Excerpt from my new E-book "Living without Knowing Who You Are: Here’s an example of the process of using a urinal in the men’s restroom. Most males would just walk right in take care of business and be done with it. However, for those of us with autism who didn’t naturally pick up on how to use the urinal properly we must go through a detailed step by step process. 1.Walk into the restroom. 2.Do not look at anyone. 3.Stand in line if there is one. 4.Behave appropriately in line. 5.Choose the proper urinal when available. 6.Keep eyes straight forward. 7.Avoid being next to someone if possible. 8.Definitely avoid being next to two people. 9.Unzip your pants. 10.Aim properly. 11.Zip your pants. 12.Flush the Urinal. 13.Go to the Sink. 14.Turn the water on. 15.Wash your hands. 16.Put soap on your hands. 17.Rinse your hands. 18.Turn the water off. 19.Dry hands with a paper towel or blow dryer. 20.Exit the restroom. Not many of us would realize that there would be 20 steps involved in just using the men’s room urinal. Look at the complexity of a skill that should be simple. If you just tell your child to go in and use the restroom who knows what may happen in there. If his behaviour is not socially appropriate it could lead to making others feel uncomfortable. This, in turn, may cause your child to be ridiculed, or even worse, being victimized by a paedophile. This is something that can and should be prevented with proper education. If your child’s staring at someone, that person may interpret the look in a way that was not intended by your child. As you can see here the context and complexity of using the public restroom is a lot more intense than using our private restroom at home. Using the urinal properly is an adaptive skill that must be learned. In the example above you can see how there are several micro steps involved in learning how to use the urinal properly. With every adaptive skill there come many micro steps to learning that skill. The thing that makes this hard for us to teach is that the micro steps tend to come naturally for neurotypicals. This makes it difficult for them to explain in detail all of the micro steps involved here. My mind is able to process most skills in several steps. I’ve found that I am able to think in micro steps in every occasion accept when practicing social skills. This has been very frustrating for me. People constantly tell me how smart I am and I do feel like I’m pretty intelligent when it comes to physical skills. But, when it comes to practicing social skills I don’t feel very secure at all and I become scared. Personally, it’s extremely frustrating to know that these social relationships come much easier for most. I have to work twice as hard at socializing to even get close to the point where most people are. But it’s worth it. Hard work pays off.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 22:57:08 +0000
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