LIVE AND DIE BY THE WHITEBOARD

Our house is centered around an object that hangs on the wall, in the kitchen by the dining table, clearly visible to all. It’s a simple whiteboard with black wood trim and magnetic erasers. Patrick’s daily schedule is written on this board in marker. Like most autistic people, the schedule is his lifeblood. It tells Patrick what is going to happen to him during his day. Where he’s going to go, who he’s going to see, what chores and duties he needs to do and when they will be done. He goes through the list completing each one before moving on. It brings stability to his day making life easier for him and in turn easier for us.

The whiteboard has been a vital part of our lives for many years. Here is abridged story of how we discovered the whiteboard. Patrick was 12 before he was diagnosed with Autism. Being an undergrad Psych major I immediately ran to the bookstore and bought a shelf of books about families with Autistic children and behavior modification techniques that worked with autistic people. I was moved by one book in particular, the Dragons of Autism by Olga Holland. Olga is a mother of a child with autism. She created schedules for her child that helped his comfort level and functioning. Her successes motivated me to start a schedule with Patrick. I decided on a big whiteboard that he could not miss Everyday I wrote on the board in detail what he was going to do.

Shortly after his diagnosis, we hired a brilliant, loving aidewho was a student at a local college. She and I created a small behavior modification program for him to get rid of some inappropriate behaviors. We listed the appropriate behavior on his schedule. We kept a tally of his reward time on the whiteboard so that he could see plainly what time he was loosing and why. In the beginning, he was very motivated to watch pre recorded cooking shows, now he likes playing computer games. He learned to work hard to keep all of his computer time. It has been a great tool for modifying behaviors. Now that he’s 19, we don’t often need to work on his behaviors. Though recently he was making inappropriate shrieking noises instead of laughing. We wrote on the board that he would lose 5 minutes of computer time per shriek. He did lose computer time. After aboutwo weeks, he quit the shrieking. I’ll use this same approach to reward independent behaviors. I'll let him know exactly what he needs to do to be left at home alone. If he doesn't do them, he'll lose some part of his computer privileges. The board and shedule will be a great asset to us in the transition. The hard part is deciding which baby steps will get him there. That will come next!