POOCH Way to Problem Solving for ASDs

Meeting 9
19 February 2015

Lauren has had a pretty good few weeks at school. There were some flare ups, for sure! So today we learnt a new method from Dr Johann, which Lauren and us are going to try out for the next two weeks.

POOCH!

STEP 1: P-roblem

Identify what the problem is.

Some kids at school think it is funny to knock Lauren’s food container over, a couple of times a week. It drives her mad.

STEP 2: O-ptions

What can Lauren do about it? What are her options? Maybe

she could shout at them! 

she could tell them to “STOP IT”. And go right to a teacher if they don’t stop their silly behaviour.

she can choose to sit with her girlfriends during lunch breaks and get them to help look after her things, if she needs to leave for the washroom

STEP 3: O-utcome

Evaluate each option, rank 1 (bad idea) to 10 (great idea) and review the outcome.

Option 1: Shout at the kids!

Rank 1. Bad idea. Losing my temper and shouting at the boys might be just what they want. Besides, I cannot think smart when I am not calm. In fact, I say dumb things when I get ANGRY and LOSE MY TEMPER.

Fyi: the frontal lobe of our brain is where we rationalize and think through issues and problems. The back of our brain controls our impulsive behaviours. Lauren is trying to learn to use less of this part, and more of her frontal lobe. POOCH is one method to get her to exercise her reasoning and problem solutions using her frontal lobe.

Option 2: Tell the kids to STOP IT and go to person of authority for more help, if they don’t stop.

Rank 7. Pretty good idea. I can show the kids I am assertive and I mean what I say. The teacher can also help to discipline those naughty kids.  But I feel a little nervous having to face up to the boys myself.

Option 3: Sit with her girlfriends during lunch breaks and get their help if she needs it.

Rank 10. Good idea. Sitting together with my friends will make me less a target for teasing and my girlfriends can also help me.

STEP 4: C-hoose

Lauren now chooses the option based on the best potential outcome. So, she chooses Option 3.

STEP 5: H-ow did it go?

Lauren reviews the results of her decision, based on the outcome. Did the boys stop pushing her food container over? If yes, then she has met with SUCCESS! If this does not stop the kids from teasing her, then she goes back to review her options and choose another option or come up with new ones; and goes through steps 3,4 and 5 again, until she gets to successfully resolve the problem.

Have you tried this method before? Or do you have other approaches which has helped your ASD teenager?

Of Playdates and Big Fears

January 22, 2015

It is almost the end of Lauren and Luke’s summer holidays in Australia. They tell me they are enjoying their holidays. Lauren had her first playdate (ever!) last week – yes! We managed to arrange one! January 15.

A lovely friend from her old class, 5J, with a wonderfully understanding mother. Thanks Erica!

So, Brooke came over to watch the new Disney movie called “Big Hero 6”. Of course Lauren had already had a preview of the movie and had to be reminded many times to not let the cat/s out of the bag, and narrate Brooke through the whole movie.

Anyways, the date was a decent success. Brooke and Lauren ended up watching two movies, since their conversation time ended in about 5 minutes after the first movie. They had nachos and pizza and then we said "see you at school"!

Meeting 7 with Dr Johann

Lauren’s latest visit to Dr Johann had her working on the table below.

The purpose of this exercise: How to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts.

This came about because Lauren has a big (gigantous) fear and dislike of water. She thinks she will drown in the pool. She tells us it is dirty. She hates the feeling of being splashed even with sprinkles of water. So she shuns swimming as much as possible.

Kevin and I, on the other hand are trying to get Lauren to understand that she must learn to swim, because it is a life-saving skill. She does not need to love it, but she should try to live with it.

So, for many years, we have been trying to get Lauren to swim – with and without her swimming cap, with and without her float. One time, she tried swimming without the float, and she felt herself sinking. That freaked her out even more!

And then there is the vomiting after the swimming. Intense emotions of triumph that she has managed to swim without her cap and float, coupled with even more intense anxiety…results in Lauren rushing to the toilet to vomit after her swims.

