Janey: I want Saw Sing. Can you say please?
Me: What is Saw Sing?
Janey: CAN YOU SAY PLEASE!
Me: I know you want Saw Sing, but I don't know what that is. (flash of recognition) Do you mean Sock Thing, from Kipper? (Kipper's sock toy)
Janey: I WANT SAW SING!
Me: Is Sock Thing Kipper? Do you want Kipper?
Janey: Do you want Saw Sing Kipper? (which means, yes, I do want Sock Thing Kipper)
Me: Okay, I'll put that on.
Take a different thing Janey wants, and that is our conversation in a nutshell. It changes very, very little. Only one other variation really exists, which we had last night...
Janey: (loud crying and screaming)
Me: Can you tell me what's wrong, sweetie?
Janey: CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG?
Me: Are you angry, or sad, or mad, or hungry? (Janey is often soothed by this list)
Janey: DO YOU HAVE ANGRY FEELINGS?
Me: I'm sorry you have angry feelings. What would make you feel better?
Janey: Do you want a bath?
Me: A bath would make you feel better? Okay, we'll have a bath.
Janey: We'll have a bath. Pull the curtain. (pull back the shower curtain)
That one was shortened for clarity and to edit out the long periods of it that were just hysterical crying.
This might give an idea of what Janey's talking is like. She talks, but it's very limited talking. It's repeating back things and asking for things, with rare little additions like "Pull the curtain" But it does get the point across, sometimes after a little work. I wish she could talk to tell me about her day, or comment on things that interest her, or just chat, but I am very, very grateful she can talk at all. I wish I knew how to expand her talking, but so far, nothing seems to do that well. For now, we'll take what we can get.
Rarer in Girls...Life with my daughter Janey, who is twenty and severely autistic
2 comments:
Thank you for sharing this. It is interesting how Janey speaks, and yet, as you said, how wonderful that she is talking period.
What really caught my attention was when you asked her "Are you angry, or sad, or mad, or hungry?" and she was able to respond "Do you have angry feelings?" so even though she appears to mimic what you say to her, she IS understanding beyond that if she was able to recognize that she was angry about something. That's great!
It really is great, and that's fairly new! I have an app on the iPad that shows pictures of kids with different feelings, and Janey really like that, and has started seeming to understand feelings a little---at least angry, sad and surprised. It's very true that sometimes what sounds like just repeating has a lot of meaning.
Thanks for reading the blog!
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