The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free

I was excited to see that Anne Byrn has written a version of her Cake Mix Doctor series for gluten free cake mixes.

The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free, Classic Cakes, Cookies, Brownies, Bundts, and Bars, by Anne Byrn, retails for $14.95, and is a 308 page paperback.

My review copy arrived in early December. The first cake I made was the Banana Bread Cake with Caramel Glaze (page 117). I had bananas that needed to be used in banana bread or thrown away. I found my bundt pan and got to work. Check out the pictures I took of my very first GFCF bundt cake.

I love the convenience. Baking gluten-free from scratch means I have ten thousand ingredients (slight exaggeration) to make a recipe. Using a GF white cake mix from Whole Foods and a few "regular" ingredients from my kitchen had me making one of the quicker GFCF batters I've ever made.

Author Byrn includes suggestions to make most recipes dairy free. Occasionally, there is a recipe that can not be made dairy free, but the majority of recipes in the cookbook have GFCF versions. I made the caramel glaze for the Banana Bread Cake using coconut milk in place of the cream. The texture and crumb were excellent - no gummy blob in place of cake, here.

(Penny's notes: 1) We rotate eggs in baked goods at my house, and I made this first cake with eggs instead of egg replacer. I wanted to see what the original recipe made. Next time, I'll try it w/ egg replacer and have something to compare. 2) I use real butter. (Some people use ghee or clarified butter.) I used real butter in the cake pictured here. When my daughter was two and had been on the GFCF diet for eight months, our DAN! doctor recommended we try real butter. He suggested that there is not enough casein in it to cause problems for some children. I refused to try it for about a month because I had seen a four-day regression when my daughter ate one cheerio that I was unable to remove from her mouth before she swallowed it. Based on our doctor's medical advice, we did try butter on GFCF toast with no signs of infraction, and while I do use it sparingly, I did use it in this recipe. Consult with your doctor before trying any dairy if you are sensitive to it in any way. This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor and do not play one on this blog.)

This is not an allergen-free cookbook. If you (like me) are baking for someone with more sensitivities than simply gluten and dairy, you'll need to know how to make substitutions in some of the recipes (particularly for eggs; eggs are the most challenging item to substitute from this cookbook). Additionally, Byrn uses cream cheese in some of the recipes; for those of us baking soy-free as well as GFCF, I have not found a dairy-free, soy-free substitute for cream cheese. Still, there are lots of recipes in this book that I can use.

I don't like the fact that a recipe sometimes begins on the right side of the page and I have to turn the page to read the rest of the recipe.

I do like the place in the margins for my own notes as I bake through this cookbook.

The ingredient lists and directions are big enough for me to read w/ my reading glasses on.

The cookbook features recipes for cakes, cookies, desserts for any occasion, from dessert with a family dinner, to potlucks, to birthdays, to weddings.

Bottom line, The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free is a must have in a GFCF kitchen.

Workman Publishing sent me a copy of The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free in exchange for a review. I am not paid for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

What part of the Wakefield paper can the media NOT read?????

"We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described."

http://generationrescue.com/pdf/wakefield2.pdf

Seen on facebook

Articles that appeared in my facebook feed that are worth sharing:

Where Did Our Friends Go?

Allergy Alert (food allergies at church) Interestingly, "they have to learn sometime that they can't have what everyone else has" is not on this list of suggestions...

Will Your Church Care For The Special Needs Child?

Visiting a Church With Your Special Needs Child

Math Facts Now; a TOS Crew Review

I reviewed the Math Facts NOW! download (a CD version is available) with my homeschooler. Math Facts NOW! is a program designed to allow students to practice math facts, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. The parent or teacher enters the student's name, sets up an assignment that ranges from 5 to 200 problems, plus a time limit per problem (we use 60 seconds) and the number of times the student must correctly type a problem that he or she got wrong (minimum is twice). Then the parent/teacher assigns a name to the assignment (which is saved) and the student may begin.