But she has agreed she will continue trying. She is a real trooper. Such resilience. And I must remind myself to continue to encourage her and be more patient.

So, our task the next two weeks is to identify negative thoughts eg.

I might drown if I swim at the deep end without my float.

My book will be destroyed if my friend touches it.

The movie I am watching will be gone if my brother uses the laptop

We discuss with Lauren the process that leads her to positive thoughts like

“You can practise swimming without your float at the shallow end first, so you know you won’t sink without the float.”

“Think about how you can operate the laptop and find the spot where you last stopped at the movie.”

This exercise hopefully helps Lauren (and all of us who are more pessimistic in nature) to build new pathways in her brain. From default negative thoughts to thought-out positive thinking.

Pray for us. Thanks.

No In-Betweens

Meeting 6 with Dr Johann

January 8, 2015

The ASD brain is an on-off switch when it comes to emotions. I am either happy or sad. I am either very angry or not angry at all. 

There are no in-betweens.

So how do we get them to try and recognize the “I am going to get angry” feeling?

Using a feelings temperature check and defining the different tangible changes their body feels can be one way. For example, heart beats faster. They start sweating. Fists start clenching.

Once they start recognizing these signs, then they can use strategies to calm down. 

Strategies that help them move their behaviour from primal instinct (fight or flight) to rational thought and rational behaviour.

Two strategies for Lauren, to help her calm down:

1. Count 1-100…backwards in multiples of two or four or six

Dr Johann advised that the more she has to use her brain to process something, the faster she can move from her primal instinct of explosive anger. This helps her use more of her pre-frontal cortex.

2. Breathing exercise

Breathe in, hold for 3 seconds. Then breathe out.  Do this until she feels less upset.

And finally, a holiday activity for Lauren: arrange a playdate for her where she can practise some of her social skills. Will let you know how that goes!

Putting the Jigsaw Together

Meeting 5 with Dr Johann

2 December 2014

Lauren's 5th session with Dr Johann had her put together everything she had learnt in the last four weeks:

Step 1: Greetings and introduce herself.

Step 2: Speak within an appropriate time frame. Use three pointers to keep her new friend from falling asleep!

Step 3: Paraphrase. Use this to show her friend that she is listening to her, and also to keep herself tuned in to her. We agreed on a sentence like “….so you like…., that’s cool!” to paraphrase appropriately.

Step 4: Minimal encouragement cues. Nod her head (every 3 seconds), interject conversation with “u-huh, yes, ahh…” to indicate that she is still listening and interested in what her friend is saying. Keep hands unfolded – shows open-ness to listen and maintain eye contain.

Step 5: End conversations with “I have to go now. It was nice talking to you. Let’s talk again later”.

Dr Johann then told Lauren that they would string together all these steps in one conversation. He would talk to her about a really boring topic (eg. surfing!) and she would have to look interested the whole time.

The verdict? Lauren did extremely well. She was able to go through each step, sequentially. Practised all the things she had been taught. Only thing: she was not able to smile throughout the conversation! Lauren’s mind was so busy going through the steps and trying to remember each of them, smiling was completely forgotten:P

How we forget that social conversations are not as natural as breathing for Aspies!

Head in the Hole

28 November 2014

Yesterday, there was a group session for Lauren in her class.
Each student was to make a TRUE and FALSE statement. We aren't sure what the context was in making the sentences but one student (a boy) said, "I make out with my mom!". To which Lauren asks..."How?"...
Her group of friends laughed in response.

And Lauren burst into tears. She told us later she wanted to go to the school oval (school field) to dig a hole and hide her head in there! She was utterly embarrassed that she didn't know what it was and all her friend knew.

Meeting 4 with Dr Johann
Our assignment for this week from Dr Johann.
1. Help Lauren to paraphrase conversation points and end with "that's really cool!".
For example,..."so you like to play tennis and watch movies. That's really cool!".

2. Give compliments
Lauren learns to give compliments (appropriate ones, of course) to help make her friends comfortable and feel good.
For example,..."Hey Lanni, you look really pretty with those new ear-rings".

