In which Emily learns something

Mar 11, 2009 16:31

Today has been much better, for reasons I'd rather not get into. Understanding is always really comforting, for some reason. Hindsight is most certainly not universally 20/20, but with the right amount of effort (and a certain amount of humility), it can be, and that counts for a lot.
This story is true, but it's also an allegory.
The Thursday before break, my second client of the day had a meltdown--honestly, the first time his diagnosis of autism made sense to me. Seeing an empty microphone stand triggered an intense preoccupation with where the actual microphone was, which lead to lots of looking around in the closets and telling me to take things down from top shelves, and refusing to sing any songs or play any games unrelated to the microphone. Eventually, he became very distraught over the fact that there was no microphone, repeating "what happened? what happened? its broken? what happened?" and sounding on the verge of tears.
My student observer, trying to be helpful, found a toy microphone in the resource room and quietly put it inside the door, and a for a minute it seemed like the world was fixed--we could use the microphone to sing our usual songs, get over being upset about its absence, and possible do some actual music therapy before the hour was up. However, my client immediately realized that the microphone was only a toy, and created no actual amplification of sound. The end of the chord seemed to be designed to be plugged into a computer, but my client tried everything to fit the chord into the electric sockets around the room. He demanded repeatedly that "Emily take off," referring to the plastic shields on some of the ones he had not yet tried. I tried to ride it out, let him figure out deductively on his own that it was a futile effort, standing by only make sure he didn't electrocute himself. I told him very plainly, "it doesn't work, maybe next time, that doesn't fit," etc. etc. I tried to get him to go back to our routine, but he would sit down for a few seconds and return to trying to plug in the microphone around the room.
"What happened? Its broken! Its broken! What happened? Fix it?"
"Yes, it is a broken," [a lie, hoping he would understand enough to just do what I wanted], "maybe we'll fix it for next time," [also barely true]. Probably, it was supposed to plug in somewhere; I just didn't know where, but in that case it would have worked fine. Possibly, I would try to figure out said microphone before our next session, but it was unlikely. I sang the goodbye song to him while he was still trying to fix the microphone, and sent him home with his apologizing father.
Like I said, it was the first time I really saw the kid as autistic. But like I said, that was also an allegory, which I'm not going to hand to any of you, because you're all smart people.
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