That blank look

I have just read an interesting article called 'How to stop confusing your Aspergers child'.  It made me think back to the time when my daughter was diagnosed with selective mutism at the age of three.  Selective mutism, put simply, is when you want to speak but no words come out, but mostly in only certain situations.  My daughter spoke fine at home, but at preschool did not say a word.  While it is still quite possible she did have selective mutism, the fact that she has now been diagnosed with Aspergers, and that her first word at preschool was 'purple', I am starting to wonder.

Let me explain.  My daughter is the queen of the 'blank look', quite often accompanied by a tilt of the head that we refer to as her 'sideways look'.  When we had our first meeting with the consultant at the child development unit, she asked us if we had noticed that my daughter had no trouble answering questions such as "what is your name?"  or "what school do you go too?"  but when she asked "do you like school?" there it was, the blank look.  That is because the first two questions have a definite answer, there is only one response, whereas the third question was an open one.  Now you may think it was just a yes or no question, but that already gives you two choices.  Plus I can guarantee that my daughter wanted to give the right answer and didn't know what that was.

Looking back at preschool I now realise that she said the word 'purple' because she was asked the simple question "what colour is that", which had one correct answer.

So I thought I would give my own tips on the best way to speak to a child with Aspergers.

1.  If possible, when asking a question phrase it in a way where there will not be too many possible answers.       For example, "where did you go on holiday?" is much better than "did you enjoy your holiday?"

2.  It is very common for children with Aspergers to take things very literally, so again the phrasing of a question is very important.  For example, I used to ask my daughter to go and put her clothes on in the morning, and she would come down with her clothes on top of her pyjamas, having done exactly what I had asked her to.  Now at the age of six I don't need to say "can you please go and take your pyjamas off and put your clothes on"  but it is a good example of when I first realised I have to be careful what I say.

3.  Sayings and phrases can be very confusing to a child with Aspergers.  I remember telling my daughter she had a bee in her bonnet, and after waving her hands around her head to get rid of the bee, she stopped and said "silly mummy, I don't have a bonnet on!"  If sayings are explained to her she will remember what it actually means for next time, but I challenge you to start counting how many times a day you say something you dont literally mean, it will amaze you!

4.  Sarcasm, irony, jokes.  Just no.

5.  If they haven't understood first time, don't use more words or more facial expressions or hand gestures.  That just will not work.  Try to simplify instead.

6.  And finally, we are all obsessed with talking about our feelings.  But "how do you feel" is possibly the very worst question to ask.  I cannot speak for all children with Aspergers, but I know my daughter simply doesn't understand her feeling at all, so does not have the foggiest how to answer this question!  Don't get me wrong, she does have feelings, they just don't always make sense to her.

These are all only my personal observations and I am still learning. I'm sure other parents with children who have Aspergers could add reams to this list.

Thank you for reading.

What it is like

Imagine you are in a restaurant with a group of friends.  You are shown to your table and the waiter hands you the menu and takes your drink order. A little while later he is back to ask what food you would like, and later still your starter arrives.  There is pleasant music playing in the background and the company, food and conversation is good.  For me, this would be an ideal evening out.

Or . . .

Same restaurant, same friends, same food same music.
You walk in and there are a hundred strange faces, all talking at once and you can hear every word.  The lights are too bright and someone is too close to you, invading your space, taking your coat.  Your coat.  Is he stealing it?  Why is no one else bothered?  You cant ask any of your friends because of the music it is so loud.  And all the people in the restaurant are talking and talking . . .

You are told where to sit and you wanted to choose.  Then you are given a menu but expected to know what you want to drink before you have a proper chance to look at it.  How does everyone else know what they want already?  And how can they even concentrate on the menu with so much noise?  And  that woman over there has a sparkly dress on and ooh look at his tie . . .

You stare blankly at the waiter so you don't end up with a drink.  All your friends are chatting away so you do what you can to concentrate on the menu so you at least get something to eat, until one of your friends mentions to you that the man on the next table is staring at you tapping your fingers in a 'unique' way.

There is too much choice how does anybody choose?  You notice with relief that the dishes are numbered, so you add together all the numbers in your date of birth (19) and have number 19.

The waiter comes back and before he has a chance to speak you shout 19! You are pleased that in spite of everything you will be fed this evening!  The waiter gives you an odd look but you don't notice because you are so pleased that some food will be coming and that bit is over so you are off in your own world . . .

But the food comes and it is all mixed together and the plate is the wrong colour so you don't eat it.  You would have pudding but to go through all the choosing again is too much and there is too much noise, too much to see.

You never go to a restaurant.


My six year old daughter has Asperger's syndrome and this is how she feels.  How she would feel without someone with her who understands.

