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.