3. Finish conversations properly.
Lauren tends to leave her conversations hanging. Either her friends have not finished talking or she is done asking and then she just waltzes away!
So now she is to say..."Nice talking to you. See you later. Bye".

Reminders to continue practising:
Use comic strips to visually explain what other people are thinking of a certain behaviour of Lauren's.
Keep rehearsing and practising new social skills
Use tv (since she loves watching TV) as a good reference for appropriate Model Me behaviours
Remind Lauren to greet and give a warm smile, before jumping into a conversation. Say bye without her mini wave.

Update again next week.

Big presentation! And Big Scene!!!

28 November 2014

We had a very busy weekend last week. 

Lauren had to prepare for her school project on natural disasters (she had apparently forgotten to do it and we were informed on thursday, with just friday-sunday for her to research, complete the poster and memorise the talk). We helped a fair bit! Kevin did wonders with the visual poster and Lauren worked hard on how to present her work. Me? I helped to make her sentences simpler and easier to present. And Lauren was so good - she took in our comments, was willing to present so many times just to get her words, her action all right. 

On Monday, she presented her A2 poster and talk about the natural disaster to the whole class. She had to keep the audience interested for her 3-6 mins presentation. She scored an 'A' for it. A great morning for her.

Then came big break. 

A couple of kids were playing handball and Lauren accidentally got hit by a bouncing ball. She exploded. She reacted by shouting that she was going to 'hurt' them (not sure what the actual words were) and threw her book and pen to the ground. Her pen broke as a result, which made things worse. Sally, her Special Education -SEU - teacher heard her from the office and came to get her. Sally calmed her down. And another girl gave her pen - which was similar but not 100% the same - to Lauren to make her feel better. 

How do we help Lauren when she has an explosive outburst?

Can we prevent it?

Lauren felt really bad. We know because she tells us what she should have not done and what she should have done. After talking to Dr Johann about this, we are reminded that we must continue to run the right scenario of actions Lauren should do, practise them, and practise them and practise them until they become a habit. 

We are also reminded that our frontal lobes, which control rational behaviour and reasoning, do not mature until we are about 25 years old! So...we have a long long journey ahead of us.

Twerking

November 20, 2014 Today we found out that Lauren knows how to twerk. She learnt it yesterday and apparently showed all her classmates how twerking is done!

Funny? Yes. Horrified? Yes also. What must her classmates think of her? Well, according to her class teacher, a few of the boys said they felt rather uncomfortable. How did this happen? No one really knows except that Lauren told us one of her friends asked if she knew how to twerk, to which Lauren said, "Huh?"...and her friend proceeded to partially show her the starting stance for a twerk, and then explained the rest of Lauren. Lauren followed the steps to a T and the rest is history!

What is a twerk? Ahh, new word for me too. Wikipedia has it as: a type of dancing in which an individual, usually a female,[1] dances to music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance.

Oh My!, would likely be your expression! Anyways, we shared that with Dr Johann, and he came up with a fantastic way to help Lauren understand why it was not appropriate. See stick drawing below.

The other things we will work on for week 2 of social sessions:

1. Use comic strips to help Lauren understand the POV of other people, esp. her classmates.

2. Turn taking in conversations Lauren is making good progress in this area. We are reminded to praise her when she does good turn taking during conversations to emphasize that she is doing well. 

3. Getting to know her friends Check that Lauren - looks at people when talking to them (especially if they may be talking about things she is less interested in) - smiling at her friends when she meets them (to help put her friends at ease) - says Hello, how are you? when she meets them, as good manners and greetings.

Back again next week.

Social Skills for Lauren

November 13, 2014

We just had our second visit to our new Clinical Psychologist in Birtinya, Queensland. Dr Johann Eloff was introduced to us by Winnie Lau, our Clinical Psychologist who first diagnosed Lauren with Dr Tony Attwood way back in 2007. Lauren is now 12 years old, and fast becoming a teenager. Pimples on the forehead (thanks to my family genes:-)) and wearing trainer bras.

