making a weighted vest for an older kid

Published August 16, 2009 by Nancy

What use is a weighted vest?

Till you try it, you don’t know.

So making one cheap as an experiment is a good idea before buying one of the expensive ones.

Besides, most of the pre-fab weighted vests are for preschoolers. Why do people seem unable to realize that these kids grow up???

Here’s what we found about weighted vests and older kids:

1. The first minute of wearing the weighted vest can be crushing. The kid falls to the floor in a puddle of icantdothis.  Expect drama. Turn it into comedy. Rule: Wear it for one minute, twice per day.
2. After three days, the kid has built up enough core that he can wear it for 10 minutes at a time. And that might enough.

What’s the vest doing? It’s waking up core muscles. This stimulates the connections between those muscles and the brain. The more that information goes up and down these connections, the stronger they get.

Kind of like paving a rutted path more and more till it becomes a super highway.

The core muscles support all the other muscles (arms, legs, neck). So these are the first ones that need to be strong.

How to make a weighted vest

1. At a used clothing store, buy a vest about the right size. Fleece it fine. Lined is good if you can find it. Handpockets are very good.
2. Also buy a small piece of non-stretchy fabric that matches the vest (or stick with black).
3. At a budget sporting goods store, but two sets of soft wrist weights with velcro fasteners. [Note: if you are short of cash, you could make these with old socks and playground pea-pebbles. Remember to sew divisions into the socks so that the stones don't all fall down to the bottom in a big lump.]
4. For each pair of weights, lay the strips of velcro on top of each other so that you fasten the weights in one long strip. The velcro strip will be the shoulder band. One weight will lie on the front, one on the back.
5. Put on the vest and hang the weights over the shoulders. Pin where the bottom of the weights sit and remove the vest.
6. Using the fabric, create a pocket for each of the weights to sit in. You want the bottom of the weight to rest at the bottom of the pocket to help distribute the pressure. The pocket should be exactly the length of the weight (not including the velcro band) so that it’s easy to put in and remove.
7. Create additional weights for the handpockets to balance top-to-bottom. Make small beanbags out of playground pea-pebbles. An alternative is plasticine or art clay (although these have the potential of drying out and becoming messy.

life after Asperger’s

Published August 15, 2009 by Nancy

We’re not really supposed to talk about this.

Yet with so many Asperger (and ADHD) kids doing neurofeedback now and eliminating their neurological difficulties, we end up at a place that hasn’t been defined yet.

Post-Asperger syndrome.

Or Post-ADHD. Post-Tourette’s.

What happens when you remove the Aspergerism from a person who has been Asperger since forever?

Here’s what we’ve discovered:

1. It doesn’t suck. That is, it doesn’t suck the personality right out of you. Personality remains. Identify remains. You are still you. You feel like you, only it doesn’t suck. It’s a happy thing.
2. You built a personal infrastructure around your Asperger difficulties. Think social habits, sensory habits, ways of thinking and behaving. Some are part of Aspergerism, and some are accommodations and byproducts. These tend to linger.
3. Habits and ways of living/thinking have to be unlearned. It takes a while. Expect a lot of quiet surprises. Little omigod moments when you realize you don’t hate this , or you aren’t afraid of this, or you don’t need this anymore.
4. Some aspects of Aspergerism allowed you to be <ahem> self-centered. Or at least what other people consider self-centered. Time’s up now. There are no more Get Out of Jail Free cards. With the neurological difficulties gone, you have no excuse. Do Unto Others.

Here are some thoughts for parents of post-Asperger kids;

1. Remember that each age has its own issues and hormones. Post-Asperger kids will have these as well as any post-Asperger issues. Remember that NT teens can be extremely annoying even without Asperger’s.
2. Social skills and concepts that they didn’t learn while they were seeing through the cloud of Aspergerism they can learn now. So find good books on social skills. Something with a title like “What Did Everybody Else Learn While I Was Trying to Figure Out Why The World Was Yelling At Me”. Look for teaching moments.
3. When they fall back into old patterns, remind them that they don’t need those habits anymore and that the world now expects more of them.

Asperger’s, eating, and self-esteem

Published August 12, 2009 by Nancy

Asperger people often have limited diets because of their mouth sensory issues. But with a bit of practice, they can teach their mouths to handle a wide range of nutritious foods.

Here’s the equation:

Food = Nutrition.

I get that. We all get that.

So then why is this post about Asperger’s, eating, and self-esteem?

A good question.

The answer: because this topic echoes through all the Asperger online forums like Seinfeld reruns.

Parents everywhere are hand-wringing over how their Aspie kid needs to socialize with peers to make friends and therefore needs to be able to eat the same foods as everyone else.

Once said kids learn to eat, say, hot dogs or pizza, that will raise their self-esteem. They will be able to fit in with their peers, and everyone will live happily ever after.

So here’s their new equation:

Food = Self-esteem

Right. So you ask, who’s to say that a kid’s self-esteem could not be affected if he/she has learned to gag down a piece of pizza on command? That’s quite a skill.

A skill, yes. But is it self-esteem?

