After some Sean shenanigans at school last winter (wrecking other kids snowforts on the yard and filling in holes that they had dug, for instance), the powers that be finally decided that he should have some social skills training outside of the regular classroom. I could only say hurray, because this is something that I feel has been lacking since he finished IBI (Intensive Behavioural Intervention) in 2006.
So a couple of times a week off Sean goes down to the Learning Resource Coach's office for a half hour one-on-one session. They started with emotions, recognizing emotions in other people, which involved Sean learning essentially how to draw faces with those relevant expressions.
Something that I learned over the years was how children with Autism tend to look at a person's mouth, rather than their eyes, for clues as to what they're feeling. Sean still focuses on the mouth, and I try to remind him to look at eyes and eyebrow position too.
I get updated from time to time on his progress, but he himself also tells me what's been going on, not through direct communication, but indirectly via his own processing. Sean often likes to process new things in his world by duplicating events at home. Hence, the Christmas concert, which had to be EXACTLY like the one at school, down to the practice routines ("don't hang your feet over the stage"), the Winter Carnival, and now, the Social Skills lessons.
Bob is the lucky participant of these. Bob likes to call Sean his "slippery seal" when he comes out of the tub, and Sean decided that was an inappropriate comment, and that Bob had to now come to his "class". He made out a schedule of dates and times (usually every weekend) and Bob has been dutifully going for lessons on drawing out emotions, appropriate things to say to people, and games encouraging social conversation. So I know exactly what he is doing at school by the duplication at home.
(Bob is doing very well in his progress, except one day when Evie scribbled all over his work, and Sean marked it "0%, Lets Discuss").
Sean started out with his "office" in his bedroom but it got more and more cluttery, so I convinced him to move it over to the piano corner, since I had recently removed a settee and there was space. So every weekend, he and Bob are over there. Sean sets his alarm clock for a half hour, and lately Bob (and Sean calls him "Bob" during the sessions, Bob referring to Sean as "Mr. Cameron") has been allowed to bring a friend for the games. This has actually been very good for Sean, as we always had a hard time getting him to join a group activity such as board games. Bob has been bringing Evie along, which has worked out well for games that Evie likes, (Don't Spill the Beans, Hungry Hippos), not so well when the game is a little more complicated and she doesn't want to do what Sean says. It's nice to see them all playing together.
But it has been the emotional training that has really been beneficial too. Oh he still calls kids at school his funny names for them ("hey you have a bownka head", whatever that is) but not on the school grounds (just when we're leaving, and he hollers it out the window at some poor unsuspecting classmate), which is a bit of an improvement. You learn, as a parent of an Autie, to celebrate the little incremental improvements, believe me.
This week has been a sad one at his school, as one of Sean's classmates passed away after 2 year battle with Leukemia. He was not particularly close to her, although they shared the exact same birthday, and she was always nice to him, right from their first year together at that school, in Grade 1. She hadn't been attending regular classes since early last fall, but Sean and his class as a group would communicate with her via Skype, as she was in isolation during her last treatments.
I didn't know how he would react to the sad classmates around him this week. He gets uncomfortable with crying, and staves off the discomfort by laughing at the person crying. Not great in any situation, but especially this one, so I had a few worries as he skipped off into school on Monday. His EA gave me a good report at day's end; there had been one smirk, but one of his peers had put him straight, and then he was fine. Later, we talked about it at home.
He said he didn't feel sad about the girl's dying, but after some thought decided that he WOULD probably feel sad if his little girlfriend Ally wasn't there anymore, say if she switched schools. I found his analysis of the situation interesting, firstly because he didn't ever analyze his emotions before, and secondly because he has obviously learned something from his Social Skills sessions. His teacher there had said that when she asked Sean to think of a time that he was sad, he couldn't. Happy yes, angry yes, sad no. So obviously he was now trying to project himself into a situation where he might be sad, and seeing what that might feel like.
Way to go Sean. We'll get there yet. Maybe empathy is lurking below the surface too.
Sorry no pictures this post....my computer is stubborn today.
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