Jason has always been a puzzle to all the professionals that look after him because of his inconsistent performance making it difficult to assess his true potential. For one very basic thing, he was not even able to give yes/no answers consistently to simple choice-making questions. He was considered piggy-backing on whatever was asked in the question. e.g. Do you want cracker? Yes or No? - NO. Do you want crackers? No or Yes? - YES.
Honestly, although he didn't quite achieve 100% consistency at home, we have no problem understanding what he wants. Partly because we know him too well. Partly because we are not rigid on what he has to say. Be it yes or no, or the name of the actual item in question (e.g. cracker), or simply reach out for it, we will be satisfied with his response and respect his 'choice'. We also know to be consistent that if he says no, it means no, and we will remove that item away from him (even though he actually wants it). Yet, at school, this seems to be a constant problem. Year after year, you will find "being able to answer Yes and No consistently 5-10 times a day" under the communication goals on his IEP. This is quite frustrating when you think about how he actually spent the past 5 years in school. I have been fighting for more academics, pre-reading skills, sight word introduction, but none seems to share my enthusiasm. So that leaves me, as Jason's mother, to be the one teaching the rest at home. Sadly, I do not have enough consistent evidence to prove to everyone that Jason can do it...not yes/no, not reading...even though he can do both 'sometimes', and only 'sometimes'.
However, last night....that long-coveted breakthrough happened. Well...I am really not sure if this is just another random episode, or a breakthrough indeed....but if it is...I'd like to remember this day.
Well...to back track a little bit, the CTN team has been suggesting a change in the way we talk to Jason. Instead of expecting him to answer either "yes" or "no", we would accept a "yes" as his choice and a lack of response as "no". But last night, instead of asking "Do you want cracker, Yes or No?", I just ask him "Do you want cracker, Yes?" (with an inflection). I've suggested this to the school before and have done it at home in the past but we got inconsistent results. But since dinner last night, he's been giving 100% accurate response to all my questions. As far as I can recall, below are the questions I asked:
- Do u want mango juice? Yes? - yes
- Do u want water? Yes? - shake head (of course! he hates drinking water!)
- Do u want to play the Barney counting game? Yes? - yes
- After we played the games several times, I asked the previous question again, he shook his head, but still say Barney. So I asked if he actually meant he wants to watch the Barney video, Yes? He said yes.
The "conversation" went back and forth several times over the night and involved nothing but a simple yes or no and some head-shaking but it's so perfectly done, that I feel like I'm on cloud nine.
Readers who do not have children with special needs would probably wonder why such a basic task (of saying yes/no) was regarded as such a feat. But the truth is, without this very basic skill, any further attempts to establish meaningful communication is almost impossible. If indeed what Jason did last night can be repeated consistently, there is a true potential that I can train him to use a communication device. While just 2 years ago, I may still be thinking of a $7000 Tango, but now, we can easily obtain a $500 iPad. Andy (my nephew) will be working on a choice-making app for Jason so he can practise more choice making on the device. I love technology when it does good stuff like this.
I so look forward to that day.
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