Dan and Autism

Shadowing Day 15 (Last day of training!)

Yesterday was my last day of shadowing, so now I finally count as a real staff member. Which is kind of unfortunate, because now I can't come over and sleep on the couch and get paid for it whenver I want.

Nothing particularly exciting or new occured. We took the guys out in the van for some errands, and that ate up about an hour and a half of time. We had pizza and vegetables for dinner. It seems every night I work, we have pizza.

One of our residents had some strange behavior. He went upstairs to go to the bathroom when he came back from work. When he came back downstairs, he had his shorts on, but backwards and inside out, with no underwear on. I was baffled, so I told him to go upstairs and get dressed correctly. This time, he came back down with his roomate's shorts, which were about 10 inches around the waste too big, and again with no underwear. He had to hold up the shorts with both hands to keep them up. So this time I had to go upstairs with him and give him step-by-step instructions on how to get dressed again, which is unusual, because I've never had this problem with him before. Then we found his old clothes laying in the bathroom with his shoes, so I told him to put his clothes in the laundry basket. So he threw his shoes in there. This was frustrating.

The guys like to listen to music outside, so I started wondering if they had any sort of musical preference. Usually we have the radio set to some classic rock station, and I dislike classic rock. So I've been getting a few of my own CDs out of my car and playing them, and they don't seem to react any differently. It doesn't seem that they have any sort of musical preference, just as long as music on. I want to keep trying this out and see if they have any reactions to different music.

I'm going to work for 24 hours on the fourth of July to make extra money. I think we get an extra $50 for each shift, and that consists of three shifts, so I'm very excited to make alot of money on my first day as a "real" staff member. Plus, I didn't think anyone else would want to work on the holiday, so I figured as the new guy, I should take the shift.

posted by Daniel @ 4:57 PM