An RDI video with a long video analysis

I recently did a video for my home team with a detailed minute (and sometimes seconds!) analysis.

I thought I should share it here too.

Here is the video of us doing the Salad Spinner Paintings.



The following is an analysis of the thing. It is very long and detailed and mostly copied as-is from the notes I made for my therapists (so it is kind of mostly addressed to them), but it shows how many things a person needs consider during an interaction to be mindful.

Stopping and Referencing

I have noticed when K is in to an activity, you don't have to do much to get him to stop and reference you. I don't have to talk to him, touch him or move myself. All you have to do is stop and look at him. This of course was not possible when we started. He had very very poor referencing skills there years ago.

Did you know that primates are unique in the degree to which their eyeballs move in their sockets, without physically moving their heads? Maybe that's why we can tell if someone on the bus is staring at us without even looking at them :P

Meeting of the eyes is an opportunity to share an experience together, and build a positive episodic memory of shared experience. It should never be taught just for instrumental purposes eg. to obtain things.

At 0.19 
You can see he decided to put purple paint in the thing and although my first instinct is to control him, I have to overcome these things (still!) And then the paint had settled and water came out. I should have shook it and give it back to him and slowed down and waited for him to put it in before starting to spin the bowl. So I made a mistake there.

At 2:10 
You can see how mindless he is with language and context. We assume he is listening we you speak, but it demonstrates how essential it is to slow down even more.

He catches my finger pointing across the room. I actually am giving him the plate with one hand and pointing for him to put it there while telling him to do it.

However he actually gets up and walks over there himself (his automatic response is to just go where I am pointing). But he notices the plate and has no idea what I want him to do. He starts going for the stash of plates on the floor next to me (presumably to start painting the next plate). I have to grab him, point again and explain again.

This was extremely important for me to watch. It shows you the extent to which we are ourselves completely mindless around K and our assumption about how much he is actually listening to and following.

It is a communication breakdown and these tiny things need to be addressed to make him MORE mindful of what YOU are thinking and be on the same page as you during interactions.

So lessons to learn from this:

1) Reduce the blah blah. People who hang around with children are often found constantly talking to themselves. They fill the silence with their own self talk. It does not work and it ADDS to the noise and confusion in K's case.
2) Slow down body, close in on K. Before pointing and letting him get off the chair. I SHOULD have been more mindful of stopping. Maybe touching his arm, showing him the plate, pointing to the floor and saying once, put that on the floor.
3) Stop rushing through things, it is not about creating pretty things, or teaching him how to paint or spin a salad spinner, but about these tiny little instances of connection and context.

At 2:51
He starts collecting the paint and I want him to do all the steps himself (starting from putting the plate or paper in there). So I stop him. I have to say NOTHING and point NOWHERE. He figures it out himself that he has to put the plate in there first.

This was really great for me to watch, because:
I appreciate how far K has come in being "present" in an activity with us. He is doing his best to follow along. This would never have happened a year ago. He would go jumping away or scream. Just from one little move he knows that I expect something else of him and I do not have to waste words or talk.

Lesson:

He is smart. Give him the benefit of the doubt by shutting up and looking at him. Let him figure things out on his own when they are obvious like this. It gives him more ownership over an activity, thereby increasing its reinforcing value. If you speak during these crucial thinking times you preempt his ability to solve things on his own. These are mere seconds, but they count a lot.

In fact he is so clever that you see he even checks if it is actually one plate or two!!

A small challenge - plate doesn't fit.

He tries to fit it and I say nothing. I wait for him to acknowledge that its not going to work.

Eventually he asks me for help. I do give him a visual prompt by holding up a scissor because I don't want him to go in to the whiny frustration zone.

So that next time he looks he knows there is some kind of solution and he can figure out what he needs to do with that visual prompt. He knows what scissors are for, why should I speak and tell him what to do?

Initially he doesn't get it even though he glances at the scissors.

So I try to highlight the problem and not the solution with my words in my last attempt at letting him figure out that cutting the plate will solve the problem.

