Restrictive Behaviour and Play

One day, Hubby and I were talking at the dining table. For a moment, we did not hear anything from J. When we went over to see what he was doing, we saw what you see here below.

These numbers are all nicely sorted out

All the numbers were nicely sorted out by colours and by order.

This is actually a board game called Rummikub®. But to see him play in this manner, we find it amusing because J must have taken great efforts and concentration to get this job done. No wonder we did not hear from him for sometime!

Numbers have been one of his motivation. J is obsessed with lifts. Through lifts, he found numbers. So he loves to put them in order or arrange numbers to lift level. And because of his love for numbers through the obsession of lifts, he learnt counting, number recognition, addition, position, even and odd numbers and recently, we learnt multiplication (groups of 2 to 10) and learning to spell numbers. Amazing, isn't it? All through the motivation of his obsession. Ha!

In the recent Diagnostic Assessment, the report indicates that J requires substantial support in his restrictive and repetitive behaviours. According to the psychologist, he has the following which could somehow impaired him:

• Obsessive attachment to objects
• Preoccupation with a narrow topic of interest
• A strong need for sameness, order and routine
• Hyper-reactive or hypo-reactive to sensory input

When the Diagnosis Report was presented to us, it somehow confirms the differences J has. The sad truth is that society views Autism as a disability. True, people in the Autism Spectrum Disorder have challenges, but this is true of everyone, whether they have a disability or not.

Autism is just a word. It is a label used by medical professionals and schools to categorize people who have a certain cluster of difficulties in specific areas.

We have learnt that a diagnosis does not indicate how a child will eventually turn out. The label does not change who they are. J is fearfully and wonderfully made, by GOD. J's weakness can be his strength too. He is still the same beautiful, amazing, loving child he was before the diagnosis.

The Art of J (Part 1)

Before J was almost 4.5 years old, he was never interested in drawing. He would not even draw a line on a piece of paper. When I passed him a piece of crayon, he would use the crayon to knock on the paper. So the paper ended with lots of dots. Even when I showed him how to draw a line, he would move away from the table and play his "lift" using 4 wooden blocks or his Megablocks or his hard-cover books.

When he reached 4 years old, he would get us to draw "lift" on paper but he still would not be the one holding a crayon to draw.

Until one day in November 2016, almost coming to 4.5 years old, his daddy taught him to draw squares and rectangles as "lift". Then he started to really draw on paper.

Daddy initially taught J how to draw 2 rectangles together.
Later on, J improvised to have the lines on the right.
The lines can be staircase, escalator or up & down buttons.

No! He never draw houses and people and trees or cartoon characters or Superheroes or beautiful skyscrapers, landscapes and buildings but just rectangles, squares and lines.

Drawing of Rectangles

To us, this is a good start. It is something that will help him interpret what is in his mind, at least about lifts.

One of J's earliest drawings
Notice 2 lines at the sides of the lifts?
These are "up" & "down" buttons.

After every drawing of the lifts, he would ask these questions:

1. How many levels are there?
   Answer: (Tell the levels based on his drawing)
2. What is the last level?
   Answer: Sky Garden
3. What is on the door?
   Answer: Advertisement
4. (Repeat Question) What is on the door?
   Answer: Window Pane
   Note: If I still answer "Advertisement", he will ask "Is there Window Pane on the door?"
5. (Pointing to the 1st floor on the drawing) How many buttons are there? (Referring to the buttons outside the lift)
   Answer: 1 button
   Note: If there is a B1, I will have to answer "2 buttons".
6. (Pointing to the last floor on the drawing) How many buttons are there? (Referring to the buttons outside the lift)
   Answer: 1 button

J never fail to ask these questions after each of his drawings. Predictable? Rigidity? Well, this is one of the ASD traits - repeating questions and standard answers. (Till I can even remember).

So long as J saw papers, even rough paper,
he would just take a piece of crayon and draw his "lift".

Recently, J drew "lifts" on his daddy's birthday card. I decided to use sparkling glue to do the outline to enhance the drawing but more so, for J to be exposed that his drawing should not be limited to what he knows now. When I was showing him how to apply the sparkling glue, tracing the outline, he looked so amazed! I could see that amazement in his eyes and he was so excited!

J said we celebrate Daddy's birthday on the 3rd floor.
Hence, the birthday cake on the 3rd floor.

Through this, I guess one of our roles as parents is to just expose our child to different things and let him take his time and lead to be ready to learn new stuff. When he is not ready, there is no way we can force him to take in the new pieces of information but when he is ready, there is no limit to his learning and most importantly, the child never stop to learn and so are we too.