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Alex gets home about 1 p.m. from a half day of school. He dives onto the iPad. I decide we'll go for a walk or a bus ride if he wants. He never asks.
He watches the iPad all afternoon. One becomes 2 o'clock, and that becomes 3. I do have a lot to do: fold and stow the laundry, change and make the beds, play too many rounds of Hearts on my laptop. I'm ready in a moment to do something else if Alex wants to, but he sits hunched in his headphones hour after hour.
I have this fear of institutional days for Alex, some place with people who sit at desks and pay attention only to those who need attention the most in the looming days of tight budgets. People paid to act the same way his father does on this afternoon. "If we're going to find a residence for Alex by the time he's 16 or 17, we have to start now," Jill said this morning. I agree. After all, Jill went to college at 17 (imagine what she must've looked like!); Lord Nelson commanded a ship at 12. Given the average of those ages and that Alex already says "Bye, daddy!" when I drop him off at overnight respite, the timeframe isn't out of line.
If I'm a loving caregiver, though, how come we're looking this afternoon at the fourth hour with Alex on the iPad and me at this computer, back-to him, listening for the crash of the plate glass or the wail of a kid who's 13 going on 5 who's hurt himself? "Seven!" I hear Alex say over and over. I turn and see him rocking on his thighs to whatever's coming through the headphones. Elmo? "Bear in the Big Blue House?" "Arthur?" The pile of laundry remains high. I find time to watch 10 minutes of "The Winds of War" on Netflix On Demand. I wish I'd written "The Winds of War" while still in high school. Things would be different now.
Alex, socks to put away!
He could do it, well and quick, but my request doesn't seem to stick. I listen to Pandora and lose myself in memories of stuff that happened before Alex; I put the socks away myself. He stands over there, munching a Goldfish. He doesn't ask for a bus ride or a walk; I'd grab his reduced MTA Metrocard (marked with a bold black R, and what could that stand for, I wonder) and hit the bus for a ride down Fifth or a subway ride to pick up pumpkins for Halloween.
That would be something to do. I know Alex would like that.
I’ve got this new thing going about organizing. What’s it mean?
They say organized homes are better for people with autism. I’ve been at it – sweeping dust bunnies, throwing out nine-year-old yellowed documents about cars I don’t own anymore and maybe can’t afford to own ever again – and I haven’t noticed a lot of change in Alex. He still comes home from special-ed. and dives onto the iPad, still sloshes the water all over the floor when he takes a bath, still sits up and rocks to make the bed timbers creak before he goes to sleep. I’m not sure he cares about having an organized home.
Alex and Ned have an organized room at least. Ned and I Sherman-marched through the mess a month or so ago. It took an hour, and by the end of that time the Legos and clothes and books and all the other crap had been confined to drawers and other places and were off the floor. Just last Thursday, I swept, mopped and waxed their floor, and that sure wouldn’t have been possible before Ned and I did our march.
I found this gift, I guess you’d call it, by helping Aunt Julie, who has to move soon. She has dozens of Container Store bins of paper, and some weeks ago she asked me to come over and help her empty them. I’ve started this, and I like: 1. throwing stuff out that belongs to other people; and 2. watching the empty bins pile up. I think I’ve helped her, and I like to think other people might need this service and fracking pay for it. Come May, I’ll be three years unemployed, and Jill faces the end of her “contract” (what has that word come to mean, anyway?) position soon. I’d better find some way to bring in cash.
The last three years have taught me that sometimes you need a handyman or other help, and that Craigslist is a place to find them. We’ve had several people in from there; they’ve done okay jobs. And when they were done – invariably – I’ve handed them a wad of twenties. I want someone to hand me a wad of twenties.
“It’s the Lone Arranger!” reads the headline of my first Craigslist ad. “Is It All the Shoes? All the Papers?” reads the headline of my second. “Ain’t No Mountain of Boxes High Enough” reads the headline of the third: This whole ad runs along the theme of the famous song.
When I was growing up, this seemed to be smart enough. As the days go by, I get the feeling it isn’t smart enough anymore.
