The Sentence Game

Nichole came over two weekends ago to hang with us and work with Patrick. It’s always a good day in the Melville house when Nichole is there. Everyone is happy, knowing she will pay some attention to each person and dog. She’s like Mary Poppins, something fun always happens when Nichole is around.

Nichole had two plans for the day. The first objective was to test Patrick’s sensitivity and response to having a full bladder. She had him drink a cup of water every hour or so. Periodically during the day she also had him stand up and put his hands onto his stomach to see if it was distended. She asked him if it hurt just a little bit (hurt is a subjective word, but he used it). When he said yes, she told him that is what it feels like when he needs to relieve his bladder. When it “hurt” he went into the bathroom and peed. That continued all day. He never went to go to the bathroom unprompted. He was prompted more than on his average day. Possibly if made him drink a lot another day and didn’t prompt him he would take himself to the bathroom. We’ll save that for another day.

The other objective on the agenda was to work on Patrick’s sentence structure. When she arrived she told Patrick the family was going to do one of his favorite things all day, play a new game called the Sentence Game. She explained to him that during the course of the day he would earn a point for every full sentence he said. But he would have one point taken away for every partial or incorrect sentence he said. The whole family would be listening and keeping score. If at the end of the day, which we determined to be 4pm, he had at least 40 points, Nichole would take Patrick somewhere to get him a treat that he wanted. They talked about it and he decided the reward he wanted was a book. Nichole carried around a notebook and kept the tally. Everyone kept an ear out for sentences, pointing them out as the day went on. He never asked if he was supposed to correct other people’s sentences, or if anyone else was getting points. He accepted the rules as they were and was happy to play.

As you may have figured, he did reach 40 points, barely. I don’t recall the exact number of correct and incorrect sentences, but his sentences during this day were spoken correctly about 60% of the time. That’ is a lot of room for miscommunication. By midday, as he was getting used to the game, we noticed that sometimes he would self correct. He would start a sentence badly, stop himself, think for a minute and then say the sentence correctly. Wow. I didn’t think he could generate clear ideas without prompting. It is possible. Thinking about what he wants to tell someone specifically is an attempt to communicate. Often when he’s talking, he’s really just talking to no one in particular. He’s just thinking about things out loud and doesn’t often care if anyone is listening. It’s not an attempt at communication.

Communication is difficult for him. For the most part he gets lazy and throws out a word or two. When they are accepted that way they are reinforced. I’m am always stopping his every sentence asking for clarification. I speak his language, so I understand the lazy one or two word sentences, but no one else does. I try to tell him other people won’t understand what he’s saying. “I don’t understand that.” “What are you trying to say?“ “What does that mean?” It’s a long, slow process. Not a wonder we’re both tired at the end of the day.

If I could figure out what motivated him to correct his sentences I might be able to replicate it. Why did he start to correct his sentences before anyone told him it was incomplete? Maybe it was the challenge of the game, the love of the rules, easily quantifiable rules, where he wins. I should try it again over the weekend. He could earn half of his computer time for accumulating a certain number of points. I read a book Exiting Nirvana by Clara Claiborne Clark about a mother and her adult autistic daughter. For one of her daughter’s birthdays she wanted a golf swing counter, she’s a number geek of course. Her daughter loved to count things, so she taught her to count her own good deeds each day. She could be rewarded with a Popsicle or whatever treat she wanted at the end of the day. She would keep of tally of nice things she said to people and subract when she was rude or selfish. Mostly it was the love of counting things that motivated her to earn enough points to get her ice cream. Maybe he too would just love accumulating points. Wouldn’t that be so cool if I could teach Patrick to count his own sentence errors? He could then go around self correcting. Wow!! Now I’m getting way ahead of myself!!!! I’ll try the game again to see if he’s still motivated. We shall see.