Clear as Mud

Yesterday morning, I put Patrick’s schedule up on the whiteboard. We’ve been filling out his schedule together mostly, but I didn’t have enough time this morning, I will get better at waking him up earlier. He put on his Seaworld uniform and came out for breakfast. The first thing out of his mouth was “Why do I have to stay alone?” What a nice complete sentence. He even says it with indignation. He leads you to believe he does not want to do this. But that’s not the case. This is exactly what he wants to do. His sentence has foiled him. He must have heard this sentence somewhere else. I wonder if he has information stored in his brain by word or subject and when he wants to say something, he pulls a sentence out of that file, repeating it verbatim. He retrieved this sentence from his staying home alone file and repeated it, even though it means the negative of what he wants to communicate. When he says it, he has no idea it’s not the appropriate thing to say. It came from the right file. ‘Staying alone’ are in the sentence. I have to probe him to get to what he wants. “You don’t want to stay alone?” I ask. “Yes, yes, I do want to stay here alone.” I explain that he his sentence means that he doesn’t want to stay alone. He reiterates his desire to stay. This miscommunication happens everyday in one way or another. How is he going to communicate to the bus driver where he will need to get off?. What if the bus breaks down and he needs to communicate with the bus driver or his employer? What if it’s raining and someone at the bus stop tries to get him to go to the bathroom with him or her and he gives him or her a prepackaged sentence that means the opposite? It’s frightening.

This same afternoon, Patrick called me from the school bus, on his way home. He told me he was in a bad mood. Bad mood, what is a bad mood? He has no idea. I ask why. He says something about a piece of paper from Charlotte and a blue hat that he’s still wearing. Hmmm. “Did you forget your work hat today?” “Yes”, he replies. Hmm. “Did you get in trouble for not wearing your hat?” I’m thinking maybe he was written up for being out of uniform, thus the paper and hat. “Not really,” he says. “Charlotte gave me a blue hat that I was supposed to give back”. I see, so he borrowed a hat from Charlotte. It was a sunny day. That makes sense. Though I’m not at all sure about any of it. I tell him I’ll see him when he gets home. His sister and I speculate what he was talking about. Neither of us is sure or correct. When the bus arrives I hear the bus driver tell him, “Is it okay for you to be in a silly mood tomorrow on the bus?” “Not really, no, I don’t think so” he mumbles. The bus driver says he’s been silly the whole ride home. That’s a bad mood? He walks off the bus wearing a blue SeaWorld hat. He says it is Charlotte’s. I make sure he puts it in his bag so that he’ll return it to her tomorrow. There is no paper. I’ll never know what he was talking about. And I’m schooled in his language. How will he get himself around without being able to communicate? By luck? Lucky that there’s never a glitch in his routine? Or by the magic cell phone where he calls me when something happens and I come to help him? This gives me hope.