We met Dr Johann for the first time on the 4th of November. Lovely person and very pleasant demeanour. Lauren found him quite handsome and told us she used her high pitched "ha ha ha" laugh. Whatever that means!

We had agreed that we wanted Dr Johann to guide us and the school SEU (Special Education Unit) team and align our efforts in helping Lauren improve her social skills. Learn how to make friends, learn how to keep friends. Learn appropriate friendship behaviours.

Short of sounding like a school teacher, I am going to list down my to-do list, then I can also use this blog as my checklist. Like?

1. 3-things to talk about Being a typical Aspie, Lauren can talk quite endlessly about a topic of her choice, for now it is GLEE and every single thing about GLEE, and bore her audience to ?**%$#!.

So, when Dr Johann met her this week, he gave her two minutes to talk about what she wanted to talk about. When the two minutes was almost up, Lauren got very nervous and said she simply could not finish everything she wanted to talk about on GLEE. And Dr Johann assured her it was alright because she could tell him more next time and it was his turn to talk anyway.

To help Lauren keep to a 2-minute guide, Dr Johann has asked us to use a 3-point guide. Ie. when we talk to Lauren, we specify three things we want to tell her. When we have completed the 3 things, we ask her what she would like to talk about as a signal for her to start sharing, but keep it to three things. Hopefully this becomes a habit and in due time it becomes an internal clock to signal that it is her friend's turn to talk.

We'll let you know how this goes.

2. Getting to know friends All this while, Lauren has said she has friends, but she hasn't a clue what they like, where they stay, what movies they love. Simply because she has never thought of asking. Our second project is to have her get to know 5 friends over the course of one week asking them about their hobbies, fav books, movies, songs. To make it less daunting, we told Lauren that this is something she could do to help Colleen Koh-koh, who is visiting during the Dec/Jan school hols, know her friends. Especially since Koh koh comes during the holidays and will not get to meet any of her friends in person. She started yesterday and interviewed her first friend, Brooke.

3. And in the meantime, I need to call Autism Queensland to check if they have the Model Me videos. These videos can be used one on one to teach kids with Autism social skills.

More on this next time.

Cinderella-Luke!

Luke decides he wants to help me with housework. So, I get Cinderella-Luke to help me wash the bathroom, hang the wash, mop the floor and clean the fans. A bit of keling-a clean, but how can I complain...?

Eyelashes

Thursday night. 855pm.

I am putting Lauren to bed. It has been a good day. Lauren had just recovered from 3 days of fever caused by a throat infection. Her fever was finally down and she had a fun day at home - watching tv, doing some paces (school revisions) and playing with her dolls. After bedtime prayers, she closes her eyes for me to kiss her on her cheek. It is then I notice...her eyelashes look...crooked!

She had cut them!!! I freak out. She freaks out because I am freaked out. After loads of scolding (read: loud voices from an almost hysterical mother) and crying, Lauren promises not to do it, ever again. She worries that she won't look pretty anymore. And she also knows that she could have really hurt her eyes. Her Father and I tell her that they will most likely grow back, but it will take time. Apparently over 3 months. Sigh, Lauren's eyelashes were the prettiest. Long and with curls.

Today (4 days later), I ask her what she was thinking when she decided to cut them? What did she say? I was trying to be Rapunzel. She cut her long hair. But she said, "Don't worry. I shall continue to be strong in my spirit!". Mom, I'll be strong in my spirit, even with my cut eyelashes!".

Fyi, Disney on Ice: Princesses and Heroes comes to town this Saturday, 16 March. She has been
reading up all her princesses for the last week.

Mat Salleh and Ah Pek

One day, Lauren sees me scratching my finger. She says, 'Mom, why are you scratching your epidermis?" Wow, where did you learn that word? 'In Science class. It means your skin'. Nice job, Lauren! So, Mat Salleh!


