Identification

There are times when I look back and the progress we've made is incredible. Other times I realize we appear to be treading water.

Yesterday Tim and I were doing some work in our laundry room and needed the kitchen stool. Instead of Tim or me having to fight our way out of all the stuff we'd moved around I thought it would be easiest to yell upstairs and ask Jonathon to bring us the kitchen stool. Turns out it wasn't going to be easy.

I yelled upstairs and Jonathon came running. I knew I needed to keep my wording short, as he tends to get stuck on one word out of the entire request, if he's not familiar with the request. My wording was "grab the white stool by the kitchen stove." He came down with the "white" window we had taken out to clean which was in the kitchen and "by the stove." Tim said "that's a window. We need the white stool by the stove." Jonathon ran back up the stairs and reappears with a "white" box that was sitting in the kitchen. I decided to give him a little more information... "Jonathon it is the stool that we stand on. It is white with black steps." He runs back up the stairs only to reappear with... another white item. Obviously Jonathon's brain was stuck and he was not going to move past the "white" part of the request, so Tim crawled through the laundry room mess to go upstairs and show Jonathon what we were requesting.

I think this is an example of a couple different things going on in his brain. One... as the autism specialists pointed out, his mind gets stuck on certain events or topics. In this instance his mind caught the word "white" and couldn't move any further into the request being made of him. He knows he needs to bring us something "white" so begins the guessing game. The second thing, I believe, is going on, is his learning level is that of a small child. He's stuck in those early formative years when small children learn by asking "what's that? what's this? etc..." The difference is Jonathon doesn't ask the wh questions that young children do when experiencing their environment. You know... the questions that tend to drive parents crazy! For Jonathon a piece of his development is missing. Where we, (Tim and I) fall short is assuming he knows what everyday items are called.

Can you imagine living in a world where you don't know what everyday items are? He tends to know how these items work, but has great difficulty identifying them. Years ago we had a similar experience when I asked him to go downstairs and bring me the blue dustpan. Every attempt he made to bring me the correct item ended up being something blue, but not the dustpan.

The part of this that makes me sad for him is he feels like he's failed when he brings the wrong item and repeatedly apologizes. It isn't a big deal to us but it is to him. I think he feels like he's stupid for not knowing. Really it would be equivilant to me being in a car repair shop and someone requesting a tool or a car part. I would have absolutely no idea what they were talking about! They could describe the item to me and I would probably do the same thing Jonathon does... narrow down my options as to what was being requested. The difference is I have the ability to "pick" my first description of the item and then move on to the next identifying characteristic of the item, then the next, and the next until I have found the correct item being requested. Jonathon's brain doesn't let him narrow down the identifying characteristics to find the correct the item.

I'm going to have to ask the autism specialists if there is something we can do to help him in this area because I honestly don't know if his brain can get past the point of where it seems to get stuck in the identifying process. We see this with names of family members as well. People who's names he should know but doesn't.

Just another mysterious piece in how his unique brain works.