Pursuit of Perfection!

The last two weeks felt unusual for most of Aditya's friends.

For the last two weeks Aditya has been mostly drawing and coloring with the help of his friends. He has mostly been refusing to play any other games.

While coloring and drawing, he
1) was rigid (e.g. he had to draw a perfect square on a sheet of paper with not a single crease)
2) was controlling (if he wanted us to erase and fix something he wanted it quick!)
3) was frustrated with small mistakes like he or his friend drawing an "oval" shaped face rather than a "circle" face, after which he would crumple and throw away the paper (we joined by making a ball of our paper and throwing it away with force)
4) sometimes cried about how he did not like mistakes and how we should not make them again
5) would sometimes ask "are mistakes ok?" This last question offered expansion opportunities. On one such occasion I said "mistakes are fine" in response to which he said "is stealing stuff bad?" to which I said "it's fine if you are stealing from a bully". This led to a 10 minute chat about a bully in my middle school and how I stole his candy and returned it to him the next day and spoke to him about how it felt to him, to teach him a lesson. Not sure if this was in accordance with Son Rise principles... but I just followed my gut feelings, and it worked surprisingly well as in the end Aditya was laughing about how we taught the bully a lesson.

This phase of "perfection or frustration", lasted for almost two weeks.

In the last 2 days, though, we are seeing a different Aditya.

Especially yesterday!

Yesterday was special, we think, as Aditya displayed greater than usual composure in face of unexpected changes ("randomization" during song selection on the music player inside the car).

The other remarkable thing he did yesterday, was coloring a computer-printed picture (NOT a picture he had himself drawn), while making sure the colors stayed inside the boundaries... another thing he has rarely done before!

It may not be obvious, but coloring a picture drawn by somebody else suggests he was not looking for control. This reduced need to control became even more apparent when he tried to keep the colors within the boundaries of the things he was coloring (which again, were boundaries set by someone else, not him).

I gave you a gift!

The title of this post is something Aditya says to his friends, usually when they come back for their next session with him.

Here is an assortment of gifts he has given us in the last few weeks!

1. An Airplane
2. A Baby
3. A blood pressure monitor (for his grandparents!)
4. A book with a story about our family

Enjoy!

Lots of paper!

Aditya is now using lots and lots of white paper every day.

And we have waited for a long time to see this day!

Makes no sense, right?

Until, of course, I put those 2 things together in a context.

And that "putting together" of two details and drawing a conclusion is exactly the skill that we "neuro-typical" folks take for granted. It is the "executive" function that an autistic brain seems to lack.

That's why when I took him to a Safeway store months ago, he wanted to go to the water bottling machine and push buttons on it, then walk out, without regard for the "higher order" function of buying milk and bread and vegetables and then go home and give them to Mommy!

But in the last few days, Aditya has showed signs he may have begun looking at things a little differently, and be able to see a "big picture".

For a long time now Aditya has been drawing or asking us to draw a scene at the restaurant complete with tables and chairs, food on the table, cups and plates, forks and spoons, etc. He has also been drawing or asking that we draw cars, jeeps, airplanes, etc. But he has been drawing them as different things, with no interest in having a relationship between those things.

At the beginning of our Son Rise program, I did try suggesting to him maybe we could put those things together and make up a story. No way! It was too soon, and we had to go back to the basics and join, join, and I repeat, join. Once in a while there would be expansions, such as we put different kinds of food in the plates, or we drew people in the chairs at the restaurant.

Then, over the last weekend, I said to him again: THOSE PEOPLE AT THE RESTAURANT CAME THERE IN THAT JEEP.

And he took that expansion! Hurray!!!

And not only that, he then took the idea a step further and drew and asked me to draw more pictures: a picture of the same people (those people were our family, actually:-)) going to Toys R Us, then a picture of the boy and the dad buying a toy vacuum cleaner, then the picture of the boy and the dad going to the "triangle" restroom, then the girl and the mom going to the "circle" restroom (at the same time, by the way), and then a picture of the family going home.

He has since been making stories with almost all of his friends in the playroom. So now you know... why I am so happy he is using up paper like never before.