Next day, I am walking Luke home from Chinese tuition. And he says, 'Mom, you know, you can also call "ciau-ciau" with another word!'. Curious, I ask him, 'OK....what other word can you call it?', not really knowing what to expect. "You can also call it...cock! Yah, you can call it 'cock'! Cool right Mom?'. Cool? I'm not so sure. Ah Pek...for sure.

Thinking outside the box

We were driving home. I asked Lauren about her day. I got the usual reply, "good!". So I started asking more specific questions. I found out it was her sitting partner's birthday today. And that they had cake at recess. Ok...I asked more... And she told me the kids were playing old maid in class. But they didn't ask her to join. I asked her what she did. "I wrote my story mom". You didn't watch them play? "I did!". Huh? I was confused, so I asked "did u watch them play or did u write ur story?"....silence. I could see Lauren thinking her answer. She finally said "I wrote my story AND I watched them play."

If you know Lauren, you will know that she always answer within the given parameters. This is the first time I noticed her answering beyond the given set of choices.

Awesome!

Costume Party questions

I had an office costume party Fridays ago, 21 October 2011. Lauren and Luke got a look at my costume, as an Arabian king, the night before. And they were so excited!

So, when I went to get them from Ah Ma's house after the party, late at about 945pm, the first thing Lauren asked me was.."So, how was your party mom?" It was great, was my answer.

And then the questions continued for the next half hour of our ride home. She asked,
Lauren: So, what did you do there?
Me: We played some games.
Lauren: What kind of games?
Me: Quizzes.
Lauren: Quizzes? What quizzes did you get?
Me: They asked us easy questions like Who was Aladdin's princess? (I made that up).
Lauren: Oh...what else did you play?
Me: Telematch games like fetching sand in spoon.
Lauren: Fetching sand in a spoon...how did you do that?
Me: You carry sand in the spoon with your mouth.
Lauren: Whaat! Ooo, you can't put sand in your mouth!
Me: Don't worry Lauren. We put the sand in the spoon. and hold the handle of the spoon in our mouth. We didn't get sand in the mouth.
Lauren: Oic. The floor must be dirty after that!
Me: It's ok. There were cleaners to help clean up. Besides they carried the sand quite well. Not too much sand fell on the floor.
Lauren: Oh...so what other things did you do?
Me: We had lucky draws.
Lauren: Lucky draws! Wow! Did you win anything mom?
Me: I didn't but my friends did.
Lauren: Who are your friends?
Me: You don't know these friends.
Lauren: What did they win?
Me: Quite nice prizes. A TV and a treadmill.
Lauren: What's a treadmill?
(Long answer from me)
Lauren: What else did you do?
Me: We had some things to eat.
Lauren: What kind of things did you eat?
Me: We had curry...
Lauren: Curry, yummy. What else?
Me: Some pita bread and rice with potatoes.
Lauren: Hmm...so...what did your friends wear?
Me: I'll show you the pix when we get home. My phone's out of battery right now.

Anyways, you get the idea. Lot's of good questions from my curious daughter. How could I not answer?

Happiness

Lauren's finals are done! She is happy. And she was talking non stop yesterday. I don't really know what she was talking about. She intended to tell me a story about Jake and the Neverland Pirates, I think. But within her endless chatter, I got lost. I told her. She paused. Looked at me. And...continued her story, until we reached the front door to our house!

Kevin and I are happy too. We also get to relax a bit after her finals, you know.

Am planning some projects with Lauren for now and holidays.

Tell you when the ideas bear fruit..!

Exam Day 1

Lauren completed her first day of finals. And she was sooo happy.

When we did night prayers, I prayed for her English papers. And she added...And Maths Mom. Most people think nothing of this. To me, it shows that Lauren is aware of what her next day's papers are. It's a nice feeling.

Hi again

Been 5 months since my last entry.
Lots has happened.
Lauren starts her finals for jr 3 tmr. BM. First paper. Oh dear.
Can't believe how fast she is growing. She turns 9 in a month. 11 November 2011: 11 11 11. Cool huh?

