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I am an autism parent, who was similarly skeptical of prompting as many comments expressed here. My son, who appears completely uncoordinated with random repet

I am an autism parent, who was similarly skeptical of prompting as many comments expressed here. My son, who appears completely uncoordinated with random repetitive behaviors, would fit the typical pattern of many of these kids. Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him. Yet, here is an experimentally testable concrete thing he can do: read a complex English passage and answer a series of fairly non-trivial multiple choice questions - for example "What is the tone of this paragraph? a) Irony b) Sarcasm c) Sorrow d) Happiness" type of questions which you cannot simply answer by trivial pattern matching. No prompting would be necessary and this test has been performed without parents being nearby, on totally new material. In fact, he takes these tests often, partly because we could tell he gets some thrill from getting everything right and that test-taking seems one of the rare times he seems completely focused. Originally, he was very prompt dependent (as many people mention here), so even I was somewhat skeptical about his real skills, but now I have no doubt. The reason I mention all this is that no casual observer, not even one who spends hours together with him, would conclude he can do those things. He has no motivation to connect or demonstrate his skills; yet, he now can demonstrate he can do these things independently. These kids are very complicated, so don't be too quick to dismiss them.

fecak 11y ago
Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him. I sincerely hope you still take him to the grocery shop. My daughter stims, makes loud noises, has OCD behaviors, may hit her head, etc. and I make a point of taking her to the stores several times a week. While it's good for her to practice being in public, I also want the public to see her and that there are others like her. As people with autism being in public becomes less of a novelty, other children and adults will eventually learn how not to stare, or in some situations how to help.
- autism_parent 11y ago
  Yes, we do take him out, for the same reasons you mentioned. By now, we have lost any sense of shame or suffering about his behaviors. That was the thing we had to master - our own emotional suffering seeing him stared at.
astrobe_ 11y ago
> These kids are very complicated, so don't be too quick to dismiss them. It is certainly not the kids that are dismissed, but "silver bullet" methods like F/C. If autism is really like a lock-in syndrome, being fully intelligent and transformed into a puppet (as the documentary "Prisoners of silence" linked in this thread suggests) must be horrible.
muddyrivers 11y ago
I am an autism parent as well. If it doesn't violate your and your child's privacy, could you tell me at what age your child became prompt-independent?
- autism_parent 11y ago
  He developed normally until about 18 months. He was even picking up things fast - memorized a picture book in one sitting for example. Then over the next 2 years, we started noticing his speech was delayed but he seemed fine otherwise (affectionate and connected). At that point we were concerned but not alarmed. His big regression came around 5, we seemed to completely lose him. He lost skills and seemed to lose the connection he had. We started him on ABA but we stopped it soon because we were concerned about the animal-like training it involved. The next few years were spent in various types of interventions but without any real breakthrough. Then we started to notice he could pick answers for multiple choice questions, often showing a surprising level of understanding. For example, noticing that he was hanging around when the TV was on (not really watching, simply hanging around) I remember giving him a quiz: "Barack Obama is a a) Republican b) Democrat c) Libertarian d) Independent" and he would pick the answer. Thinking may be it was a fluke, I would try with Bush, McCain, Clinton and so on, and he would get each of them. This was unexpected because the way he looked and acted, there was no hint he could have known any of these things. That was the point at which we discovered the prompting method. Initially I was personally skeptical if he really was learning, but by now, given the way he has passed externally-administered tests by people who have no connection to him or us, it is very clear that he was learning all along. He can still be very prompt dependent in a social setting, but give him a paper and pencil test, he tends to do extremely well. He still has huge issues (OCD, repetitive and random behaviors) and he has practically no social skills to speak of, but he does seem to show a remarkable degree of intelligence.
  - muddyrivers 11y ago
    Thank you very much. It is very similar to my son's case, with remarkable intelligence and few social skills.

fecak 11y ago

Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him. I sincerely hope you still take him to the grocery shop. My daughter stims, makes loud noises, has OCD behaviors, may hit her head, etc. and I make a point of taking her to the stores several times a week. While it's good for her to practice being in public, I also want the public to see her and that there are others like her. As people with autism being in public becomes less of a novelty, other children and adults will eventually learn how not to stare, or in some situations how to help.

autism_parent 11y ago
Yes, we do take him out, for the same reasons you mentioned. By now, we have lost any sense of shame or suffering about his behaviors. That was the thing we had to master - our own emotional suffering seeing him stared at.

astrobe_ 11y ago

> These kids are very complicated, so don't be too quick to dismiss them. It is certainly not the kids that are dismissed, but "silver bullet" methods like F/C. If autism is really like a lock-in syndrome, being fully intelligent and transformed into a puppet (as the documentary "Prisoners of silence" linked in this thread suggests) must be horrible.

muddyrivers 11y ago

I am an autism parent as well. If it doesn't violate your and your child's privacy, could you tell me at what age your child became prompt-independent?

autism_parent 11y ago
He developed normally until about 18 months. He was even picking up things fast - memorized a picture book in one sitting for example. Then over the next 2 years, we started noticing his speech was delayed but he seemed fine otherwise (affectionate and connected). At that point we were concerned but not alarmed. His big regression came around 5, we seemed to completely lose him. He lost skills and seemed to lose the connection he had. We started him on ABA but we stopped it soon because we were concerned about the animal-like training it involved. The next few years were spent in various types of interventions but without any real breakthrough. Then we started to notice he could pick answers for multiple choice questions, often showing a surprising level of understanding. For example, noticing that he was hanging around when the TV was on (not really watching, simply hanging around) I remember giving him a quiz: "Barack Obama is a a) Republican b) Democrat c) Libertarian d) Independent" and he would pick the answer. Thinking may be it was a fluke, I would try with Bush, McCain, Clinton and so on, and he would get each of them. This was unexpected because the way he looked and acted, there was no hint he could have known any of these things. That was the point at which we discovered the prompting method. Initially I was personally skeptical if he really was learning, but by now, given the way he has passed externally-administered tests by people who have no connection to him or us, it is very clear that he was learning all along. He can still be very prompt dependent in a social setting, but give him a paper and pencil test, he tends to do extremely well. He still has huge issues (OCD, repetitive and random behaviors) and he has practically no social skills to speak of, but he does seem to show a remarkable degree of intelligence.
- muddyrivers 11y ago
  Thank you very much. It is very similar to my son's case, with remarkable intelligence and few social skills.