Dan and Autism

Shadowing Day 3 and 1st Overnight Shift

Tuesday was my first full-length shift at the house, running from 3 PM to 10 PM. I arrived there at 3, since you have to get there before the residents come back from work. We made them snacks. When they came in, they had their snacks and then went to do leisure time, which usually consists of alot of sitting on the couch or on the porch.
One of the guys wet his pants, so I had to learn to procedure for bathing and changing him. It doesn't look like a ton of fun. I started bringing an extra change of clothes, because it looks like people get wet alot doing this job.
Then some of the other employees and I took a few of the guys out in the community. We had to get a vacuum from Sears, so we decided to take them to walk around in the mall. It's kind of nerve racking being out in the community with them, because it's bad news if something happens. We're not allowed to use any of the adversives on the guys if they misbehave, and if they freak out, we just have to try to get them to the van as quickly and quietely as possible. But the guys were good. One guy tends to wander if you don't keep an eye on him, but he never got far. Another guy walks really, really slow, which kind of splits up the group, but that wasn't a huge deal with so many other employees around on this trip. On the van ride home, they kept falling asleep, so we had to try to keep them awake, or else they wouldn't sleep at night.
After getting back to the house and having dinner, there was more leisure time. Some of the other employees were trying to build a computer desk for the living room and I was supposed to help, but I think the most I contributed was putting a few screws in. It's really interesting how the guys can just sit around watching TV when someone is banging a hammer right next to them without being really disturbed. At around 9, we sent two of them up to bed, and at around 10 we sent the rest up.
Then my overnight shift began. Since I don't count as a real counselor in the house, I didn't get to sleep in a staff bedroom, so I had to sleep on the couch in the living room. I was instructed to wake up one of the other employees if I heard banging above me, because that meant one of the guys was was probably doing self-injury behavior and would have to be restrained.
At around five thirty in the morning, I woke up to the guy with the bone disorder screaming in my face. Apparantly, Bones (we'll call him that from now on) had crawled from his room to my living room couch and screamed in my face to get my attention. That may have been the most horrible way I've been woken up ever. I didn't know what to do with him, so I walked him to the kitchen, sat him down, and then woke someone up to help me. We tried giving him something to drink, but he pushed it away after a sip. So we put him back to bed. About an hour later, I heard him coming from across the house. He was making the groaning noise he does, and it sounded like a ghost was coming for me. I intercepted him near the kitchen, sat him down again, and gave him something to drink, then put him back to bed.
At 7:30 one of the other counselors and I got up, started making breakfast, and started getting the residents out of bed. I learned which guys needed to be woken up first (since they take forever) and which guys need help getting dressed. The guys started to trickle downstairs for breakfast. One was taking forever, so I went to go get him, and found him standing around his room naked. I told him to get dressed and decided I'd give him another minute, because I didn't want to have to touch a naked person unless I really needed to. When I checked on him again, he was sort of half dressed. He had underwear and socks on, but his shirt was halfway around his head and he was just sitting on the bed. I told him to finish getting dressed and he complied, except he didn't zip his zipper. I told him to zip up, so he made the bed. I told him to zip up, so he got his shoes on. I told him to zip up, so he put his belt on. Then I told another passing counselor that I couldn't get him to zip up. She told him to zip up, and he zipped up. That didn't seem very fair.
One of the guys who has to wear a uniform to work wasn't wearing his, so we told him to get dressed. He took his laundry basket and went upstairs, but then returned, still not in his uniform. We told him again to get dressed, so he went upstairs. He returned with his laundry basked. We told him one more time to get dressed, and again he took the laundry basket and went upstairs, then returned with no uniform. I learned that he's very uncomfortable with wearing unwashed clothes, (and hey, who can blame him?) so his uniform was probably dirty and he was having some anxiety about wearing it. We told him to take a deep breath and calm down, which he did, and told him he could do laundry after coming home from work. He seemed satisfied with that arrangement.
After breakfast, the guys took turns going upstairs and brushing their teeth. Then we loaded them in the van and drove them to the work center, where they're then taken to their individual places of employment.

posted by Daniel @ 10:47 AM