I like the simplicity of this program. The simplicity is its strength, in my opinion. There are no distracting bells and whistles that pull a student with attention challenges off task. The screen is a rectangular shaped white box with a few words of instruction and your numerals and math symbols, and that's it. Only ONE math problem at a time is featured on the screen, which reduces anxiety for the child who resists when she sees a page or two of one math problem after another. Parents and teachers who have to cover major parts of an 8½ x 11 page of math problems so that the student can see and focus on only one probem or one line at a time will probably like this feature.

I like the fact that I can set the drill to work on just one or two numbers in areas where my homeschooler is weak. My school-building schooler who is weak in multiplication of higher numbers can work on just higher numbers; My homeschooler who is just learning to subtract and hasn't grasped division, yet, can work on just 1's and 2's, if I set up a set of drills that way.

For my school-building schooler who needs some practice with multiplying and dividing higher numbers, I like the option to give a student a short answer time. I want that child to know multiplication facts quickly without trying to calculate them.

I like the way the program spotlights an equation that you missed before, reminding you to be careful.

Great response to customer preferences: I did not like the fact that I was unable to assign just a few problems. When we first downloaded the program, the fewest number of problems I could assign was 50. Fifty problems are too many for some students with attention challenges. I'd like to be able to assign just 10 or 20. My homeschooler begins asking at 20, "Can I be done, now?" When several crewmates desired the ability to set a lower minimum number, Math Facts Now responded quickly by lowering that minumum to 5.

I don't like the fact that I must assign a time limit. I want to sit at the laptop with the abacus and work on subtraction, an area where we need work, where my daughter can look at the problem in her Math Facts NOW! window on the laptop screen and figure it out on the abacus in "manipulative mode". Sixty seconds is too short for a child with processing delays. I want her to experience 4-2=2 and not just memorize an answer, and this program could allow me a wonderful opportunity to do that if I were not limited to 60 seconds to complete a single problem. Additionally, if the student must take a break during the lesson, the math problem that is left open will run out of time and be counted wrong, which means the student will have to type that problem out, twice, when he/she returns. Math Facts Now's Tom Furtado is going to consult the programmer to ask if increasing the time limit is a simple change; stay tuned.

Kids with fine motor challenges may need an adult to type for them, particularly on a laptop with no separate keypad. That's okay with me; it becomes an exercise in co-regulation.

I have to sit with my daughter to do any digital product or she sneaks to some favorite website instead and goes off task. I opted to have her speak the answer aloud while I input the answer. There were times when I gave her the opportunity to input the answer. Some of our laptop keys didn't work 100% of the time with this program. I don't know if we were pressing them too quickly or what, exactly, but we got some wrong answers due to the keyboard.

There is a place to program a reward for your student who completes a set of problems. I have not used that feature.

Math Facts NOW! is priced at $15.95 in either the download or CD. It is a program that I wrinkled my nose at when I first saw it, thinking I would not like it. First impressions are sometimes wrong, and in this case, I was wrong. The simplicity of the program is powerful. Thumbs up.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Math Facts NOW! Version 2.0 runs on Windows 2000, ME, XP, Vista and Windows 7 and requires 7 Mb of free hard drive space. Math Facts NOW! is not currently available the for Macintoch nor Linux operating systems.

To read my Crewmates' review of Math Facts NOW!, please go HERE.

I was given a download of Math Facts NOW! in order to review the product. I am not paid for reviews and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

Pick and Draw Game

Pick and Draw is a drawing game of making simple cartoon faces.

Pick and Draw creator Rich Davis sent me a game to review and one to give away.

Each player begins with a blank piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. The rules are simple. Each player draws a face card, nose card, eyes card, mouth card, hair card, all face down. Flip over your cards and do the best to draw your cartoon face, one piece at a time.

Adorable!

Pick and Draw is a great game for a wide age range. Adults, tweens, teens, and littles can play this one together. Creator Rich Davis asked me for some input as the parent of a child on the autism spectrum. I have trouble looking at a game for just the fun factor; I'm the parent of a child with autism, and I mentally evaluate every game for therapeutic or academic value. I can't help it; it's a Pennyism.

