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.

Of Letters and Numbers

"Hey mom, is A a odd letter or even?", Aditya asked me one day at lunch. I was stunned. "Well .. I am not sure. You could say it is even."
"Are boys even and girls odd?" I was too dumbfounded to answer this one! He just shook his head and walked away, like he was pitying me. I couldn't really figure out what was going on in his head.

A couple of days later, at dinnertime, he asked,"Hey, are vowels odd numbered letters?" It set the whole family counting letters on their fingertips:) And the verdict: Yes, indeed! All vowels are odd numbered. He, obviously, knew that "U" is the 21st letter of the alphabet!

Throwing "smartly"

We had a Son Rise moment this week when our interactions led me to invite Aditya to play the "tear gas"/ "laughing gas" game with me in the playroom. (Before you read on, Aditya has shown limited interest in any interactive "ball" games until now. Secondly he has had some challenges in throwing the ball. )

In this game, he would throw a baseball at me. The ball is supposed to contain either laughing gas or tear gas- he gets to decide which gas.

Every time it hit me, I would start laughing hysterically and say whatever I was saying in the same hysterical tone. Next time it hit me I would start crying and say whatever I was saying as if I was inconsolably sad. Of course, Aditya could change that sequence and throw the same type of gas on me any number of times in a row.

Not only did he thoroughly enjoy the game... he also ended up, for the first time, throwing the ball straight into my hands after throwing it at or close to me a number of times. I celebrated that whole heartedly and called him a smart boy.

He followed by throwing the ball more, every time causing my state to change from laughing to crying and vice-versa. Then he said "I want to throw the ball smartly" and asked me to make my hands into a cup in anticipation of the ball that he would throw in my hands!

Thank you Aditya! I am growing more and more certain that one day the two of us will play baseball (or cricket:-) like any Dad and Son, and that you will beat me at it!

"Guess what do I want?"

Aditya gifted us today with another beautiful moment! During dinner tonight Aditya suddenly began to look intently and mischievously at the bowl of home made yogurt (all of us in the family are NUTS about home made yogurt aka DAHI).

I was quite honestly surprised at this move and smiled back whole heartedly.

"Guess what do I want" came the reply.

I happily obliged and answered him, and in fact told him he was getting two scoops instead of one for conveying what he wants with his "Eye Power". (Eye Power is his way of helping his tired friends pull off feats like reaching out to the topmost shelf to get him a toy.) He smiled back and gave me lots of beautiful eye contact!

Aditya continued to play the game with Mom and (after a few weeks of a hiatus) raised his eye brows as well in the process.

Way to go!

My heart is filled with lots of love at this moment! Thanks Aditya for this lovely experience!

His First Joke!

This week, Aditya has been very playful and constantly twisting words, and more importantly, allowing us to twist words in unexpected ways, such as the "One Boy Many BAY One Juice Many JEES" game described in the last post.

This week, Aditya took another important step. Well, first he took a few more steps by learning to count 1 to 20 in Spanish (maybe this is 1 to 80 actually, I am just not sure at this time) and count 1 to 10 in French and Sanskrit!

Then one morning in the playroom... Aditya said, "I want to speak a new language. I want to speak Moon-skrit". I burst into a genuine and hearty laugh the way I would with any other friend. A PRICELESS moment!

By the way, he continued to demand eye contact from Mom. PRICELESS, too!

Long time, lots of news!

Blogging after a really long gap.
A lot has been happening.

1. Aditya's Son Rise program now consistently going at 15-20 hours per week
2. Aditya's Aaji-Ajoba (grandparents) are here. Love and acceptance are built in when God makes grandparents:-)
On a serious note, grandpa did some training with me over the last few days and has begun Son-Rising with Aditya whenever he is outside of the playroom
3. Aditya's Mom did her Startup training this week at the Option Institute in Sheffield, MA. Through this week Aditya questioned whether his Mom would really come back, and on answering YES he would question if Mom would come back or some other woman. (Wow! This guy's really showing signs he will become a detective agent!) However once he met her at the airport he did not want to leave her! He said "I love you" at least a couple of times, and on another occasion said: "Look at me Mom". That's right. Aditya asked for eye contact. Oh, and he also loved the harmonica (mouth organ) that Mom got for him from the Option Institute.
4. Being a Stay-at-Home Dad (while Mom was away) was fun and at the same time a realization of the challenges my wonderful wife has every day! Nevertheless, I enjoyed every minute I spent with the twins and in doing the chores. I also spent 6 sweet hours in the playroom with Aditya.
5. Based on feedback received by Mom at the startup, for the last 3 days of this week we tried to give Aditya 4 to 6 hours at a stretch in the play room rather than a couple of hours here and there. (You must boil eggs for 10 minutes at a stretch, you cannot really do it for 5 minutes now and 5 minutes later.) I believe this is already working well. As a side effect (no complaints by the way:-) Aditya eats voraciously after and between these sessions, instead of mostly talking and hardly eating which he did when he was doing Son Rise "once in a while".
6. One of the most significant accomplishments in terms of flexibility: this week Aditya and I played a game where initially he said things like "One man many men, one woman many women, one cup many cups". I joined him, and so it became the usual Son Rise conversation.
A little later, he started twisting words e.g. "One boy many BAY, one toy many TAY". I joined enthusiastically by saying things like "one box many BAKES and one water many WOOTER". (Yeah right, grammar goes out the window. At this stage for him learning flexibility is INFINITELY more important than learning grammar.) I was pleasantly surprised to see that he thoroughly enjoyed my expansions, laughed hysterically, and went on to twist more words e.g. "One dog many DEG". He has lately started allowing us to say jokes but mostly jokes that he already knows about, as he would get upset in the end of a new joke. (Why? Because a joke usually ends with a mild shock when something unexpected happens, but when you have autism you HATE anything unexpected.) On that background we are excited to note that he now not only allows but even enjoys my twisting words the way I want, mostly in unexpected ways!
7. We wished our wonderful volunteer Krishna a Happy Birthday! Aditya spoke to him in a way much more typical than he does usually with him. No kidding, Krishna actually mistook him for his twin sister in the beginning of that call.
8. Son Rise teachers advised us that Aditya's repetitive questioning is an ISM but the WHY that usually follows is a green light. This is great, because this gives us lots of opportunities to expand. We will be working on this enthusiastically!
9. By the way after receiving Mom at the airport today we went to a restaurant to eat. As is customary, the kids received pictures and crayons to color while waiting for food.
A year ago... Aditya would not TOUCH his crayons and paper, and he would not care if we threw them away in trash. Then about six months ago when we first used the Son Rise approach with him in the restaurant situation, he enthusiastically drew a vacuum cleaner on the picture book that had a picture of a boy and a girl on it. And today, the first thing he did with the crayons was say "this girl has blonde hair" and colored the girl's hair in yellow. Also, in the end he asked to take home his picture book and crayons.
10. There is a mirror now in the playroom, and team members are reporting this has made eye contact easier. We also fixed the shelves that had come down. Actually I had used the wrong anchors. (Son Rise has motivated me to learn some new skills here... I am not a guy who loves DIY:-)

In conclusion, we have had three or so very happening and very satisfying weeks in terms of Aditya's progress.