The Journey: Part II

So I had quit my job and told my husband that we would have to make it work financially, because I needed to be at home to help our oldest son, who had just received a diagnosis of mild autism. I tackled one symptom at a time.  My first goal: helping him learn how to talk.

Boonie was just 2 1/2 years old when we went to our first appointment with the speech therapist.  At first he was frightened and clung to legs, crying.  I felt a little embarrassed every where we encountered people--the supermarket or the park--because he did not stop to look, speak or respond to anyone who might say hi to him. I would smiled and say something like: "You know boys."  The truth is, I didn't know why he seemed to be zoned out, uninterested.

But as I checked in with the office secretary, one of the therapists slowly crawled on the floor up to him pushing a small truck.  Then she stopped a foot short of him and pushed the truck gently towards him.  Then she backed away quickly playing shy.  A game somehow materialized out of this wanting to share the truck but playing shy with him and he relaxed, tuned into her and the car. I felt a sense of relief, like I could take a rest from an inexplicable burden I had been carrying and let these wonderful people lighten the load and teach me how to better carry it. I felt like I had come to a designated check-in point appointed for my journey as a mother to Boonie.  We were in the right place.

I didn't know what to expect in a speech session, but it turned out to be a magical place.  I remember at one of Boonie's first sessions, the therapist had a large bead and wire toy.  You know those toys that look like someone took an abacus and curled and twisted all of the wires so that a child can push the beads up and down along the curls of the wire.  So she would push six of those bead up the wire, saying: "Up, up, up, up, up, up, up," until the beads reached the top and then she would wait.  Let silence surround us on the floor, building suspense.  Then: "Down!" she'd say and let all the beads go crashing down.  She did this a few times sitting on the floor with Boonie and really dramatizing the ups and downs until he would wait in great anticipation for those beads to crash.  After several repeats of this she changed it slightly and here's where the magic happened.  She up, up, upped the beads and waited...and silence.  Then in the silence, a little utterance popped out of my little boy's lips  "Dow-!" and she released the beads and to his delight, they all came crashing down.  He laughed and laughed and then she asked: "More?" while simultaneously signing "more" and he signed more and she did it again.   This was the first time he had tried to say "down."  The first time.  He had two other word-sounds at that time: Ba (ball) and Ma (mom).  These therapists were miracle workers for us. 

We went to speech twice a week.  The therapist engaging Boonie the entire session and through play, eliciting intelligible noises.  Words.  Response.  And then I would drive him home and do everything I saw the therapist doing with him on our floor at home.  Having this direction to go in with Boonie and the new tools thrilled me and showed me what I needed to do.  Knowing what he needed me to do to help facilitate his development gave me hope and I began to feel comfortable in my new identity as a mother..

Part of not being able to talk, however, means tantrums.   He had no other means of expressing "NO!" that two-year-olds are infamous for and also, children with sensory processing problems, you can't always tell what the tantrum trigger is.  It wasn't long, before the therapist took us into a different room for our session one day--a small and plain room.  A boring room.  A little-bit-dinge room. He began to scream and pound the wall.  I did not know what to do with him under the circumstances.  The therapist told me that we were not going to let him get away with that and then she taught me a tool I will never forget and that I have used with all of my children.  She said: "Hug him snugly from behind and face a blank wall.  Count to ten, or if you need to, to fifteen or twenty.  Then ask him, 'Are you ready to try again.'  Looking at that wall is going to be boring and he will not want to keep looking at it.  Holding him in an embrace gives him some sensory input (firm touch) that will make him feel safe.  But you have to be consistent.  Even if you are at the supermarket, you cannot be embarrassed, you have to take him out of the cart and find a blank wall and count.  If he cries after you've counted, start counting again until he's ready."

I took her advise.  It was the only sound advice I had received on tantrums and you know what, it worked.  It took only two or three times in the store in conjunction with using the wall technique consistently at home, until he figured out that tantruming was going to lead him to a blank, boring wall.  I realized when small children, or any of us for that matter, are unable to cope with the circumstances and resort to a tantrum of some kind, giving them a firm, consistent safe boundary calms them and helps them learn how to cope with uncomfortable moments in life in a rational way.  You have trained them that tantruming is not an option. 

To be cont'd...