"When will we start school mommy?" replies Michael.
"Oh, in 2-3 weeks. You will start school on Thursday, August 29th, " I say.
He gets all excited, because my children really do LOVE school. He smiles and says, "Oh boy, I go to the field trip and then I start school on THURSDAY!"
"Not this Thursday buddy, in 2-3 weeks," I tell him.
*Sigh....it is the time thing again. I proceed to pull up my Google calendar on my Android phone and show him the month layout. I show him where he has camp and which day he starts school. I have him actually enter in the "event" that states "Michael and Mikayla start school." He happily does this, and I think he finally has it down. Thank God for calendars and clocks!
I don't know why, but I find many people who are on the spectrum have very little concept of time. Oh, they understand space pretty well. Michael can build amazing things with his blocks. They have a good understanding of quantity and measurement. They usually have really good estimating abilities with volume. They can deal with space.....but what happens to their understanding of TIME?
For many years, Michael would get very mixed up with time. Even when he speaks he will say, "You know mommy...LAST DAY!" Which in "normal speak" means yesterday. He did very well in preschool and kindergarten on every subject EXCEPT calendar time. He, like many people on the spectrum, needs a visual schedule. The speech therapist uses BoardMaker to make Michael his schedule so he knows exactly what day he is on, and what he will do that day. He knows if he has speech, or extra super smart math class. He knows when he has lunch and recess and which special (art, music or gym) he will have. He also has an icon that states if it is a topsy-turvy day, a day when an unexpected event will take place or if his schedule is a little out of whack because of a special event. He gets his schedule/routine imbedded into his mind. If we didn't start with a schedule, he would be totally lost. Oh, he does memorize it over time, to the point where he doesn't need it. But at the beginning of the new school year, we better have one in place for him.
Most people with autism cannot seem to keep track of time, and often get lost in their special project. They don't notice that they are usually late to many things, and make other people late in the process. They get caught up in their own little world, and never realize that minutes, hours or days have passed by. Everything that happened in the past for Michael is called, "Last Day". Everything that is going to happen in the future better be written on a calendar in which we can physically count the number of days to an event.
Why is it that time is such a difficult concept for him to grasp? Is it basically just "not important" enough to worry about or think about? It must be a concept that is on the very bottom rung of what is interesting to him. Maybe time is totally irrelevant for him. Other people have their time issues too, my own dad was late to my wedding, and we always joked around he'd be late to his own funeral. Yet it seems to be more extreme to ASD people. I think that it is another sure sign that Michael is definitely, "Somewhere Over the Spectrum."
What is so important about time that we have to "understand" it. What is important is making sure that we are where we are suppose to be.
ReplyDeleteI have alarms telling me when to get up, when to eat lunch, when to go home. Because the *time* is not important. The *event* is important.
So there is "now" and "today" as in "This has to be done today" and then there is stuff that has to be done "soon" such as "I have to build the chicken coop this weekend" and "in the past" which is "last day" or "last week" or some time in the past.
Time speeds up when it needs to, it slows down when it must. Why are you so concerned about time? Is it really that important?
The only important thing about time is making sure the right people are together at the same time...
You're both funny. :) I think of all the people in the Big City who are spending tons of money learning how to "live in the now." Maybe Mike should write a book on it and teach people. He lives in the now all the time! :)
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