And in the end I show him and I still don't talk. Because you will see there is absolutely no need to talk.

He leans over the table (I think he is trying to regulate himself) and then he just joins in.

Lesson:

Same as above lesson really. Let him join you, don't dictate every move. Don't say "Uh oh its too big, we need to cut the plate", in some sing songy childish voice. This is not a kids show for dumb kids.

You got to admire his focus and regulation while cutting. But its an advantage K has always had, we didn't teach him that. He likes to get a job done and he wants to do it well.

At around 4:14 
You will see his is singing and if you pay attention you will see he even makes his little doodly self regulatory sound (those who have been working with him for a long time will recognise it - he only makes it for a few seconds after he stops singing). I WOULD NEVER speak when he is doing this.

Its easy to say things like "Oh almost done", and "You're doing really well" and all that rubbish, but I felt my voice would make him lose his focus that is going in to regulating himself while cutting that rather hard plate.

He references me and smiles when he finishes cutting. Those are priceless things that I KNOW would have been lost had I said anything. So clearly he needs no verbal reinforcement from me for having done a difficult job. It is self reinforcing.

Lesson:

Don't waste your words and verbal praise. Make it count. Give him ownership for what he is doing.

At exactly 4:44
He realizes it still doesn't fit so I do a very tiny disappointment sound and he references me and I take over because I don't want him to wait too long to get to the next thing after already working so hard to cut. He really just wants to paint and spin.

But his look is important as it mirrors the slight disappointment you can see it in his face.

He also defaults in to some silliness by taking scissors to his hair!! So for sure at this point taking things into your own hands is the better choice. NO need to prolong his agony. You know it was the better thing to do because he even follows the cutting of the scissors with his eyes (stim) you can catch that at 4:58.

Lesson:
Use your instincts and what you know about K to make good decisions on the fly. It will only happen if you had a goal in mind, were not rushing and were being mindful to HIS tiny little physical cues. And of course practice.

At 5:03 
I could have said, "OK now we can put it in, it will fit" - but why waste words again? He is sniffing the bowl, GIVE HIM responsibility for carrying on by WAITING. Don't do all the work yourself.

He will stop sniffing, reference me, I will smile and we will carry on.

Lesson:
Be a facilitator for transfer of responsibility to him. Don't be an object of his control that you just talk, pass things to him like a robot, then spend half your life bringing him back to an activity, and then manage behavior.

At 5:30
I wait again for a millisecond for him to pay attention to my pouring so I can share my excitement with him and we can be part of the next step together and enjoy it together. Why should I be shut out? I like salad spinning paint just as much as him!! I will even make a weird "frrrr" sound while pouring just for fun. He is curious.

At 5:44
I feel he is pouring too much paint in there, and you can see me make a sound and move my hand, but I have to overcome these needs to control - and I did thankfully because he stops pouring himself. He made the decision that it was enough.

Lesson:
Sometimes we need to trust him more I guess without physically trying to control him.

During the spinning he references me and I continue to try to catch as many opportunities as I can for him to look at me without asking or prompting, and he does. Which is great considering the stimmy nature of spinning the bowl. He has not shut me out.

He will let me take my turn. I don't have to say something like "Mommy turn" or anything. Honestly why do we even need to say such things? He will script it anyway. Its not like he doesn't know what it means.

At around 7:38
He waits, when I stop, he takes over.

At 8:15
I expect him to put the second plate on the floor like the first one. And I have to say nothing. He scripts the words, I just nod. You can see he is teasing me at one point and my sour face as a result :P (8:24) Which he thinks is pretty funny and he giggles at 8:26.

At 8:38
I change things up by giving him a choice of paper or plate. We have never done this activity with a square bit of paper so I didn't know how he would comprehend the choice.

And you can see he has some difficulty getting it.

At first around 8:41
He is still dysregulated from the simple act of having to get up and put the plate on the floor...and he is humming something and floating around.

I WILL NEVER invite him back. Because seriously we are spinning things in a salad spinner. Who needs an invitation?

