Patience Learning

For the next while I will be watching my little autistic friend, S, on some days while her mom finishes up her schooling. She is seven and very cute and I enjoy watching her for the most part. Now that I'm going to be her caregiver for longer periods of time and not just while her mom and stepdad go to a movie or what have you though, I'm kind of scared. I'm somewhat ignorant about the subject of autism and even more ignorant as to how to help her. A babysitter can just 'watch' the child but I would like to help her too.

What I have found in my research and experience is that the key word in autism seems to be 'frustration'. Frustration for the parents who don't know what their child wants and frustration for the child who knows what she wants, but can't communicate it. S has recently 'learned' a few words but she doesn't really know them. If I point to my mouth and say 'hi', she will point to her mouth and go 'huh' but I don't think she has any idea what she is saying. She does know some signs but it is like pulling teeth to get her to use them. For example, she drinks a lot of water and juice and can't get it for herself, so she will take my hand and pull me to the fridge, put my hand on the handle to pull it open and then put my hand on the juice pitcher. I know, though, that she can sign 'more' 'juice' 'please', or at the very least 'juice', but she won't until I press and press.

Reading up on the signs of autism today was interesting because she has so very many of them. She is constantly moving and turning in circles and flapping her arms. She also 'babbles' almost constantly, making horsey sounds and 'bbbbbbb' sounds. Its actually tremendously cute. Paul thinks I'm nuts because I talk to her as though she can understand everything, like a 'regular' 7 year old. But my feeling is that you never know what she will understand. If she can understand when I say 'S, I won't give you juice until you use your signs', maybe she can understand when I say 'don't use the dog as a stepstool'.

Yesterday was a bit of a rough day because although she can sign her need to use the potty, she really doesn't. She had an upset tummy yesterday and in six hours had SEVEN POOPY PULL-UPS! And she didn't let me know about one of them. This is where it gets frustrating, I KNOW she can tell me she has to go, but she doesn't. That goes back to the frustration aspect again.

S does show signs of understanding and improvement in certain ways. Up until recently she found our dogs scary and frustrating. She seemed to think that they were inanimate so she would try to play with them like she would a toy. Then when they would growl or try to nip at her to get away from the pain she was inflicting, she would get scared and try to hit them. Yesterday though, she sat down next to Smeagol and I immediately sat down too and started stroking Smeagol's back. I took her hand and laid it gently on Smeagol's back and said 'gentle' and started to pet her fur. S grinned very unexpectedly and petted Smeagol for a good thirty seconds. Smeagol seemed to understand that she shouldn't move or roll over so she just let S pet her and S was delighted. Later on, though, she sat right down on top of Smeagol again so the lesson will be a long time coming, but I was excited that she did it once. Once will eventually become all the time. I think.

In my research I found many articles that discussed how autistic children are not affectionate and respond neutrally to hugs and kisses. S is very different and that sure makes it easier to deal with her problems. S LOVES to hug. About every half hour to an hour she comes running up to me, shrieking, and throws herself into my arms. She wraps her tiny little body around me and hugs and hugs and hugs. I'm almost always the one who has to end the hug because I'm pretty sure she would hug me all day if she could. Its very difficult to stay frustrated with someone who is so gleefully happy to see you every moment.

And hey, its not every day that I find someone who likes to hug as much as I do!