We are entering a new phase of perseverance. Power lines! Along with the new found obsession, we are also seeing a lean on an old favorite, car washes. This is generally how my youngest kiddo works. He is my diagnosed Severe-non-verbal ASD/ADHD. I suspect his non-verbal is more adequately described as semi-verbal now. That is, he talks, a lot, mostly in functional script, some spontaneous / novel language emerging.
As littles, both my sons (both ASD/ADHD) had too many toys. Yes, I bought everything and anything I thought would or could help them. Get them out of their shell, help them develop or catch up. I tried it all. LOTS got donated, but, much was kept due to the fact an attachment was formed that I could not understand. Neither wanted to play with the item, they just wanted it there. It had to be around, accessible. Not disappeared. Admittedly, I had to re-buy a few of these items due to multiple meltdowns and for the shear sake of my own sanity. Then, watch them get strewn on the floor and seemingly ignored. Baffled me to no end!!!
I am a neat and tidy person. I like things to have a place. To live in their place. I live in the opposite situation. To help alleviate this anxiety inducing problem, I binned things in transparent bins, usually in some kind of order. Plastic trains. Wooden trains. Other trains, etc. blocks, legos, duplos. You name it. Over the years, things have been packed up in these bins and tucked away in the garage. Sometimes for a year at a time, until one crazy full moon night, my youngest says, “where’s such and such” and I take him out to the garage and we retrieve it. When he goes to school, I find something that has been ignored for months, pack it up and replace it into the bin we just emptied. It helps. His anxiety is controlled, he does not worry that it is gone forever and, bonus, it is less mess for me!
One thing has been pretty constant over the years. An old shoebox turned car wash. There were not any back them, not just the way he liked so I made one for him. He guided me. This was years before language was even remotely decipherable. But we did it with pointing and YouTube videos. He played with it until it has gone soft and wonky. Finally, at age 10, needing the comfort of the familiar while he explores the new information of power lines, he asked for a new car wash. He is very firm with me, I must wait and he will tell me precisely what to do after school. We worked for an hour last night making brushes from felt. Just the right size, the right colors, the right order. His fine motor skills are too poor to do it himself, or I would make him do it. With each brush I finished the smile on his face made my heart leap a beat! Today we will finish the car wash, just so. We will print Shell station signs, make a top wash that can come down. He will keep it on my kitchen counter for months now. After we are done making it, we will go for a walk and look at all the power lines in our old neighborhood. He will point out transformer cylinders, control boxes, ladder pegs and internet lines. We will talk about squirrels and birds sitting on the wire. He wants to go to “electrician school” and climb the poles.
Then we will come home, and I will be making an electric pole to attach to his car wash, because clearly, it will need power to run.
autstanding 