whoa, boy, what a day!

[Robin Hurd]

--just when we think our kids can give up spome of the supports we use, we have a reality check!   Today, the twins were sheduled to take part in a luncheon honoring their favorite therapist.  We were invited and opted to pull them out of school to have them attend. Their grandparents attended, as well.   So we were trying to explain it this morning.  In the past, we have often made a picture schedule to give them a visual when their schedule changes.  --didn't do it today:(   CAleb understood the verbal order of events just fine: he was to go to school and then be picked up at lunchtime to eat with mom and grandparents at the "party".   But Josh came unhinged!   His translation of what he was told was that he was going to eat lunch with his grandparents, which meant that it must be the weekend and why were we trying to get him ready for school!!!  in addition, the part about mom eating with him and the grandparents didn't make sense.  When he eats lunch with grandma and grandpa on the weekend, parents aren't invited, and he likes it that way.   The poor kid was put on the "blue bus" (mini van sped transportation) so upset that he had to be held down while we snapped the seatbelt.  :(  He arrived at school red eyed but calm, and had processed the sequence of events by the time we picked him up to go to the event, but what a tough morning!   Trust me, next time we have a major schedule change, I'll be on the computer the night before making up a picture schedule for him!    I also plan to target the words "instead of" with the boys.  "we are doing this instead of that".  I don't think either of them understand what "instead of" means.  They certainly don't say it on their devices.   Part of the boys' struggle with understanding schedule changes is due to simply not having the words in their heads yet that they can use to organize the new information.  We dont' just use language to talk to other people.  We also use it to organize information in our minds and make sense of new information.    I'm not exactly sure how we'll target "instead of" yet, but I'll keep you posted what we do and how it works.   Robin

[Gull-Britt Orsén]

Well, Robin, it doesn't always work with pictures either.

 

I remember when we were heading home from our holiday some years ago. I was really prepared with all the pictures I could think of. "First we are going by bus from the hotel to the airport. Then we are going on an airplane. After that the cab will bring us home". Sebastian was fine with that until we came to the airport. The plane was not parked at a gate, but out far away so that we had to take a transfer bus. And Sebastian freaked out because on his schedule it said "airplane" not "bus". It was not until he saw the airplane he realised we were going to fly home, not take the bus (which was impossible since we were on an island, LOL). At that time I was happy that he was only 10 years old, otherwise I assume that they had not let us on the plane, because he was really upset.

 

Best regards, Gull-Britt