Jack is very verbal for an autistic child. We're very grateful for that! But his communication is very dependent on what is called "scripted speech"...little memorized lines and phrases that he uses to communicate. It's kind of like if you were learning French or something, and you went to France to visit, and you had to navigate around using your very limited vocabulary...you would be very heavily dependent on using those little phrases you memorized out of your French textbook. That's how Jack seems. He's here for a visit, and he speaks slowly and carefully, pulling out the phrases and words he knows and making them fit. What's more, he often supplies *us* with the appropriate phrases to use too.
For example, last night he came out of bed, walked slowly up to me, put his face a few inches from mine, and screwed it up into his "sad face"...
Me- Hi Jack, what's going on?
Jack- Say, "what's wrong".
Me- Oh, ok. What's wrong?
Jack- I heard a scary noise.
Me- You did?
Jack- Say, "it's ok".
Me- It's ok. (hug)
Jack- smiles and trots back to bed.
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Here's another funny Jack moment. Maria has dance class on Monday nights at 6:30. We were going to a nearby park while she was in class, but now of course it's dark at this time. Waiting in the tiny waiting space with four children has proven unsatisfactory. So one evening a couple of weeks ago, I lay down the seats in the back of the van, and Henry, Tess, Jack and I all climbed back there and read stories, did hand rhymes,and sang songs. Jack was only minimally engaged, and so I was trying to pull him in...
Me- Jack, do you want to pick the next song?
Jack- Ok!
Me- What should we sing?
Jack- Can you sing the song from the ghost castle in world 3 of Super Mario Brothers?
Me- Um. Hmm. I don't know that song. Do you know how it goes?
And then Jack, who hardly ever sings "normal" preschool-y songs, starts singing (if you can call it that,,there's no words) this backround music from our wii game. "Bahdum bahdum badum. Bahdum bahdum bahdum. Bahdum bahdum bahdum dum dum dum dum dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum."
1 comment:
Oh this sounds sooooo familiar :) We had the whole scripted talk around for the first two years Mark even spoke...he began speaking in script. One evening I realized he was playing with Webkinz animals on his bed and I thought wow, he's having them communicate and everything, soon to realize they were saying nearly word for word a story we had read early in the day....very stay forward narrative as if he were reading it. But there is good news to this!...their language does develop and becomes more spontaneous and more their own and more interactive as it goes along....I will post this on the loop for others :)
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