First of all, if you're an RDI® family, or use another developmental or relationship intervention (like Communicating Partners, for example), I think you'll see huge developmental and relationship value here.

The game is simple. Cards. Paper. Pencil. I like that, because it allows the relationship pieces to shine through, as opposed to a game with too many parts and pieces, too many rules. When there are too many game parts, game parts and pieces become objects to stim on. If you have a player that stims on the cards, limit the number you put on the table.

The steps of the game are simple. Turn over the head card. Draw the simple shape of the cartoon character's head. Turn over the nose card. Draw the simple shape. There are no complicated figures to draw. Even an adult like me, who somehow did not seem to inherit her mother's ability to sketch and draw, can copy these shapes. Mom's gift skipped a generation; my kids draw better than I do. Pick and Draw puts me on a level playing field with them.

Here's a bonus: There is no winner. A lot of parents and teachers look for games that grow relationship experience without being competitive. Another bonus: No shuffling of the cards is required. Yet another bonus is that you don't have to hold the cards in your hands. No trying to fan them out for little hands. Pick and Draw isn't that kind of card game.
No reading is involved in Pick and Draw.

Li'l Bit and I had fun with this. We giggled together as we flipped over the cards to see what silly cartoon face we would be making.

There is an opportunity for working on a variety of relationship and academic goals:

Being with. Never discount the value of "being with" your child. Smile. Delight in what they draw. Emotion share at non-verbal levels and with simple words and phrases.
Short and sweet: One game takes maybe five minutes. Sometimes our kids quit trusting us when we push them too far, too long. The fact that we can stop Pick and Draw after one fun round is really positive, it adds to our trustworthiness as a guide and play partner, and it is a foundational piece to attention length and shared attention with other.
Turn-taking: You turn over your card first, and draw it. Then I'll draw mine. You show me what you drew, and I'll show you what I drew.
Visual discrimination and imitation. Is the head/face shape a rectangle or oval or circle? There's a difference. If you turn the cards upside down, can you draw the face and features upside down, turn it right side up, and it look like a face?
Visual memory: Can we look at card or series of cards for 15 seconds, turn them over, and draw them from memory?
Coordination: Let's flip over our cards together and draw them together.
Non-verbal interaction: Scrunch your mouth like the one you just drew. Make an "ooooOOOOoooo" ing sound of surprise when your child draws something fun. Gesture. Families who are spotlighting different aspects, different channels of non-verbal communication will find opportunities here.

Perspective taking: Flip over your card, show it to the other players, give them time to view it, say, "See what I got!" After you draw it, hold up your drawing, let everyone see. Players who need practice referencing and shifting attention have lots of opportunities here.

Declaratives and Experience Sharing Language: "See what I got!" "Look what I made!" "Look what you made!" "I love it!" "Mine is silly looking!" Resist the urge to question your child. Slow down, wait for him/her to speak. Avoid prompting for speech. To borrow from Dr. Jim, make yourself "possible" for your child. Pick and Draw gives you the background activity to do just that.

Collaboration: All of the players could take turns penciling/drawing one piece of one cartoon, passing the paper and pencil around from player-to-player. Or the players could get up from their seats and move clockwise around the table, drawing parts on different pictures.

Comparison: All of the players could draw the same cartoon from the same cards. Or not. Either way, decide whose is biggest? Meanest looking? Silliest? Neatest? Messiest?

Variations on a theme (same but different, different but same; "just noticeable differences"): Use different kinds of paper and pencils, pens, markers. We used markers on the back of square paper plates for our first game. (We forgot to freestyle some ears onto our cartoon faces.) Play in different places. We played cross-legged facing one another on the couch.

Use those little pencils you only see at church, miniature golf, and IKEA or some teeny pieces from broken crayons and you have the set up for some fine motor work and a good tripod grasp.

You could draw side by side at a white board. For the child who needs gross motor activity, big cartoons at a white board might be exactly what the PT ordered.

