DS1 surprised me again today! -Positive pointing/typing story

[getbackinyouryurtjimjams]

DS1 is obsessed with a pair of binoculars at the moment - he spends a lot of time looking out of his window with them. We live half way up a hill so there's quite a lot to see.

Today he was looking out of them when the school bus arrived. I called him and he came complaining slightly but he got on the bus happily enough and waved goodbye as usual.

An hour later I had a phone call from school. DS1 was distraught, crying, headbutting, lying on a cushion at school curled into a ball and cuddling a teddy. They couldn't do anything with him, he just wanted to be cuddled all the time. Although he'd occasionally lash out or headbut a wall. I was about 20 miles away with ds3 at the time. So I came home. Called school, no change.

I went into school armed with some paper, a pencil and the binoculars. I found ds1 as described sobbing on a cushion. I sat down with him and asked him whether he was poorly or sad, writing POORLY and SAD on a piece of paper. He went straight to sad without hesitation. So I did a bit more exploring but it just seemed to be sad. Nothing hurt etc. So I brought out the binoculars. He grabbed them, instantly stopped crying, smiled, got up and wandered off to the window to use them.

I told him he could have them for 10 minutes then it was snack time and I would take them home with me. He gave them up easily at snack time.

In the past I would have had to have taken him home as I wouldn't have known for sure that he wasn't ill. Today just being able to indicate SAD made such a difference.

I had a chat with his teacher as well- she is so positive about the whole typing thing and so open to the idea that there are hidden depths to these kids.

I didn't even know he knew what 'sad' meant. (I knew he knew poorly, and if you write the wrong thing down he just ignores it). After giving him the binoculars I asked if he was HAPPY or SAD. Straight to happy.

Must be so utterly frustrating for him to be unable to speak at all. He has all this stuff inside him and no way to express it.

Cyber - we're trying to teach DS2 to count atm with little success - I might try your DS's way.
Thomas, Thomas, Thomas - now i can see that might work

oh LTH- meant to say about the fence climbing. No not solved at all- we've decided that whatever we do the only really safe way is 100% supervision so that's the approach we're taking.

He's added trying to climb onto our first floor balcony onto the repertoire. He shunts a storage chest along the wall, then climbs onto a ledge then shuffles along until he's near a drainpipe which he then tries to climb But he's climbing just as much (and just as dangerously) inside. So it's no win really.

misdee - I;ve followed the link. VOCA's can be really helpful for children with no speech but their use is less predictable in children with ASD's. I've really thought hard about trying to get one for ds1- there's even a charity that funds local children for just this, but I'm not sure how useful it would be for ds1. Children with ASD can tend to get stuck pushing the same button over and over again (something that I think ds1 is very likely to do tbh).

I may at some stage try ds1 with something small and beginner like (and cheap) just to see if it's going to be useful, then if it is try for funding. (Although I'd always worry about him breaking it as well! )