Word of the Day

Flexible

During this week's speech lesson The Professor and his classmate took turns being flexible.

For the next week we are all going to be flexible.

Yesterday I asked The Professor to watch Junior for a few minutes. Just as he started to say no, he looked at me and said, "Okay, I can be flexible."

Wow! I love the word flexible!

Speech for the Professor has been a little different this year... it's virtual.

It's been great - he's met kids from all over the country!

However, as a family we haven't been as great at practicing his lessons during the week, so I thought I'd start blogging about them like I did last year... hopefully, that will keep us going for the next 7 days!

More Reasons

We're starting the year off right with more speech homework...

And we're working on reasons, again, this week. I have to say, trying to teach by example is hard - I'm not the best communicator and as a Mom I'm not the best at always giving a reason why. So when I'm saying, "please shut the door..." I'm really hoping I remember to add, "because it's cold outside."

I think the Professor learns from his homework faster than I do sometimes, but I'll keep trying.

Talk Me Into It

Our Speech Homework for the Christmas (I mean Winter - I'll never get used to that) Break - is practicing the art of persuasion... not begging... persuasion.

Definitely a worthwhile activity for this time of year!

So, for the next two weeks we will be practicing how to persuade someone, without begging, demanding, shouting or losing our temper.

Keep It Going

It's been a few weeks since we've had speech homework, but here's the latest... how to keep a conversation going.

When someone tells you something about their day, ask a follow-up question beginning with - how, who, where, what, when, or why.

This lets the other person know that you care about what they have to say.

Reasons

It's been a little while since we've had our speech homework... first the teacher was sick, the next week The Professor was sick and last week... well, we were so caught up in the holiday we completely forgot to do our work.

This week (and last week) we are focusing on reasons. First of all, we are working on knowing and saying our reason for why we want something to happen. So, instead of saying, "Dad, play catch with me." Make your request with a reason, "Dad, would you play catch with me because..." This helps each of us to understand why a request is important to the person making the request.

We are also discussing why it is important to understand the reasons we are asked to do certain things in our everyday lives. For instance, we are discussing the reasons behind the importance of doing chores. We also have a worksheet to discuss the reasons our Dad would ask us to close the door, if we forgot to close it, on a cold and snowy winter day (we haven't discussed this one yet, but I'm sure it will be great... the Professor is very literal... and we literally do not have cold and snowy days at our house. I can't wait to hear what he has to say about this one).

Being Polite

Our speech homework for the week - we're still working on

being polite.

It's amazing, when you really start to focus on the politeness level in the house, how often we are not polite.

I've noticed our family often remembers to say, "please" and "thank you" at the table and we're pretty good at saying we're sorry if someone gets hurt or we mess something up. Our biggest issue - I've found that all of us are constantly telling each other what to do - instead of asking each other for what we need.

For me it's been a huge spiritual insight. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints it comes down to the very basics of our religion - The Plan of Salvation or Plan of Happiness (click here for more info). For the plan to work we needed a savior and we had two choices - Satan who wanted to tell all of us what to do, and our Savior - Jesus Christ - who knew we needed agency so we could have the opportunity of making our own choices.

So as we go around our home trying to remember to say things like, "please turn the music down" (offering a choice) instead of "turn the music off now!" (no choice). I am thankful to have these helpful reminders in my life of how our family can follow Christ's example.

Who knew Asperger Syndrome would turn out to be such a spiritual experience?

Our Family Homework

Each week we have speech therapy homework. One of the characteristics of Asperger Syndrome is very poor (pretty much non-existent) pragmatic speech skills. Pragmatic speech is the social aspect of speech - like how to listen, how to have a two-way conversation, how to communicate in a socially acceptable way, read facial expressions... etc.

We've learned that our whole family can learn from The Professor's homework - so we try to remember what we learn and do it as a family. I'll pass along what we're learning and maybe if you want to you can try it out at your house, too.

This week we are working on telling the difference between being polite and being rude (most people with Asperger's just say it like it is, or yell it like they see it - not understanding they should be polite. For example, if someone is in the way their instinct is to just yell, "move!" Instead of saying, "excuse me.").

So our homework for the week is to label behavior for what it is - being rude or polite and we need to be thinking about and then reacting with a polite phrase.

So we will focus on:
Saying sorry.
Using the words excuse me.
Asking instead of telling people what to do.
Saying please and thank you.
and making kind comments to each other.

All of this takes practice, practice, practice... and when you think you've practiced enough you still have to keep practicing.

We are thankful the scriptures tell us, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." Ether 12:27 (You can find this scripture in the Book of Mormon.)