Brain power!

Most of the little guy's bad behavior happens because he either can't communicate something or he doesn't understand something. He only has about thirty pecs in his book that he knows and can effectively use for communication. Since he's a creature of rigid routines and very specific likes and dislikes, this works pretty well for him most of the time. But sometimes, not too often, LG still can't really talk.

But he is, I think, quite a bit smarter than we often give him credit for.

He has this colored pom-pom sorting activity that he does (it's like... beginning beginning math concepts). I have a container with a few compartments and pom-poms for each compartment. He enjoys it a lot, although I think the shine is starting to wear off. He is nine, after all. When I created this activity, I put the pom-poms in a plastic bag and put the plastic bag in another small container. Thus, to complete the activity, LG has to take the pom-poms out of the bag, put them into the small container, and then sort. It recently occurred to me that the bag was completely unnecessary and I had no idea why I had originally put the pom-poms in the bag in the first place, so I threw the bag out and just filled the smaller container. Simple.

LG did the task just fine and stimmed to high heaven over all the colored pom-poms in all the right compartments looking all orderly and stuff. Then he started to clean up. Disaster struck.

He quite obviously wanted to communicate something, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the heck he needed. First he started pointing over to the shelves near his desk. There about about 378 things on the shelf, so I had no clue. Then he started rifling through the drawers where we keep his academic materials. He was obviously getting frustrated. He was getting weepy and, uh, pinchy. I gave him his pecs book and implored him to tell me what he wanted, but he wanted something that wasn't in the book. LG gave me a look of utter disgust and hit me with the pecs book. OK then.

"LG, I don't know what you want," I told him with as much sympathy as my (literally) bruised ego could muster.

"DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH!"

"Yeah, I know. I know you want something."

"Dee dee dee dee dee DAH."

"What could it be?" I really was thinking hard. LG was not amused. He started saying DAH in the tone that sounded like a five-alarm fire engine siren. A full-on meltdown was fast approaching.

"OK, it's not in your book, that's for sure," I said with more than a little desperation. "Let's do this. Show me what you want."

That LG understood. He got up and left his area. I followed.

He walked on over to the craft supply closet and pointed. Since the closet was closed, I needed a little more information. I opened the doors and started pointing.

"Do you want this?"

"DEE DEE DEE!"

OK, it wasn't the rubber bands.

"Do you want this?"

"DAAAAAAAH!"

And it wasn't the stapler. Thank heavens.

"What about this?"

Bingo. He wanted the bag of pencil toppers.

That definitely wasn't in his pecs book. Mystery solved. But then again... why the heck did he want a bag full of pencil toppers?

I was quite curious at that point. Checking to see that no disapproving eyes were watching me voluntarily gifting LG a prohibited bag of costly pencil toppers, I handed it over and settled back to watch the magic happen.

LG trotted on back to his area. He took a task off his shelves, one that used pencils to try to pound in the concept of one-to-one correspondence (he's not really getting it). He dumped the bag of pencil toppers into the pencil task. Then he happily started shoving his colored pom-poms into the now-empty pencil topper bag.

I laughed for about ten minutes straight. Never try to mess with the rigidity and sameness that is an autistic child's mind.

But think about all the steps that LG's brain needed to go through to get the bag to satisfy his OCD.

1. I need to put the pom-poms away.
2. There is no bag for the pom-poms.
3. I need a bag for the pom-poms.
4. Let me look for it on the shelves.
5. Let me look for a picture of it in my pecs book.
6. Let me point at the shelves, maybe she'll understand.
7. Let me start hitting and kicking, maybe she'll understand.
8. Wait! I know! I've seen a bag in the craft closet before.
9. I could get a bag from the closet.
10. I could dump the contents out of the bag.
11. I could use the bag to put my pom-poms away.
12. All will be right with the world!

He was able to plan ahead several steps to get what he wanted. It's a non-issue for any other fourth-grader, and barely worth mentioning for even a toddler, but it took a lot of (successful) cognitive gymnastics for LG.

So I think he's smart. And awesome. And totally going to be able to communicate very well some day down the road, if he's given the right tools.