When our son, Tom, was seven years old he began taking instrumental music lessons. Because he has a good ear (like many people with autism, he has perfect pitch), he could learn to play both clarinet and piano without too much trouble. Because he has no stage fright (another autistic gift), he was able to play at recitals with no problem.
But he simply could not learn to read music. Period.
Year after year, we and his teachers worked with him on reading the staff, dynamics and note value. Year after year - bupkus.
This year, Tom is 14 - and it's only this year that he has actually demonstrated a solid ability to sight read music.
That's 7 years of 1:1 tutoring to learn a skill that most people can learn in just a few months.
Had Tom been unable to play musical instruments at all, or if he had disliked the experience, we would surely have given up. But we didn't - and the outcome is that, after seven long years, the skill finally emerged.
Music is just one of many, many skills that have taken a very long time to learn. And while music is a pleasure - and, to some, an extra - many of those slow-to-emerge skills have been much more critical to daily life.
It took years to toilet train. It took years to learn handwriting skills. We're still working on keyboard skills. Bike riding is an ongoing challenge. It took over a year to go from two-handed to one-handed bowling. Math is a challenge, and number sense continues to be a slow, ponderous slog. I could continue, but I think you get the idea.
What I've learned over the years is that our son isn't incapable, but it's easy to mistake his delays for inability. Others may learn faster, but Tom does learn.
In a fast-moving, competitive world it's not easy to stay the course. We're constantly frustrated, and occasionally tempted to throw up our hands and say "forget it, he just won't learn this stuff." It's impossible to avoid comparing our child's progress to others' progress and feel that we're getting nowhere. But experience has taught us that discouragement will pass - and if we stick with the process, we're likely to see significant progress.
Sometimes it takes what seems like forever to see even a glimmer of change. But then, all of a sudden, as if a developmental fairy had come along and tapped him on the head with her wand, Tom will wake up with a new skill. And we realize that all those days, weeks, months and years of practice have paid off.
They say patience is a virtue. When you're parenting a child with autism, it's also a necessity!
When my son was very young, it was easy not to see all of his delays, and where as another typical child’s progress can be discouraging, it really was the only way I could actually see my son was truly delayed.
Realizing my son is 2 years delayed and always has tested so (it’s also visible he is) has made it easier for me to not get discouraged over his progress. I spent two years toilet training and got no where. I knew repetition and my persistance would help, but he just never grasped it. One night I sent him to bed (sent him to bed 20 times) he woke up the next day as if he had always been potty trained.
My son with autism is not good at any one particular thing and in fact he struggles at everything but video games. Being delayed probably affects much of this. I think the more important thing than my own discouragement is that of my son who realizes he’s not at all like his peers, and that most things are a struggle for him. It’s important that he understands I know he is delayed and has a hard time, and as long as he tries his best, I couldn’t ask more.
I have that same feeling – that’s why I won’t give up keeping my son in swimming and music lessons. Eventually he’ll take the leap. Right now he has an easy time READING music but he doesn’t improve his playing because he never wants to practice. He’ll do the lessons just fine though.
I guess the same goes to language development. It’s taking him longer than other HFA kids, but eventually he’ll be fully conversational. I have to walk a fine line between having faith on him and not forgetting that it is a lifelong disability and he won’t just become normal one day.
This is one of the most confounding aspects of the ASD diagnosis, for me-as-parent. How much is delay, how much is non-compliance, and how much is the NT child’s “I could care less about this particular thing” attitude? Factor in stuff like the times he learns things right off the bat, but will not “demonstrate proficiency 8 out of 10 times.”
And, do we call it patience, or join our children in the label “perseverative”? LOL.
I’d say most of my son’s delay has to do with “I could care less about this particular thing” and non-compliance, but those are usually areas that typical kids are very much tuned-in to, interested in, and my son is not. Example, while typical boys are working hard to impress their Dads and learn how to pitch and catch a baseball, my son doesn’t see the point in any of that. He’ll want to hit the ball off the tee though, but the rest of the game he’d rather not participate in.
Wow Lisa, can so relate. My son (younger than yours)also requires a great deal more practice and input to get almost any skill.
And he can do it, can get it ( often understanding it just at the point I think it can’t be done). And he has certainly had teachers in the past who took slow learning for inability to learn. i sometimes wonder with children like ours, if they had parents who were less willing to believe in their childs’ potential, if they would ever succeed otherwise. It is very easy for such children to fall through the cracks if no one takes the extra time or makes the extra effort to teach.
I am very grateful for his current teacher; willing to challenge, but not to push beyond his ability. And we do a fair amount of back up work at home.He is finally getting some math stuff that I really did not think he would master; and it is starting to look like it is becoming easy for him.Yes!
By the way, the one skill that seems to come easy to my son is music.
A friend was playing a piece on the piano, and after he walked over and seemed to play a section of it just from ear. He is not a savant, but it does seem that while in most areas both physical and educational he has to battle twice as hard to suceed, this seems to be an area where things are as easy for him to learn, or even a little easier, than they are for others.
Congratulations on your sons’ achievements, to both him and you.You have obviously both worked hard for them!
