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.