Writing on the Whiteboard

Nichole and Patrick went over the list of goals that he made up and put together two we would implement. The first goal is for Patrick to work towards making his own daily schedule. Eventually hopefully he’ll be able to plan his own day, from grooming and chores to free time. If he could do this, he could live somewhat independently, maybe in a supervised roommate situation. Being in charge of his schedule is a big task. He believes he’s up to the task, or in Patrick speak, “It’s a good thing I’m good at schedules”

The plan was that Patrick and I would write the schedule on the whiteboard every morning together. This would help him think about what he needs to do everyday, instead of just reading and doing them.

We are hoping that with repetition he can memorize most of the jobs. Some jobs must be done everyday, whether he wants to or not. Like relieving his bladder. This is the big one that worries me. My fear is that if he were not living here with me prompting him everyday, he wouldn’t pee other than when he showers. His brain doesn’t get neurofeedback from his bladder telling him it’s full and needs to be relieved. There are a lot of funny stories to go along with that, but that’s a whole other topic. His teacher tells me that he goes to the bathroom at TRACE, unprompted. He’s away from home for 7 hours and goes to the bathroom once. Is that good or bad? I don’t know, I just know I go a lot more than that. At least he goes. He has been trained over the last 6 years to go to the bathroom when he gets home from the bus. If it’s a normal day and he comes home on the bus, he’ll do it unprompted. If not, I have to tell him to go. He also goes as a part of his morning grooming duties, which is usually after he’s been awake for an hour. 0% of the time he did not. I have to ask him after he’s done with his morning duties to make sure he went. Lastly he sits on the toilet before he gets into the shower every night. I would like to find a way to make going to the bathroom at least 4 times a day, so routine he won’t leave without doing it. That is partly what I hope will come out of helping him write his own schedule

This change of schedule requires me to wake him up 10 minutes earlier. It takes him literally 5 minutes to pee and wash his hands. I’ll have to wake him up and tell him to get up and go the bathroom. He’ll bark and moan at me about not wanting to. I’ll remind him that in order to be an adult he needs to be able to take himself to the bathroom. I’ll point out that everyone else in our family goes to the bathroom first thing in the morning, listing their names. I’ll do this every morning, for I don’t know how long. I’ll have to wake up 10 minutes earlier as well. I like to get myself prepared for my day before I wake him . I’ll follow the same routine at night just before he goes to bed. Hopefully having him schedule his trips to the bathroom will make a difference in his resistance; after all it’s his idea right? We’ll see.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings, we erased the white board and he dictated the schedule to me. He knew all of the routine chores. I helped him with a few. Together we came up with some other stuff. It was raining Saturday so there were games to play and stories to write. Sunday was beautiful, so we included a bike ride and practicing shooting hoops. He said that he had himself a regular sports activity day.

The weekdays have been a little more difficult. For one thing, he can’t do two things at once., including thinking about his schedule and eating. Sin order for us to go over his schedule of the day I’ll wake him an additional 5 minutes to give us that time.. Today, he was moving so slowly; we just didn’t have time to wait. I write the schedule for him.

Mostly the items on his schedule are fairly routine. He’s autistic, routine is his mantra. Since it’s ,moving time slots on the schedule, I put going to the bathroom at the top. Then I allow him to think of what comes next. He can remember his morning duties, which are grooming. He can get to waiting for the bus, but I realized that we’d need to go into more detail on the items I usually put out there. Today he has a Karate class, which I label “Karate”. I then prompt him when he’s here to get dressed into his uniform. That will need to go on his list as well. He could come up with the chores that he does after school and of course, let’s not forget the reason for existence, Playing computer games, he didn’t forget that. I wrote in using the bathroom right before bed, because again, it’s a in a new time zone. If he’s going to live by these lists someday without my prompting, he’s going to need the detail to be there. Even the small things aren’t as simple as they seem.

I think I’ll start to have him write down the lists each day in his notebook. That way next week on Wednesday, he can pull out that list and take from it what he needs.

It doesn't seem possible that we could consider letting a person who doesn't go to the bathroom by himself go alone out in the world. I guess I won't have to worry about him getting lost at the bathroom or missing the bus because of using the bathroom!!!

The second goal is for Patrick to read and summarize newspaper articles and send them to Nichole. We'll get to that next time.