Learning from past experience and creative problem solving (don't forget to model this with self-talk, aloud): "Last time, I didn't draw my head big enough and ran out of room. This time, I'm going to draw the head bigger."

Identifying shapes, hopefully, with declaratives. "My cartoon guy's eyes are ovals!"

Episodic memory: Looking back at cartoons you made earlier, remark about how you laughed so hard when you drew that funny face! You could use an art pad or binder for the game in order to save your drawings and look back on them, or you could put your drawings on the refrigerator wall of fame.

Creativity and more being with: Add features not on the deck of cards. Ears. Hat. Mustache. Chin hairs. (ew)

Self-discovery: I'm a cartoonist! I'm an artist! I'm creative!

Experience sharing: Who does yours look like?
Workboxes: Give your student two sets each feature, tell him/her to draw four unique faces using those 10 cards. How many different combinations could one draw with two sets of features? That's a math problem!

Creativity: Make up a background or story about your character. Creator Rich Davis includes idea starting suggestions with the deck. Give your drawing a name. What does he/she like to do or is good at? What's his/her favorite kind of music?

You could make your own game variation where one person looks at the cards and describes for the other what to draw, building listening skills and describing skills. That would be fun in teams.
For a child who isn't able to hold a pen or pencil, Mom or Dad could draw approximations of the shapes on clear plastic sheets (I'm thinking of the kind you'd use on an overhead projector) and layer the plastic sheets for a cartoon face. (Might be a lot of work).
The games would make great gifts for teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, professionals who work with children with developmental delays.
I suspect that Pick and Draw would be a great game for a dyad or triad of children learning to navigate relationships and friendships.
Mom Jenny Herman reminded me that the deck of cards fits in your purse. Great for waiting rooms. All you need is a notebook. Those teeny, fit-in-your-palm-sized notebooks w/ the spiral at the top would be great.
That's my short list. *wink* What ideas do you have? I'd love to hear from you.
Rich Davis blogs here. Be sure to check out some of the new cartoons he demonstrates there. You can order your own game, here.

Rich Davis, the creator of Pick and Draw, sent me a game to review, at no charge, and a second game to give away. I am not paid for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

Bible Curriculum: Positive Action For Christ, a TOS Crew Review

Positive Action For Christ produces Bible curricula for churches, Christian schools, and homeschoolers from a fundamentalist perspective.

I'm still learning how to teach my girl, still learning how she learns, still trying on curricula, products, and resources that are a comfortable fit for us. I look for resources that are easy to adapt to our needs, learning style, attention challenges, developmental delays, etc. This curriculum is something we can use; we are able to adapt and shorten sessions (and take more days than suggested) to complete lessons, take longer to cover material if/when we need to.

Positive Action For Christ sent us an extremely well-packaged teacher binder and student workbook for first grade written by Cherie Noel, Enjoying God's Gifts.

I like this curriculum. I like the intent behind the curriculum. And I like the developmental scaffolding used over time with the curriculum. I'll quote from the materials, "...Students will begin during the second semester of first grade to find easily located Scriptures to answer questions. Second and third grade students will focus on a specific book of the Bible and follow the story line through the book to find scriptural truth. Fourth through sixth grade students will be able to use the entire Bible as their source with passages from various book s used in each lesson." (Preface, page 4, of the teacher binder)

Author Noel spends several pages in the preface explaining teaching strategies that spotlight growing the thinking skills of a child. I'm working with a child with developmental delays who is a very concrete, literal thinker. We have a consultant who guides us in a developmental approach to growing thinking skills. Making the connections that Noel describes is much more challenging for a child with developmental delays. I have to keep that in perspective as we work through the material. Some children w/ special needs may be academically at grade-level, and still have delays in thinking skills; if you're the parent of a learner with special needs, be sure to keep that in mind as you choose a level for your child. You may need to take a step back to get the developmental understanding level.

Positive Action for Christ provides 35 lessons with weekly lesson plan outlines for five, four, and three-day weeks. (I'd like a two-week plan for a child who needs longer to process and learn.) There's a memory verse component; a study skills/thinking component; a character trait component; a life application/thinking component; and vocab. Check out the sample here.