So please, please anyone who comes into contact with her at school remember this restaurant scenario.  Imagine how she feels in a classroom of 30 children, all talking, all moving constantly.  The walls are full of posters and bright colours and every resource is available when ever you want it.  She hears and sees everything all at once and it is too much and the only way to block it out is to see and hear nothing.

Thank you for reading.

Success at the flower show!

Today was the annual Billingshurst Flower Show where for a mere 20p (!) people can showcase their very best fruit and veggies and flowers, and also handicrafts.  I entered three catagories this year, article of cross stitch, article of hand knitting (not double ply) and article of double ply hand knitting.  These are my entries:

It isnt clear from the pics but my cross stitch won third prize (bit annoyed actually considering first wasnt great.  Second had a lot of work on it though so deserved winner), and my Mo won second!  I was surprised about that actually but had a very nice comment 'So wanted to give this gold but technical detail in other exhibit had the edge!  Well done for originality!' I thought it would be way too simple to win anything so very chuffed.  My hat didnt win a prize, but I made it for mum who likes it so there we go.  It was a great pattern to knit too I really enjoyed it so that's the main thing.

Mo Farah is now being loved by the girlies, and is a nice reminder of this year's Olympics which we have enjoyed immensely.  I would chat some more but I am SO HOT and just can't anymore.  Thanks for looking :)

New WIP and hurty knee

I decided to knit my mum a little shawlette type thingy for her birthday (27th August).  I chose a free pattern on ravelry and ordered the yarn.  Now to start with this was a bit tricky as my mum is allergic to wool and so I needed to use 100% cotton.  So anyway I found a pattern, ordered the cotton and the needles and the next day the package came through the post :

I was excited to try the needles, as I am used to knitting small things and so I have never attempted anything on circular needles before.  However, I had been searching through so many patterns, I accidently ordered the 4ply instead of the DK.  Oh.  So I was back on ravelry again looking for a pattern for 4ply.  I found one eventually called Lunatis Folium which I had to pay for, but it was only a couple of pounds so that's ok.

So I downloaded the pattern, pressed print and . . . my printer is not working.  So I wrote out the pattern.  By hand.  A lace pattern with 387 stitches.  Which DD2 then screwed up for me.  Aaargh!

Armed with a smoothed out pattern and my new needles I began the labourious task of casting on all 387 stitches.  I began row 1, and halfway down the row the cotton snapped (to be fair I pulled it far too hard doing a k2tog so it's my own fault).  

Attempt number two - DD1 starts chatting to me while I am trying to count, so I fail miserably.  Then I cant get the stitches off the needle.  I am starting to think The Big Man In The Sky does not want me to be knitting this.  

Attempt number three - hurrah!  We are off!

Now clearly I was not supposed to be doing well as I was punished by bashing my knee into the door frame, which hurt very very very much and still hurts this morning.  On the plus side, it meant all I could do last night was sit watching the Olympics (go Tom!) with my leg up, and knit.  So much progress is being made.  Fingers crossed it will be finished by the 27th!

Friendship

I have something to say tonight to all of my friends, people I have recently met and people I have known for a long time.  I really value each and every one of you and the positive contribution you make to my life.  I am not perfect, I can talk too much and get excited about things no one else really cares about,  I can talk a whole load of rubbish, I can say things I dont mean.  But I can admit when I am wrong, I am honest and kind and caring and will always be there if you need me.

'Where there is no guidance a person falls, but in an abundance of counsellors there is safety' Proverbs 11:14

Crafting with the girlies: Wool pictures

I was thinking of an activity to do with the girls this morning when part of my wool stash fell on me.  Yes literally fell on me.  I have far too much just random cheap stuff which is great when I am just messing about or knitting toys - not so good for all the lovely projects that granted only exist in my head . . .


So anyway I decided to let the girlies loose on some of it with some scissors and glue to make wooly pictures.  We had at least 10 minutes of silent concentration!  DD2 got a bit silly in the end and did her usual thing of rolling and folding her picture, but hey ho whatever makes her happy!  Here are my girlies having their wooly fun:

When I woke up this morning . . .

. . . we had landed on Mars!  Not me of course, but Curiosity, NASA's Mars rover that set off in November.  It will be there for nearly two years looking for signs of life.  Unfortunately the chances of little green men are slim.  But evidence of microbial life, or specifically the conditions favourable for it, well now they just might find that.  Plus they have a "LASER" (Austin Powers anyone?)  This laser will be checking rock composition.  Sorry have I just made that sound boring now?  Have a look at this instead:

This is the shadow of Curiosity on Mars.  Proof we are actually there!  The early images are all going to be low resolution like this, but later on in the week they will start to take larger colour images.  Exciting!