher was giving instructions about how to hang up their school bags, he was busy reading the numbers off of his number chart that is taped to his desk. He misunderstood almost every oral direction that was given but he remembered everything that was written. From now on I am just going to keep a portable white board with me and write out all oral instructions for him. When he earned a break, his choices were : play with a ball/sensory toy, draw on the board or do stretches. He chose to draw on the board and instead of drawing, he wrote words, numbers and letters. While we were walking through the hall, he read every poster. I asked him who taught him to be such a great reader? He laughed and said NO ONE! I said it must have been your mom, he said NO WAY, then I said it must have been your kindergarten teacher, he laughed and said NO WAY. Then I said who did then? He said NO ONE! While laughing more. I think I believe him. I haven't found many techniques to use through my research on hyperlexia. Maybe the best way to manage hyperlexia is to feed into it with more written words until his reading and listening comprehension grow. There were a few things that made me angry with his teacher, she assigned groups then each child was assigned a color and she deliberately assigned him red because it was the shortest and easiest word to read (she also said red like your shirt), she did not listen to him read off every color listed on the paper before she walked over. Also, while reviewing her behavior system, she focused mainly on the punishments and very little on the rewards. He also has Oppositional Defiance Disorder and for some reason craves punishment, soon after her explanation and examples of incorrect behaviors, he hit me, yelled and became very non compliant. Now that is off my chest maybe I can sleep easy tonight.

Increasing Motivation

This is from more research that I have done. Tommorow I get to test it out. Wish me luck.

Reversing Demoralization and
Increasing Motivation in Your Child


Many times, in our effort to see children succeed, we will push them or require that they put in “more effort.” We comment on many aspects of their performance-trying to be constructive. Children and adolescents commonly see these comments as micromanaging, criticism, or as evidence that we care more about their grades and performance than we care about them. They frequently end up feeling demoralized and adopt a “what’s the use?” attitude.

We must remember that what we consider helpful comments may be perceived as criticism and negative. Our efforts to help them may result in feelings of hopelessness, a drop in morale, self-esteem, motivation and, ultimately, a strain in our relationship with them.

To reverse this drop in morale and strain in our relationship, we must:

Limit the number of comments

First, remember that it is better to note the positives. If you feel compelled to comment, then limit your “constructive comments” to one per event, whether it be homework, athletics, or friendship skills.
Example: “Keep your eye on the ball, just like you did on the last pitch.”
Instead of: “Keep your eye on the ball, elbow up, choke up on the bat, plant your foot, follow through, etc.”

Notice movement in the right direction

Second, it is most important to note behaviors that show your child that they are moving in the right direction (even though their performance may be far from adequate, much less perfection.) Without some encouragement even small changes will cease to exist. Big changes and substantial improvements only occur from a succession of small changes.
Example: “You’ve gotten both socks on without being reminded!”

Lower the bar and raise it as they progress.

Working with Oppositional Defiance Disorder

A friend from work just sent me this information about how to work with oppositional defiance disorder. This seems really good for any defiant behavior. I will definitly be using this on Tuesday, I'll let you know how it goes.

PULLING IN THE REINS

Pulling in the reins is a technique to decrease the struggling with your child. By giving him/her choices, and encouraging appropriate actions, your child learns that if he/she does not make a choice, YOU WILL. Pulling in the reins helps the child learn to make decisions and to be responsible for the choices he/she makes.

HERE IS HOW TO PULL IN THE REINS:

When the child’s behavior is creating a problem for you, begin by giving a choice with wide parameters.
“Would you like to write on regular lined paper or special paper?”

If your child argues, continues to complain, and basically does not comply, do NOT repeat your original choice. Give him/her a new choice with narrower parameters, or rather, without the best option.
“You can write on regular small lined paper or regular big lined paper.”

If your child does not comply, take away another choice, again the better of the two options, and provide him/her with a less attractive choice.
“You can write on the front of the small lined paper or the back of the small lined paper.”

If your child is still struggling with you, give them the choice of doing the task voluntarily or involuntarily, but you MUST follow through.
“You can write by yourself, or I will help you write.”

If your child still refuses, physically guide him/her to complete the given task.

Your child will soon learn that if they don’t make a decision, you will make their decisions for the. For a child who often engages in power struggles, he/she will fight to retain their decision-making abilities. Thus, after several times of “Pulling in the Reins”, you will notice your child will act more quickly to make better choices to prevent you from making the choices for him/her.

Hyperlexia, Oppositional Defiance Disorder and Disapointment

I went back to work today for a staff inservice, the children come next Tuesday. My position is a 1:1 aide in an autistic support room. I have been working with one boy for two years as his one to one but when I got in today his teacher (my supervisor) said I would be working with another boy. This was so disapointed because my boy is very important to me, I have developed a great bond with him, and I finally understand him and how to manage his behavior. Now I have to start all over with a new boy, whom I've worked in the same room with for six weeks over the summer but not one to one because it we were told that another aide would be working with him through the school year, so she worked with him over the summer. I wish I would have paid more attention to him. But things will be different anyway, we will be trying to do regular ed as much as possible.
Aside from the disapointment of leaving my old buddy, it will be exciting to work with a new child. He has Hyperlexia and Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Both disorders are unfamiliar to me, so I will do research to help me structure his reward systems and behavior plan. I'll post my discoveries here.

Working with Autism

Over the summer, during my time off, I have been building an Autism website. (www.workingwithautism.info)This is the first one I have made since college, I forgot how tricky publishing can be. It took my a few hours to get everything up and working. Hopefully you find it helpful and informative. My favorite page is the behavior management one. Tomorrow is my first day back to work, so I will be blogging more often.

Things to come

I go back to work in the Autistic Support Room next Tuesday. I am going to post different behavior management techniques and how or if they were effective. I just had an idea to use a small puzzle as a reward system. Good behaviors would earn a puzzle piece and when the puzzle is completed a preferred activity would be the reward. I'll see if I can put that to use.