Lisa, I’ve often said our son’s seemed the same music-wise; but here a real difference comes to light.
My son’s music abilities seemed to based into an ability to sight read music readily (athough he still really struggles to read words). He also has a pretty good ear, but I wouldn’t say he has perfect pitch. Me, my reading levels in school were pretty average, but reading music still just leaves me clueless (despite several years of music lessons). One of my music instructors was a stickler for perfection… and I can remember well the feeling of the ruler hitting the backs of my knuckles whenever I made a sight-reading mistake (Ouch).
I do applaud your patient work with Tom and your acknowledgement that his enjoyment in playing music as being important role to your decicsion to continue working with him.
In keeping with all the controversies lately, shall I write a comment angrily arguing against patience? (j.k!)
No, instead I’ll just echo Hera and say, “Congratulations on your sons’ achievements, to both him and you. You have obviously both worked hard for them!” Really, truly wonderful!
Oh gosh, I hope my comment didn’t sound like I was arguing against patience. If it does, then it came out completely different than what I intended. I was just doing some pointless “kid comparing” out loud.
Of course, Patience is a virtue… and a necessity…. and I do echo hera and Twyla. Congratulations – you both have earned the success!
Lisa, thanks for this post…. It helps me not to give up and to keep aiming for my target…whatever that may be( music, swimming, bike riding). I get so discouraged sometimes, especially since I home school. My son has shown me that he will “get it” in his time and not mine. It amazes me that some skills that I think he will have a hard time with seems to be so simple for him ; while the others that I think he will breeze through seems to never catch on. I thought I had patience before he came along, now I know what patience really is all about! Thank you for all of your post and sharing your day to day trials and triumphs with us.
No, no Malia! Your comment did not sound like you were against patience! I was just making fun of ourselves in general — us parents of kids with autism — and of all the controversies surrounding us. I was thinking maybe Lisa finally found something non-controversial to write about — the benefits of patience and perseverence.
This is really good for me to hear. Ben’s teacher gave me a copy of his IEP. She told me flat-out that Ben will never be able to count. He won’t be able to read or write. Instead, the focus is on teaching him to live independently: dressing himself, brushing his teeth, putting on his shoes. One day he might be able to live at a group home and, if he’s lucky, hold down a basic job. I was hearing this for the first time. Ben’s classroom was adorned with holiday decorations and warm cheer, but for a long moment I disappeared into a cold reality. Maybe at some level I suspected it, but no one in an official capacity had ever said it to me so plainly and directly.
Adam, those I have a crystal ball teachers make me angry;interestign how this means she does not have to work at teaching your son anything at all educationally.What rubbish.And of course now she has a vested interest in proving herself right by making sure your son does not learn any of these things.
i admit, I’d be looking at a different teacher and preferably a different school.And maybe pointing out
“while I understand that YOU don’t have the skills to teach him any of these things…”
Not knowing your sons age, degree of difficulty with speech etc, it is hard to give advice; but I’d be betting he already has a basic understanding of the idea of counting.
Does he prefer ONE cookie( or insert treat of choice here) or TWO cookies? And if he can’t speak,sign one or two to him.
Unfortunately right now, the basics are probably up to you now.
You can start off really slow. One two three (in a happy cheerful voice) then down the slide .One two three then turn on the TV..One two three.. in the bath..And sign the numbers one two three at the same time as you say them..All cheerful, all low stress,when you are feeling fine about things, no response required; live a life saturated with “one two three” for a while and see what happens..
When you start getting a response ( maybe after months ) to “one two three” start with one two three four..And if that does not work, try something else. .
Also, in the interests of not driving yourself crazy, if he can tolerate videos ok, they are an easy way to get repetition without you having to always be the teacher.The leap frog video “the talking letter factory” is great for learning letters and phonics, with happy letters dancing around making sounds.
“Meet the letters” and “Meet the numbers” is aimed at preschoolers with sweet baby voices saying the names ( ok, they grate on me, but some kids love them).The “Signing Time” videos are great for teaching sign to non verbal kids( and their parents, since a sign is only useful if everyone in the family understands it).
Don’t know if any of these ideas will help or not; he may relate much better to something completely different; but it sounds like the worst possible thing for him is a teacher who has decided not to educate him.Wishing you a lot of luck and hope you find much better help.
We found a piano teacher that taught playing and did not simultaneously try reading. She progressed- playing, transposing, naming keys, writing (moving blocks first then on paper), then reading. Natural progression that worked with her joy and we used it to get concept of finding interest- (you found your piano interest for today! when the piano called her.) Then we could do searches for her “getting her lunchbox ready for school interest.” or her “doing the math paper interest.” She has to search for those but we have the language to search together from her love of music which interests her all the time.
To the parent w the teacher of gloom, replace the teacher and love the child. Let HIM show you his magic and where that will be similar to neurotypicals and where it will be better. Focus on life skills not school skills since life lasts longer than the 21 years arbitrarily assigned to school. There’s lots of growth after 21 they can’t take credit for so pretend doesn’t exist. Noone predicted roses for us. Their measurements were too off to see what she could be.