I had a good day at work. Good friends, fun projects. Not too much more I can ask for.
Still...a pimple looms on my forehead. Stress lurking around some of those projects. But where can no stress one?

Back to Lauren. She wants a Jake n the Neverland bday cake. Kevin was searching all over for pix online. Finally he's got one. Beautiful. What makes it even more precious...? He actually pieced them together, piece by piece. Take a look.

Pocoyo

Lauren loves Pocoyo. If ur wondering wat tht is...it's a cartoon show. She has learnt to search for new episodes of it on youtube. And recently started drawing snapshots of the show by episodes. Budding artist? Well u b the judge. I am happy that she is enjoying drawing, even if they r just Pocoyo for now.

Good days and...not so good days

Two Sundays ago was challenging.

It was communion time in church. And the Sunday school kids come up to join their parents to communion. So Lauren and Luke trooped up to us. Kevin took Luke name tag from his shirt and proceeded to take Lauren's tag off too. Problem was, she wanted to take her own tag off. What followed was...a look of shock on Lauren's face, tears starting to fill her eyes and her expression (verbally) of "why did Daddy take my name tag off?".

Like on autopilot, I whispered to Lauren to "stop it!" or we will need to go out of the church to talk.

What happened next, I did not expect.

She looked at me. And said, very angrily, "Mummy...Daddy makes me happy...Luke makes me happy...but you...make me MAAAD!". Whoa!!! And I wasn't even the person who took her tag off without telling her...!

Then on Friday, Lauren asked me to teach her how to cook. We were watching Junior Masterchef, Australia - great show!

So we roasted a chicken - Lauren peeled 1 1/2 potatoes - more like she laboured over them! She lovingly marinated the chicken.
Held a knife for the first time to cut brocolli. One of her favoured vegetables.

On Sunday morning, she made pancakes. She stirred the pancake mix, and learnt how to watch the pancakes in the pan and flip them over!

And the best part, she tucked in happily into both her roasted chicken and pancakes.

Like I said, good days and...some really trying days.

Meng Huat - my brother in law - wrote me something really encouraging.
_____________________________________________________________________
Dear Wee Leng,

Thank you for sharing the story about Lauren saying "Daddy makes me happy, Luke makes me happy but YOU MAKE ME CRAZY."

I remembered when I was young, I wanted to grow up real quick and be an adult. Now that I am an adult, well it is not much fun and I want to be a kid again.

Part of being an adult is that you have got to do things that you don't want to do but have to do.

Hmmm, if you were a kid, you would say, Hey! that's what I have to do as well esp the studying part.

Well, the difference is - a kid has his/her parents forcing him/her to do what ever the kid has to do.

As an adult you have to force yourself to do the important things or face the consequences and if you are a parent you have the additional task of forcing the kid to do what the kid has to do (Note : while I believe that kids need some forcing, how much /to what degree is the question. check out the book causing a storm in the west and the debates that it is generating ie. the asian tiger mum!)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010706543.html

On the plus side we see the cultivation of habits of success and not the development of habits of failure, we see growth- like luke sleeping on his own. Like lauren's ability to express her feelings.

So keep up the good job of being good adults / parents.

mh
___________________________________________________________________________
Thanks bro!

Difference between Love n Discipline

Kids need to know that even when they r being disciplined, that parents love them and dont love them any less.

Lauren forgot her homework, again. 2nd time in a week. 1st time, she was let off with a gentle reminder not to do it again,with ideas how to remember her homework. Today, i was upset. So she was not allowed any tv nor computer the rest of the evening. She was clearly upset and was whining and crying. I realised how it was affecting her when she fnally said that ' i'm going to turn mummy's pix away because she is so angry with me. She does not love me.'!!!!

I sat down with her. And explained that i love her...when i am upset and when i am happy. That does not change at all. And she was happy after that.

She read her book. Then we read the faraway tree together. The night ended well.

I am reminded today that children need yhe aasurance of love even when we discipline them. They are two separate things.

What happens if you don't take care of Mother Nature?

Another wise reply from Luke.