Dan and Autism

Shadowing Day 6

Yesterday's theme was patience. I finally had my first experience with one of the residents being an enormous pain. Every minute, he would stand up and sign that he wanted a drink. We can't let him drink whenever he wants, becuase he always wants a drink, and he pees himself if he drinks too much. So we had to keep telling him "no" and "go sit back down." He tried to stare me down a few times, but I would just repeat myself. As the day progressed, he became more and more noncomplient, so we had to start using a neck prompt to move him back to his seat.

After a few hours, he finally freaked out on me and started tantruming. His tantruming consists of screaming in my face, jumping up and down, and flailing his arms. You can't panic when one of the residents do that, because then they'll learn that tantrums get under your skin and they'll use that to his advantage. So, I kept my calm and turned to one of the more experienced staff members and said "Hey, I don't really know what to do in this situatioin" as the resident was screaming in my face. The other staff member forced the resident to sit down and did a couple of adverses to him while shouting "NO SCARING THE NEW GUY." He explained to me that alot of the residents like to test out new employees to see what works on them, and that's probably what was happening with this tantrum.

Yesterday I also had my first experience with pressing. The resident that presses often squeezes his hands and fingers together, so he has a bunch of scars and scabs there. He was acting pretty antsy throughout the day, so I had to keep telling him to relax. Then I looked over, and he was squeezing his hands together and his face was red. I went over to him and took his hands and put them on his lap and told him "No pressing, please. Sit quiet." If he hadn't listened to me, we probably would have had to shackle him until he calmed down. On one hand, I'm glad it didn't come to that, but on the other hand, I know it will eventually and I"m going to have to deal with it. It seems on every one of my days off is a day when he has to get shackled, so I keep missing it.

I also changed Bones for bed by myself for the first time. It was really difficult because he won't stay still and likes to grab and pinch me as hard as he can.

I also fed him for the first time today. He likes to spill things just to piss you off if you're not looking at him, and I finally had that happen to me today. The key is to not act mad, because that's what he wants.

posted by Daniel @ 1:20 PM