Inky Pinky

For a child with autism, it is considered a challenge to be able to think spontaneously... as opposed to literally. For example, in a game of "Knock knock... who is it?" a typical child has fun coming up with new answers for "who is it", and then anticipating the other player do something similar yet unexpected. For a child with autism, the "unexpected" `next move by the other player can be a stressor, and the child himself would rather repeat the same thing over and over again as an answer to "who is it?"

Spontaneity is also one of the 3 important goals we currently have for Aditya in his Son Rise program.

Over the last few days, we have witnessed Aditya's spontaneity improve by leaps and bounds. The highlight of this came on the weekend, when we were all in our car, with Daddy driving and his favorite Bollywood music all set to play in the music player. (By the way, this is our smaller car, and there is no way to play Aditya's favorite CDs here. It plays only tapes.)

"Can I listen to some music?" says Aditya.
"No... please no music" says sister.
"Let's do Inky Pinky Ponky" comes the reply from our son, who is supposed to have autism, and not supposed to like the unpredictability associated with "Inky Pinky..."

We, of course, are very glad, and let the two figure out the outcome, which is to play the music.

A few minutes later, looking out the window (it's dark already)..
"It is 5:30 in the night"
"It is regular..... (waits..then..) it is NORMALLY 5:30 in the evening, but it's 5:30 in the night today."

And then a little later... out of nowhere....
"IF I START A FAMILY THEN WILL YOU GUYS COME VISIT ME?"

Of course... we were thrilled to hear something like this, and celebrated the question, and replied positively and enthusiastically.

By the way... about a month ago, he had said the following:
"I am always going to stay with Mom and Dad. Sister and her family can rent the house next door."