The teacher guide gives me enough direction to get through the lesson and enough leeway to customize for my special-needs learner. I like the way the story is told for me so that I can tell it in my own words, simplifyng where I need to for my learner. The teacher binder gives me ideas to use with a felt board or bulletin board if I choose. We can sketch parts on our big white board, too.

I am trying to be creative with the vocab words and memory verses. I can prep by putting vocab words and definitions or memory work into a copywork generator and have worksheets ready to go. Or I can create a "quiz" where we can match definitions to vocab words. Or I can make a fill-in-the-blank worksheet.

Especially for the special needs learner: I can skip concepts that I think are outside our developmental zone. I am becoming more skilled at picking "good enough" parts and letting go of the rest (thank you, Relationship Development Intervention), and at this point, I think we can go through the curriculum twice, with hopefully enough growth happening that the second time through, we can get the pieces we weren't ready for the first time through.

The character trait component is a challenge for our situation. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?! When a child has poor impulse control, they are sometimes labeled "bad" and a "behavior problem" and are told to be "good". They can develop a kind of pass/fail mentality where if they mess up, they think they are all bad, all failure. Positive Action for Christ begins with "creativity" and "orderliness"; moves to "orderliness" and "thankfulness"; then "thankfulness". Week four is "love"; Week five, "work". Those are easier concepts for us, and I really appreciate how the curriculum begins with those. I feel challenged with "obedience" (that pass/fail, good/bad thing); worship (she can't see anything that she's singing about, praying to); "faith". (An aside: I know this is not a curriculum for students with special needs; I would so love some help teaching, showing some of these abstract concepts to a concrete, literal learner.)

The accompanying 100-page workbook for the student is colorful and inviting. I had to stop Li'l Bit from working through it ahead of me. There are a variety of activities that go along with the lessons. She was drawn to the workbook as soon as I removed it from the packaging. That's a good thing at my house. ;) (The answers to the workbook are in the teacher's binder.) The workbook could be longer; you may want to supplement with homemade worksheets or worksheets from a worksheet generator.

We were not given the music that accompanies the lessons; I'm not sure we would have used it, anyway. Li'l Bit sometimes has sensory issues with songs and music that I can't predict or explain.

When we get to the place in the second semester where the student is supposed to look up Bible verses, I think I will begin by printing out the chapter, or an exerpt of a chapter, on a single page. Using the whole Bible is overwhelming and I think she'll experience less anxiety with one printed page. We'll see.

When I completed a survey for TOS Crew of Reviewers, I specified that I wanted curricula for younger children. My daughter is not ready the material that a lot of kids her age use. Positive Action for Christ sent me a Bible curriculum, "Enjoying God's Gifts," for first graders, which *is* mostly developmentally appropriate. But my daughter doesn't know that. My biggest complaint is the fact that they put "1st Grade" in huge letters on the front of the book. My homeschooler, who is on the autism spectrum and has academic delays, protested having to do work in a book for first graders. (I told her that this is what they sent for us to review and asked if she'd help me with it, anyway, even though she's not a first grader. She agreed.) I would prefer that companies choose some other way to differentiate developmental levels than with school-building-school grades. At some point, as my student becomes more self-conscious about where she is, academically, a product that features the grade level in huge print on the front will be a deal breaker for me.

The teacher manual is priced at $33.95; the student workbook, $12.95. (The teacher manual on CD-rom is less expensive, priced at $19.95. While I do like to hold the curriculum in my hand in binder form, there is enough repetition within lessons that make me comfortable working from a CD-rom; I will likely purchase the next level in CD-rom).

I like this product. I like the Bible study; I like how it guides me; I like the material. The framework is right for me, the mom who is adapting and modifying work for a child with unique learning needs combined with developmental delays. I find it very adaptable for our situation. I do not have experience using Enjoying God's Gifts with a typical first grader, though, and some of my Crewmates do. We reviewed a variety of grade levels, too. Please head over to the main Crew blog and read their reviews of this product.

