Autism Treatment Center of America Forum

[janet112]

My son is 17. We started to join him since I got back from the Start-Up 2 weeks ago. He asks lots of questions from foods to transportation to farm animals to the zoo to the mall. We run out of ideas for building. Sometimes he jumps from one topic to the other in the matter of second. I feel that he only wants to hear the answers and most of the time is the YES he wants. We don't know when to request. He is a typical ABA kid who does whatever we ask him and never initiated by himself. I did try some games I prepared but his attention was not there.

[KimKorpady]

This is a great question and one we geat quite a bit!! It sounds like you are already doing a really excellent job of picking up on his cues and realizing that it may just be more about the answers at this point, than actually building a game. My suggestion is really dive into his topic at hand and answer answer answer... keep going until you find that he gives you a stronger green light. This may be a pause in the interaction, or a longer look, or a change in his affect, but know that above all, you have a big bag of building goodies to use when he is available... now its just about finding the right time to use them

Have fun with it, enjoy the things he loves to talk about... he will be completely aware of this and then become that much more likely to want to interact with a deeper sense of connection later.

1. Relax and enjoy the questions
2. Have fun answering... even if its the same answer- know that each time you give that answer you are building a deeper relationship with him
3.Trust that he will show you when he is ready to allow a change or move to another activity (for a lot of our higher functioning children the questions or perseveratory topics are isms just as you are describing ... because really all we have room to do is answer or listen, there is room for nothing else we are predictable in this way and helping them gain a sense of control in this world)

You Rock Son Rise Mama!!
Keep up the great work (play ) and let us know how it goes!
Big smiles,
Kim

[janet112]

Thank you so mcuh Kim. We have been doing just that. He has changed tremenously in 8 weeks since we started the program. He is much more flexible with his questiohns and our answers. He definitely gives us room to build. It was very sad to see how disconnect he was at begining. We would spent hours hours joining him and he did not know what to do with us. He was being told what to do, What not to do, what to say, waht not to say, when to say it , how to say it for years.
The ABA made him like a Robot. He finally has sense of his own. He's getting closer to us everyday. We're having such a wonderful time connecting with him. It took me 17 yrs to finally know how to help my son. I do have a question about the eye contact. He has very good eye contact now during the interaction. Do you still celebrate everytime he looks at you even the goal of the game is not for eye contact?
Thanks,
Janet Schwart