Yesterday, Bow had a very big lunch. We have lunch at noon. We have dinner at five o'clock. If Bow feels a little hungry, sometime around three-thirty, he can ask for a snack. But yesterday's lunch was so satisfying, that Bow did not ask for a snack. However, he started to feel hungry about a quarter to five. And when Bow gets hungry, he also gets a little testy with people. He kept leading Lawrence toward the door.
"What do you want, Bow?" Lawrence asked, encouraging him to use his words.
Bow went to the glass and using Lawrence's hand as a pointer, he spelled: "I want you to go."
"Why do you want me to go?"
"So I can eat," Bow spelled.
"Bow, just because I leave, that doesn't mean you're going to eat," Lawrence said.
Bow was confusing sequence of events with causation. On days when Lawrence is here, he usually stays till five. Then I relieve him, and Sword and Bow and I have dinner. We don't have dinner because Lawrence leaves, we have dinner because it is five o'clock. And Lawrence doesn't leave because we're about to have dinner. He leaves, because it's five o'clock. If he left earlier, we would still have dinner at five o'clock. But it was a natural mistake on Bow's part to think that if Lawrence just left, it would be dinner time sooner.
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Interesting! My autistic foster son also used other people's hands to reach for things or point at things. He also thought that, if my feet were on the floor, the day would begin, so if he wanted the day to begin, he would come into my room and drag my feet out of bed! Very similar to Bow believing that if Lawrence leaves, it will be time to eat! :D It's only logical!
ReplyDeleteSuzanne, that is interesting! I don't think of Bow as being autistic. In some ways, he's much more socially aware than the rest of us. But still, it's an interesting similarity.
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