Positive Action For Christ sent me a copy of the teacher's manual and student workbook to Enjoying God's Gifts so that we may use it and review it for you. I am not paid for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.

Reflections on Language Learning vs Communication

We are reviewing a Spanish program that has sent me back in time, comparing and contrasting an experience from my past with this program we are using, now. I am thinking about early autism intervention, too, and why we thought we should teach my 2-year-old the way we did at the time.

As I see and experience with my daughter the way this Spanish program (that we received in order to review) teaches Spanish, I am reminded of the Spanish classes I took in college, which were very different, and not very effective.

In college, the teacher was dry and boring. He was a quiet man, not animated at all, with no affect or enthusiasm.

We began by learning the Spanish alphabet, both the letters and blends, and the sounds each makes. I could memorize those pretty easily, probably because I was already familiar with the sounds. I was assigning a symbol to a sound I'd already learned (even though the sounds I'd learned were from my first language).

Next, we began learning nouns. I was good at learning the nouns. I could memorize nouns pretty easily, too. Woo hoo. (*sarcasm*) I could go to Mexico, Latin America, or Spain and begin naming people, places, and things. Not real helpful if I wanted to have a conversation in Spanish with someone.

You know what? After the autism regression, my daughter's first burst of language (after a couple of months on the GFCF diet) was 32 new nouns in a two-week period. (I wrote them down and counted them for the pediatrician.)

Memorizing nouns does not = reciprocity.
Memorizing nouns can get needs met.

Sure, I could make a request, as long as I knew the right noun.

But manding and requesting does not = relationship.

Getting needs met is very one-sided.

Onto verbs. We learned the root word and the conjugation rules first before ever hearing them in a sentence or using them in a sentence. Conjugating verbs to reflect a person or a group of people doing the action, making it the right tense was very confusing for me. I was constantly referring to rules in my head that I'd tried to memorize in order to correctly use a Spanish verb, and processing all of that took me forever too long to actually have a conversation. When, I wondered, would I be able to quit thinking about the darned rules and simply conjugate verbs without consciously thinking about it?

Remind you of how some programs
try to teach social skills?

When it was my turn to read a passage aloud for the teacher (and the class) to practice pronunciation, everyone was impressed. Even with my thick Southern twang, I could somehow go to a Spanish place in my mind and read the passage with almost perfect pronunciation. That still makes me smile.

If only passing Spanish class depended solely upon
appearing indistinguishable when reading a passage...

Here's a problem: I could decode the sounds and pronounce them correctly without understanding a single word I'd read. Dr. M could give me a passage well beyond my level of comprehension and I could read it aloud with almost perfect pronunciation.

Does that remind you of any
hyperlexic kids you know?

Because I knew so many nouns and roots of verbs in isolation expressively and receptively when they were written, (I could speak them and recognize them when written in text), I could translate written passages on quizzes and tests with some accuracy if you gave me a sentence or two at a time and enough time to process. The longer the exams, the less time I had to process, the more poorly I scored.

The thing that was the most difficult, the thing I hated most of all was translating spoken passages from Spanish into English. My ear and brain simply could not hear it all and process it all unless the speaker slooooooooowed way down, and that didn't happen. We were expected, as new Spanish students, to process all of the language at warp speed, almost from the get-go.

I hated going to the lab to do the listening and translating exercises and I failed (miserably) the parts of our exams where the teacher read a passage that we had to translate on the test.

"Broadband", "multi-channel" processing of the Spanish language was impossible for me. Because I was taught each channel separately, apart from one another, I could not process in "broadband".

After a year of college Spanish, I could do little more than I learned in the very beginning, label nouns in Spanish and figure out a root word of a verb. I know some adjectives here and there.

Fast forward to today: The Spanish program that we are reviewing is an immersion program, a series of videos for children, where full (and short) sentences are used in context, the verbs are already correctly conjugated, no rules to memorize, where we are learning all of the pieces simultaneously: nouns, verbs (and conjugation), adverbs, adjectives, sentence structure, pronunciation, listening, speaking, the way typically developing children learn the language that their parents speak.

