Dan and Autism

Cape May Part 2

Saturday was our organization's "Adopt A Beach" day. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a person or organization "adopts" a section of the beach to clean up and remove trash from. So, to celebrate, we had a big barbeque and invited a bunch of other group homes down. However, it started to rain, so eventually everyone was jammed into the living room.

During this, I learned to be grateful that my participants don't really talk. A few can say what they want or how they're feeling, but none of my guys can hold a real conversation. Saturday, I met two that could. One was a man that worked at Wawa that only talked about working at Wawa, what's wrong with Wawa, what's awesome about Wawa, and why you would make a great addition to the Wawa team. The other was a woman that would find something with words, such as the "Welcome To The Group Shore Home" pamphlet, then read it over and over, and then recite it over and over. So, she would run up to people, and say, for example, "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!" until Joe answered. Then she'd start reciting what she had just read. And if Joe stopped paying attention, she'd say "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!" until his attention was back on her, then she'd recite it again. One of my coworkers leaned over to me and said, "I really wish she didn't know my name." Not long after I teased him by saying, "She doesn't know my name," she came up to me and asked my name. "Hey Dan! Hey Dan! Hey Dan!" followed shorty after.

Another participant was a very sweet looking young lady that only spoke in highpitched monosyllabic words. I was told that she's not as innocent as she looks, however, because if she goes up to you and says "Boo!", she's likely to smack you in the head. So when she came up to me and shouted "Boo!", I shouted "Boo!" back at her and she retreated. I pride myself on outsmarting autistic adults.

Sunday was move-out day. I got out of bed at nine to wake up my manager. She didn't feel well, so I spent most of the day doing everything by myself. I learned the value of having a second person around. It's very difficult to get anything done by myself. Having another person to just sit in the living room with the participants would have made my day much easier. If I got up to do laundry, one of the guys would steal a soda. When I'd go over to him to get it back, another participant would mess with the laundry. When I'd go back to fix that, another participant would be knocking stuff over. It was very exhausting.

One of our participants, the presser, was acting up alot that day. Throughout the vacation, he's had to go into restraints at least once a day. On Sunday, he went in four times. One time, immediately after we let him out, he started grinding his teeth and had to go right back in.

On the ride home, we stopped at a rest stop, and I took three guys to a public bathroom. This was quite the juggling act. The second we entered, one of my participants dropped his pants. While he ran for a stall, I prayed to a higher power that it was unoccupied. My prayers were answered, and he didn't barge in on anyone. He did forget to shut the door though, so I shut it and leaned on it to make sure it didn't swing open. One of the A-team guys was able to use a urinal without any problem. I asked our third bathroom buddy if he needed to go about half a dozen times, and he said no every time. Then I asked him and the other one to stay with the A-Team guy for one minute so I could use the bathroom. When I came out, they were as I left them, and I thanked the A-Teamer profusely and told him he was awesome. After we got outside though, the guy that didn't need the bathroom started wimpering and leaning toward me becuase, surprise surprise, he needed the bathroom. So I took him back in. Oh, and to go to the bathroom, you have to cross the foodcourt, so one of the guys was screaming "Burger! Burger! Hot Dog! Hot Dog!" over and over, even though he had just had a burger for lunch an hour ago.

When we got home, the presser had another behavior. I don't remember if I ever covered this, but he has two levels of restraints. The first is that he's just shackled and blindfolded. If he continues to act up during this, he has to be strapped down onto a foam wedge contraption. Sometimes I feel that we go for the wedge earlier than we need to, and maybe sometimes we don't need it at all. So when we put him in his first stage restraints, I said I wanted to wait before we put him in the wedge, because I believed that he'll settle down. If he gets violent or starts hitting himself or pressing more, he has to go in the wedge. But sometimes we've put him in just for rocking back and forth or making noise, and I don't like it. I don't think it's fair to him that we put him in the wedge right away just because he might possibly maybe try to hurt us. So, I said I'd watch him while the other staff helped the guys with showers. It was really interesting to watch. First he rocked side to side for a while, then he started some bizarre counting. After he counted to ten, he made two sounds that I guess were supposed to be 11 and 12, but then he went "14, 14, 15..." up to about 18, then started over again and the "14, 14". I wish I knew what the deal was with that.

Also, during this, there's not supposed to be any talking to him. It's supposed to be a completely silent treatment. When I asked him to stop rocking, I was told that there's not supposed to be any talking. But, staff always talk around him when he's in containment anyway, so I wanted to see if he could be calmed down vocally instead of putting him in harsher containment, which is when he usually gets violent. I thought maybe the "no talking" rule was made so people wouldn't yell at him when he's acting up, becuase that would just make him tenser. So I asked him to stop rocking, and he did. I asked him to stop making noise, and he did. Then he sat quietely for five minutes, so I let him out. I asked him, "What are you going to be?" and he said "Be quiet." Then I said, "And?" and he said "Be good." Then he went right back into getting undressed for his shower. I'd really like to see if this could be done again, because maybe we could submit a new program for him that's more affective, becuase I really believe that treating him like Hannibal Lecter isn't helping him.

posted by Daniel @ 5:10 PM