K’s relationship with his books is a development that I
would never have anticipated. I always
envisioned a more sporty, athletic or physically stimulating outlet for him. Our children are mysterious and parents of
children with autism are often afraid to have expectations. I don’t dare imagine
K’s future abilities. He doesn’t talk to me or share his thoughts with me.
I don’t dare dream.
But the following is the scene in my house most of the day.
This has become K’s number one choice of stim, pass time, whatever you may
want to call it. When he can think of nothing to do he will pull out a bunch of
books and stare at the picture, talk to them, repeating scripts, sometimes
“reading” the letters, kissing the pictures or labelling things.
He has favourite ones, most of them are curious George
books. He wants to be alone with them, and will often shut the door to his bare
room and sink in to the bean bag or lie on the floor and spend time with the
pictures.
I feel as if to him the characters in his books are real. He
treats them like real people, kissing them and talking to them. The other day
he dropped a book behind the bed, hung upside down to retrieve it and wiped it
with his hands saying “Its OK, I going to clean you Curious George Finds a Friend”
(that’s the name of the book: Curious George Finds a Friend).
He takes in more than we think, but due to his inability to express his thoughts we never really know how much. Today as he was helping me clear the table, he picked up the baby's spoon and said "It's a tadpole spoon". We have been reading a Curious George book about tadpoles. He has never seen one in real life.
He takes in more than we think, but due to his inability to express his thoughts we never really know how much. Today as he was helping me clear the table, he picked up the baby's spoon and said "It's a tadpole spoon". We have been reading a Curious George book about tadpoles. He has never seen one in real life.
I really really want him to learn how to read. I hope one
day he can read, comprehend and really enjoy the world of books and literature.
So he can take his beautiful imagination on exciting journeys. A major goal or aspiration for any special needs parent is to help their child find constructive ways to spend their time as they get older.
His decoding is progressing very very slowly. The problem
with any kid with severely limited verbal abilities is that they will soon
start decoding words they don’t comprehend. So many words are not in K’s
vocabulary, because he has such a limited vocabulary. A typical child’s
receptive and expressive vocabulary is way beyond their ability to read and
decode, so you have already laid a groundwork for language and communication
before you start tackling the written word.
It will take K a long time and I am not sure what his
reading comprehension abilities or limitations will be.
Watching him, baby poi has developed a strange obsession
with books, flipping through books and wanting to be read to, almost constantly.
She will stalk people, holding a book, repeating “booka booka” trying to get
their attention. If you look at her, she takes that as affirmation and will
seat herself wherever she is and expect you to follow her lead and start
reading to her.
I know that because it is a stim it can be troubling but when I read that I couldn't help thinking how darling it sounded. Some of the kids at my son' school develop reading skills. I think they tend to do more sight words than phonic/decoding although some of the higher functioning student learn in a more "traditional" way. Sam will likely never read which, as a teacher, makes me very sad but his school always pairs his pecs pictures with written words in case association can be made.
ReplyDeleteI was told Pamela will never learn to read, write, or speak. The doctor was WRONG. It was a long journey for her. Like K, she could not express what was going on in her head. She's much better at that today. What she cannot express, we can usually guess and then we model how she might say it. She taught herself to sight read, and later we taught her phonics. She loves books. We read together books at about a fifth grade level and she is learning so much about the world, past and present. She tends to pick books at a lower level to read on her own in her free time, but that is fine with me. She researches information on the Internet and comes to me with questions like "What is 'Cold War'?"
ReplyDeleteDon't underestimate your kids! They may surprise you!
I am feeling your comment Tammy, you know I am surprised when he does manage to share things or I am able to guess what he is thinking - I don;t know why we assume a direct relationship between waht is being said/expressed and what is being thought - clearly our kids disprove that relationship. And that baby spoon really does look like a tadpole (but regular spoons just look like spoons!)
ReplyDelete