I am recognizing in a new way something that I already knew. Foundations are important. Non-verbal foundations of interaction are an important base; those are the first channels of "broadband". Simultaneously learning nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, *in context* adds more layers and channels to the multi-channel processing. We learn through experience with others in relationship, not by memorizing and constantly referring to an ever-growing set of rules.

In developmental delays like autism, sometimes those foundations are ignored, and instead of giving our students lots of opportunities to learn interaction through experience with us, we give them a set of rules to memorize and refer to. We call that "social skills" training. Instead of using ourselves differently to give our children a new experience, we give them a bunch of rules to memorize and practice in "social skills groups", and we send them out in the world and hope they can remember the rules, and if they do, we call that "generalization".

I came to hate that Spanish class. I hated it because I was overwhelmed with the rules I had to memorize, rules that never became second nature. The rules were a burden, not a help.

Watching these Spanish videos (Speekee, if you're wondering) for children as part of my review crew has been a lot of fun for me, because I am learning things I never learned in that boring, out-of-context college class. Seeing the difference between two approaches in teaching/learning a foreign language is eye opening as I think about autism intervention, too.

Happy New Year!

1-1-11

Do you make resolutions at the beginning of a year?

I feel like I'm setting myself up for failure if I do.

I'd like to lose weight.

I want to look into my daughter's (w/ ASD) biomed issues more closely this year.

Mostly, I want the family to get through this move in a positive way, navigating the challenges, changes, ups and downs with flexibility and creative problem solving, growing our resilence and experience banks.

How 'bout you?

Communicating With Teenagers

Sometimes, I read a post on an internet chat group that is a must-share. Carolyn Glass wrote this a couple of years ago in a discussion on the yahoo group, "communicating", and as the discussion this week again turned to communicating with teenagers, I bumped up this old post so that we could revisit it. And this time, I asked Carolyn if I could share her brilliant thoughts on my blog with you. She graciously said yes.

Hey everyone,

I just had an "aha" CP moment about conversations. You've heard Dr. Jim and many others on this list talk about the merits of the CP method for all kinds of children and adults. Well, I discovered it also works like magic with having conversations with typically-developing
teenagers!

Last night, I received the highest form of praise I can imagine coming from my 16-yr-old niece: She called me "my aunt who totally rocks...." I'm adding it to my resume! :) I owe it all to Communicating Partners, because I realized that I have been using CP strategies to get to know her recently (as well as several other nieces and nephews I had previously not known well, since they all live far away).

Here are the CP strategies I have been utilizing. Give them a try...they work wonders!

Matching: I joined Facebook! This niece who now thinks I "rock" is someone I rarely see, who would not dream of writing a letter or even fuss with email, and who says a few polite words to me when we see each other once every few years is a different person on Facebook! I entered her world, spoke her "language," watched first to see how she communicated on FB, then joined in her activity, on her terms. I know that when we see each other in person again (my world!), we will have a much different--more positive--experience, since I first joined her in her world.

Balancing: I am careful to maintain good FB etiquette, not taking too many turns in a row and keeping my conversation pieces short--about as long as hers. If she does not write back to me immediately, I wait "silently but with anticipation" for her to respond. She always does.

Being Responsive: I respond to the little things she says on FB--things she cares about, such as the new hairdo she's sprouting in her new profile picture or responding to a questionairre she has "tagged" me on.

Sharing control: I am careful not to dominate the conversation, but take her lead at least about half the time and introduce my own topics about half the time. I don't deluge her with questions or get "teachy" or "preachy" with her. Then when I have something really important to say, she appears to really listen.

Being Emotionally Connected: We have established a warm, caring relationship with each other. I'll send a private note of condolence when she has posted something about having a rotten day, and we commisserated with each other when we were both missing our "sweeties" (my husband was out of the country for a few weeks and her boyfriend lives in another state). We grumbled together about all the chores we have to get done today, and we came up with a friendly competition to see who can get her housework done first today (she has the unfair advantage of having only her room to clean and little else, but I don't have to go to school today, so we're even!)

