The Light Goes On!

The angelic-looking little girl in my afternoon class that has autism, A, has been a challenge & a joy all year. I consistently marvel at how completely different each child on the spectrum is, despite sharing certain consistent symptoms. After a very short time with A in our class we all knew she was going to be one of the ones that we were going to look back on at the end of the year & go "Wow. She's come so far!" And boy, has she ever come far!! She continues to amaze us with her astounding progress in so many areas. Speech, self-regulation, following directions, peer interactions, on and on.

In one area, however, we have felt consistent frustration and failure at our inability to find a way to reach her & help her. Toilet training. A few months ago she self-initiated toilet training at home, so we went with it! Despite amazingly quick progress at home, this was an area of extreme stress & frustration for her at school. I could list all the things we tried to help her transition to & from the bathroom successfully but it would seriously take too long. We tried every known preferred activity or item. We used visuals. We used timers. We used different potties & seats. We tried everything we could think of & then we started asking everyone else what they could think of. And then we tried those things & they didn't work either!

Today, a seemingly ordinary day, the light went on. Literally. A light was what solved the problem. A flashlight to be precise. This week we played a new game in class with a stop light I made out of construction paper & cellophane that I shine a flashlight through to make it light up. We learn a rhyme about going when it's green, stopping when it's red and going slow when it's yellow. She loves this game. And I mean loves this game.

So today she very clearly needed to go to the bathroom. We tried all our tricks. No success. So now she's upset, we're frustrated & feeling like failures, the rest of the kids are on edge. I'm literally pulling my hair while staring across the room, wracking my brain when my eyes fall on the flashlight & traffic light. Lightbulb!

It worked. She was calm, she was happy, she peed on the toilet!!!!!!!!!!!!

My aides & I were quite literally jumping up & down. (When you're in Early Ed, you get excited about pee.)

Anyways, I tell this story to encourage you. When you've tried everything, when everything has failed miserably, please don't give up on the little ones you work with or live with. The lightbulb will go on.