He notices my body language at 8:42. Its subtle but it says I am waiting for you.
I DO NOT have to point to the chair or say or do anything.

At 8:50
He is like one step ahead of me as he has not even noticed that I wanted him to choose between paper and plate.

So I have to make him notice. He is blathering on about cut the scissors and you lost the scissors blah blah.

AT 8:52 
He looks at me and I present the choices.

And he says "get the plate" - but you know I don't think I was convinced he made a choice. I don't think he realized there was a choice. He didn't understand. He just said get the plate as that's what we used the last time. He sounds worried or slightly anxious, so I didn't push him.

AND at 9:06
He thinks I wanted him to choose the paper because I took so long to get the plate or the scissors (because I was thinking of what to do next and analysing the choice making in my head - and K goes at light speeds so he was already thinking, "What does she want me to do?", and figures for himself that he maybe he HAD to put the paper in there.

He looks at me at 9:06 with a look that clearly says "Is this it? Is this what you wanted?"

I didn't want to complicate things so I just went along with it.

I am not quite sure what I should have done differently.

At 9:18
He waits like a good little apprentice for me to cut the paper so it will fit. I guess in this way I modelled for him same but different and he is watching and learning.

At 9:23
You can clearly see that he still wants to put the plate in there - so he DID NOT at all get the point that it can be either paper or plate. He has assumed this is some bizarre thing I wanted to do. I ignore him without talking and just put the paint on the paper at which point he figures it out.

At 942
He is dysregulated, does a weird smile and does his sounds again.  I take over and do everything myself.

It is almost as if he doesn't trust whats happening but he is going to sit there and wait out my strange behavior of using paper and not plate.

At 1043
I think he has accepted the paper and goes for the next step in the process automatically but grabbing the other paper and scissors.

And at 1059
I make the mistake of bringing out the plate again. I don't know why, but I think now I should have just gone on with what was happening. But I think I wanted to fix my earlier choice making thing - and you see I resort to using language and control to get him to choose. This is a mistake we make ALL THE TIME with K.

He continues to cut some tiny bit of paper.

FINALLY at 11:12 my sad need for him to make a choice materializes :P and he chooses the paper and cuts it. Poor K.

Its harder to cut paper. He is so meticulous.

You can see the priceless look of accomplishment on his face upon cutting a straight line at 12:13.

I want to congratulate him so I make a sound and he looks at me and we share his success with smiles and nods.

So we have recovered thankfully from the little confusions.

Some important observations after watching entire video:

1) HOW much it helps to watch and analyse yourself.
2) I see that I trust him so much more and he is competent. There is no need to always control everything with words, constantly giving him your perspective or narrating for him. Respecting another's ability and Trust are two important aspects of any relationship.
3) How on a daily basis in thousands of moments there are millions of communication breakdowns, when kids don't know the context, what we mean, what we want, what we expect. Typical kids are very very resilient and of course they are not autistic so they are better readers of context and intentions etc.
 They can filter your blah blah and noise and they can handle the millions of mistakes you make as an adult. BUT with autistic kids it becomes a HUGE issue to slow down, to be more mindful of your BODY, your EYES, your speed of movement, your proximity, your words and your assumptions.


Why limit setting is important to do consistently:

K and I have been to the dark side and back many times. Relationships are about limit setting, and I think that's the hardest part of working with him.

Also consistency in limit setting is essential. When therapist comes in she knows she only has so much time and she wants things to go well and wants to teach K and can sometimes compromise on behavior for the sake of making him happy or being productive. Unfortunately sometimes you have to go to the dark side and come back to solidify those limits.

Whether its dragging K out of mcdonalds kicking and screaming, or making him walk for miles because he wouldn't sit properly with me in the subway, or dragging him out of a playground knowing his ticket will go to waste and we will be miserable. You just have to do those things to get the good moments where he trusts your limits, he understands your body language etc - and I don't think a person can effectively teach him unless they have a solid relationship with him in place because reinforcers only go so far with a kid.

As his parents we have a looooooooooong way to go and he keeps changing!