I am so enjoying having this new connection with her and all my other nieces and nephews I'm getting to know. Thanks Jim and CP!!!

Carolyn

Uncertainty (and reactions to learning we are moving)

When we told the children the news that we are moving, we received mix reactions. As adults, our reactions were mixed, too, so seeing the mixed reactions in our children was no surprise.

The child who displayed the most emotion is the one who has verbalized the most frustration with uncertainty, and that child has asked questions that illuminate what is going on inside the mind.

One day, he came to me holding a baseball cap from his beloved team, and announced that no matter what his dad said, he would be taking this cap with him when we move. His dad was not going to make him leave that cap, here.

Huh? It took me a long time to figure out where that came from.

My children have always lived in this house. They have never moved. Hubby and I moved four big moves in eight years, all before children. We have an experience bank and episodic memories to draw from. The children have neither.

My son's experience bank includes losing a friend to a move about a year ago. He watched his friend go through a huge move in the midst of a heartbreaking situation (that included an unpleasant divorce and one parent's job loss). He watched this family make some choices about what they would be able to take with them and what they would have to leave behind.

I explained that we would take our "stuff", including beloved baseball caps. His demeanor calmed a bit.

A couple of days later, hubby said son asked what we would take with us and what we would leave behind. They walked through the house together, and hubby showed him what is secured to the house (dishwasher, ceiling fan, kitchen cabinets, etc) that will stay here, and what is not secured that will move with us (refrigerator, furniture, clothing, etc).

When this child displays anger and frustration, I usually find that he's wondering about the move, again, worrying about something.

There are so many details to explain, so many that I didn't think that they would wonder about.

He does not want to have to live in a hotel. His friend moved away, and they had to live in a hotel, and, for some reason, that thought is not a good one for him. Me? I think living in a hotel for a little while in the middle of a move would be way cool, with me not having to cook or clean, having access to a swimming pool, etc.

I explained that yes, we may have to live in a hotel for the short term (the longest we stayed in a hotel for a move was six weeks; the shortest was about a week), and that it will be fun and part of the adventure.

His next question caught me off guard: He would need more suitcases for all of his clothing if we were going to be in a hotel; would I buy a lot more suitcases?

He has never moved before. He has no experience bank to draw from, except that of his friend, and they were completely DIY movers, where they left with all of their belongings. His reference point is different from mine. He has no idea that we will have help packing and someone will load our belongings on a truck for us and transport them separately from our drive to our new location. We all take about a week's worth of clothing for the time in the hotel, while our clothing and belongings are being moved to a new house.

He also thought that we'd just up and move one day, with no advanced notice, and was concerned about knowing at least a day before we move. Again, I realize that perception was based on his friend's move. With a DIY move, they had a lot of flexibility and weren't sure when they would leave. Our move will be scheduled. We'll have a timetable that will fall into place. In the past, we've known weeks before the move what our actual packing day and moving day are. But he doesn't know that.

His anxiety and emotion combined with his questions have surprised me. He's one of my NT kids. I forget that uncertainty affects all of us, affects them, too. He is quite the communicator; all he has to do is verbalize a concern or fear, and we can talk about it.

I am again reminded that my child with autism, whose anxiety can be show-stopping at times, is not much different from the rest of us.

And I ask myself, what about children who are NOT strong communicators, who are not able to make connections to form those questions, or who have the questions but cannot get them out?

I see in a new way why children on the autism spectrum, who are not experienced with managing even little amounts of uncertainty, are anxious and behave in certain ways sometimes.
I see more clearly why previews, visual schedules, and Social Stories(r) are so important for our children with autism. I see how uncertainty and misperceptions add to anxiety and distort our thinking and sometimes leave us frozen. And I know that all of us are going to learn a lot in the next few months, a lot about moving, a lot about ourselves.