DD (recently diagnosed with pdd-nos) is having a really hard time with some concepts like on/under, yes/no, he/she, etc. that I know are quite common with kids on the spectrum. She is working on them in ST and with me at home informally. My question is what to do when she becomes agitated about being wrong. DD absolutely HATES being reprimanded or corrected in even the slightest, gentlest way- it can set her off for hours, also fairly typical of ASD kids, I know.
Today she started insisting that "on" was "under" for no apparant reason (we were NOT in ST or anything like that). When I said that was "on" she got very agitated and starting screaming (piercing) and crying and yelling "NO, That's under!!" over and over very adamantly. That lasted for a while and she finally got out of it, who knows how.
Later, she started insisting that a girl character on her video "Lily" was a boy and a boy character was a girl. Again, for no clear reason, we weren't talking about it or working on he/she at that particular time (though she is working on both on/under, he/she in ST). It seems the more I gently say Lily is a girl or try to explain or in anyway disagree the more upset and truly distraught she gets.
The problem is I don't want to further confuse things by agreeing that Lily is a boy when she already has so many problems with pronouns, though at the same time I do want to encourage talking and trying to talk. DD gets so upset and persists and is so adamant that it just breaks my heart. She so wants to be right and she is some times, but today she is just plain getting everything backwards. But insisting she's not! It must be SOOOO frustrating for her. I finally got out of it by saying something lame like "yes, if Lily were a boy, she'd be a boy" just so we could move on without me actually lying. I knew she wouldn't really understand but would somehow get the idea that she "won". Lame, I know. But after all day and several prolonged episodes I had to!! She just stays distraught and upset until she gets some kind of reassurance that she is right. She also gets like this when I tell her not to do something (like hit orthrow sand or something like that) but with that kind of stuff I just hold firm because I am setting limits and cannot condone that type of behavior. This is about language though and I don't want her to get so frustrated that she doesn't want to talk anymore but I also don't want to compound her language problems with false praise just for the sake of peace and quiet.
I always feel a bit violated or traumatized after one of these episodes. It's like nothing I do or say is right. There is some magic key that will stop it but nobody has clued me in and there's no way to make it right until I stumble upon it. It can happen over anything and is totally out of the blue. Is this typical ASD stuff and if so why/what is it? Is this what they mean by perservation?
So, really, uh........any ideas what do I do in these types of language situations????? I obviously don't want to give her false info but I'm not so sure it's worth letting her be so agitated over. It must be her way of working it all out. How do I help and not hinder? Thanks!
This sounds so familiar!! It was just a few months ago that adam was doing this! It was everytime I said the word no...whether it was to correct him in language or to tell him not to do something. With the language what i ended up doing is when he was persistantly wrong....instead of correcting him I ignored him..LOL I like you did not want to "aid" to the confusion. Also I tried correcting him without using the word no...for instance he would say...."that's a blue truck" and if it were yellow I would say right after him and point to the object "thats a yellow truck" But sometimes this didnt' even work and it caused him to get upset. So mostly how I got through it was pointing the things out that he frequently got wrong when he wasn't talking about them. Like when I would notice a girl on tv I would say, "look at that girl' or "she's a girl" and if he tried to correct me I would ignore it and if he would respond the correct way I would give him big praise. Oh i know what you are going through. LOL Talk about having to tip-toe around your child huh? LOL LOL Now i will ask him are you a boy or a girl and he will respond with "Adam's a boy" and sometimes he will now follow that with.." Mommy's a girl" and go through the whole family. That stage your talking about though lasted a couple of months with adam.....so hang in there ok? Don't know if this helps or not.
Karrie
I know with Jeffrey's landmarks issue I did try to correct him once over what was the U of M and what wasn't. Needless to say he won that arguement. It didn't matter how many times I tried to correct him he absolutely insisted I was wrong. Sometimes Gabe will do that with colors and if I ignore it, it does go away quicker.
Tammy