Linking food  to self-esteem strikes me as a bad, bad idea. Like a mini eating disorder on a bun. Or a depression treadmill Lite.

Doing things that don’t feel right just to fit in with peers is a fake life.

“Don’t you feel proud of yourself for eating that slimy hot dog, just like all your friends?”

“Don’t you feel proud of yourself for smoking that whole cigarette, just like all your friends?”

Self-esteem, my eye.

What’s the kid supposed to say in response? They say what they’re supposed to say: Yes. And the parents feel proud of themselves for having helped their kid fit in.

Nice job.

Listen up. A kid has to have self-esteem about who he/she is, not what he/she eats.

Being able to put together a simple and nutritious lunch and eat it is an accomplishment because it is a step toward a life of health.

Being able to get peers to understand that you prefer eating an apple to eating barbecue chips is an accomplishment because it is a step toward a life of self-advocacy and personal power.

A parent’s job is not to mould an Asperger kid into a fake NT kid and not to teach them that they have value only when they are imitating their NT peers. It’s to help that kid build a full, rich, and happy life around who he/she is.

If you are a parent reading this, ask yourself: Is this about your kid’s self-esteem? Or yours?

Asperger’s and classroom management

Published August 11, 2009 by Nancy

Are you a teacher?

Then listen up.

Chances are you’ve had or soon will have an Asperger kid in your class. By the middle school years, these kids know they are different and often have self-esteem issues because of the pressure to conform.

Give up on conformity.

Asperger kids have unique value because they see the world differently than others. Focus on this talent in your classroom.

Here are some tips (and yes, I am a middle school teacher):

1. Go visual. Asperger kids tend to be visual learners. Think charts, graphs, tables, schedules, diagrams.
2. Give them a heads-up before you change anything related to the routine. Tell them what will be different and give a suggestion about what they should do.
3. Keep instructions short. One thing at a time.
4. Asperger kids are good at tasks that require micro-focus, whereas most kids at this age can’t focus more than a gnat. Sure, give open-ended and creative work that the average kids can do, but also give the deep-concentration work that Asperger kids can do. Be fair.
5. Be aware of sensory overload. Too much of anything (excitement, noise, frustration, movement) creates a sensory build-up in the kid’s body. This is a time bomb. Get tips from the parents on how to avoid sensory overload and how to defuse the bomb before it blows.
6. Let the kid leave class whenever he/she wants. Designate a go-to place. Don’t draw attention to these exits. This is the kid taking charge of the problem and doing what needs to be done.
7. Reserve extra consequences for kids who bully, tease, or treat Asperger classmates unfairly. Yes, that’s not fair. But kids have to learn not to pick on those who can’t defend themselves. When the costs are high, kids won’t do it.
8. Talk about good books on Asperger’s, meltdowns, sensory issues, etc. with the parents. Read the same books and try some of the ideas together, at home and at school.
9. Asperger kids argue with the teacher. Get over it. They’re not trying to be disruptive – they are disruptive. They see all people as equals, and they don’t get the power structures and hierarchies in the real world. Here’s a suggestion: If the kid is arguing and becoming disruptive, give the kid a piece of paper and tell him/her to write it all down, and you will discuss it later.
10. Don’t expect the Asperger kid in this year’s class to be anything like the Asperger kid in last year’s class. There is a lot of variability in who gets identified as Asperger. All the designation means is that this kid is not going to be like the norm, so special strategies are necessary.

Links
A very thorough article on the OASIS website

A list of articles related to education

You can also google some of these teaching approaches: TEACCH; SPELL; Higashi Daily Life Programme; Facilitated Communication; the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS); and The Options Approach (Son Rise).

Final tip: During conferences with parents, be sure to ask the parents if either of them are Asperger too. Most won’t volunteer the information. Conferences can wind up getting testy simply because parent and teacher can’t understand each other. It’s better to clear the air first.

why do some people hate raisins in muffins?

Published August 10, 2009 by Nancy

I hope you didn’t come to this blog hoping for an answer to that question. I meant it rhetorically - as in Why on earth do some people hate raisins in muffins?

The only people who have an excuse are the ones with sensory issues. That makes sense to me.

To people with mouth sensitivities, putting the crumbling dry texture of the muffin with the wet, squishy texture of raisins is EEW!

But what’s the excuse of those other non-raisin people? And who are they?

My son has sensory issues, so when we go visit Nonna and the cousins, she makes Muffins Without Raisins.

I have tried to get into them. Chew, chew, chew, absolutely no excitement. This is just bread.

My five-year-old nephew can’t stand it. He takes a mittenful of raisins and tries sprinkling them on top of the muffin. When they tumble off, he takes individual raisins, pokes them into the muffin with his tiny fingers, and looks balefully at Nonna.

I met my first raisin-muffin-hater when I was on my way to Peru with a group of North Americans to do aid work. In the prep meetings beforehand, a co-teammate actually refused a muffin on the grounds that it had a raisin in it, and raisins were disgusting. I shook my head. Do you have any idea where we are going?

Raisins save muffins from breadhood. So do cranberries and blueberries.

Without them, why bother?