Today's guest blog is from Alex's former teacher Crystle Hocker, now with Somers (N.Y.) Central School District. Teachers all over the world have requested these tips.
- Indicate the importance of teacher/ parent collaboration and communication for the success of the student. I’ve done this in a welcome letter to parents in the beginning of the year.
- Communication notebook – try to write in each students notebook at least three times, even if the parents do not write back to you. They read it more often than you think and writing to parents throughout the week keeps them informed of the good (and the bad) that is happening. Being informed also makes school less intimating.
- Phone calls – A lot of parents find phone calls much more meaningful and personal (although its important to remember, that parents have jobs and often cannot be reached during school hours). I’ve also taken it a step further and have texted with a parent who is legally deaf as a means of communicating.
- Weekly Newsletter: Keep it simple! Use a template (often found in those teacher plan books) and just jot down what happened during the week: what units you are currently working on, any special events that are occurring, any students birthdays, school breaks (and when parent teacher conferences are occurring!). Again, if parents feel like they are informed they will be more likely attend events or conferences.
Even if you don’t get responses back from parents, they’re not writing back to you or they don’t answer your phone calls, don’t stop communicating! Eventually they will communicate and when IEP meetings or Parent Teacher Conferences are scheduled, they are more likely to drop by. School (and you) is not this ominous thing! They feel like they know you.
Remember, whether you are writing home, sending a text message, doing a newsletter or phoning home, end conversations with “it was so good to talk and how much you appreciate their time”. Even if you are communicating to inform them of something “bad”, end with something good! The “your son (or daughter) has been making so much progress this year and has even learned… I’m very proud of him (or her) as you should be too!” is always a crowd pleaser and again makes school communications not necessarily a scary or bad thing.
I don’t rely on one means of communication for all of my parents in my classroom. I use a variety of sources to stay in touch. Some of parents are never capable of talking to me on the phone so it’s vital for me to write in those students’ communication notebooks as often as possible. Likewise, I have students whose parents don’t read the notebooks, so, I call home as much as I can. The key is to find out what works best for your parents and use it!
First Alex peeled and stuck the gold letters; they came about two hundred to a 99-cent pack, available in the hardware or stationary aisles. Actually, first of course it was the shape-sorter a lifetime ago, which Alex once played like Roy Clark once played a guitar. The shape sorter, they assured us, meant that Alex had a real affinity for letters.
I scrape an O and a D and an N and a 4 and 2 off the wood of our living room floor. they come up hard, bitchy little things alex tossed there after he peeled them off the tv to make way for new words. alex does his composition on the front of the television, on the set’s frame right above the screen. he carefully makes four five, six. why would he stick those up there? we wouldn’t mind except he’s in the way during shows (“alex, move!!”). they come up a millimeter at a time and then they rip. worse is the backing, the sticky black crap that’s left over after he’s peeled off all the letters.
These are half-inch peel-&-stick letters in block Helvetica. He seems to favor the F’s. We get these at Staples for about $5. One of his friends bought him an assortment of multi-designs, too: “This package contains 133 letters, numerals, and punctuation marks,” the wrapper reads. Some 100 of them will wind up stuck to our living room floor.
A long time ago, Alex’s teachers told us not to let him write with markers. “They make a mark no matter how much pressure you use, and we’re trying to teach him to apply pressure,” they said. “Make him use a pencil.” Sound, but one of his friends who seems well-versed in helping people with autism said he had no problem with letters, so we continue to buy them. this friend has also taken Alex on bus rides and outings, and has helped Alex use the black letters to write where he’s been: APPLE STORE FIX I-PAD; RIDING A BUS; TOMORROW WE GO SWIMMING; NEXT WEEK WE WILL RIDE A BIKE. The friend writes these words in pen, and Alex matches (shape-sorts?) the black letters to match the words.
Do these sticky letters help Alex? Forward his understanding of language? No idea, but it’s a cheap treat, and maybe someday he’ll peel off the black Helveticas one by one and tell me what in God’s Name is going on in there.
