Making Progress

© Babs@spdsupport

SPD at Ten years Old-Where are we now?

There is quite a bit of information on the internet about younger children and how SPD affects them but not much about older children. I thought it would be helpful for parents to read about the difficulties my son still has and those that have disappeared, to reassure them that although there will be some areas where problems can linger, there will also be some improvement as the years go by. So where do I start..well, let's start with:-

Conversational Skills and Language Use

My son is now a fairly fluent speaker, but he is somewhat hesitant. The hesitancy comes from his word finding difficulties. His language does flow, but it is filled out with a few "Ums" and "errs", repetitions and pauses, some false starts and this is especially when he is trying to describe something or relate an experience. When trying to describe events he also uses lots of hand gestures such as flicking and clicking his fingers. This is done whilst he is trying to organise his thoughts and find the correct vocabulary and grammatical structuring to convey what he means. His word finding difficulties mean he also has a lingering degree of semantic paraphrasia. He can still substitute words from the same class ..ie target word "shoes" could be replaced with "feet" and occasionally he can still muddle up personal pronouns. This lingering, but slight difficulty still gives his language an odd feel now and then.
He still has problems with presupposition too, in that he will assume the listener has prior knowledge of what he is talking about. He will often refer to people and items without telling you exactly who or what he is talking about, leading you to ask questions for clarification.
Lack of relevance and some degree of tangentiality is still observable also. You can ask a question such as one I have just asked him actually, which was, "Is your new Teacher nice?" ...The answer he gave me was not "Yes she is" or "No she isnt"..and then going on to give an explanation of why he thought that...it was, "She's two inches taller than Dad!" for a start, this would make her a 6 ft 5 inch woman!

What you can see from that example though, is that he is still unware what his conversational partner wants or needs and this can have implications for other social situations where language needs to be carefully chosen, ie when speaking to an adult or a person in authority. He can sometimes sound very forward when answering an adult, which might make them think he is a bit cheeky, and at other times he can sound very polite and formal with family and friends when there is no need to be. One example of this was yesterday at the dinner table when he said, " Sorry to disturb you, can you put some coleslaw on my burger". Now you may think, "What's wrong with that, it's very polite!"..(and I did tell him that was ever such a polite way to ask) but it's the subtle use of that first learnt phrase (sorry to disturb you) during an everyday family dinnertime, being included in his request, that makes it sound slightly odd... Any other child would say "Mum, can you put some coleslaw on my burger please?"

Literality is still a lingering and worrying problem. The difficulty lies in his rigid understanding of language. An example of a recent misunderstanding was when he fell over at school sports day. The School Nurse had told him, something along the lines of, "...and it will take a few days for any bruising to come out." He came to me on the sidelines, quite distressed, telling me he'd been to see the nurse. He said tearfully and worried, "I've got that thing, what's it called when your insides fall out?". After some quite worried questioning from myself, I figured out what the conversation was about...bruising. She wasn't explicit enough (but she wasnt to know), she should have told him he might get a bruise on his skin in a few days...he had feared something was going to come out of his body. It's no wonder he was distressed.

Non verbal body language has really come on over the years. He now makes really good eye contact. I wouldn't say he stands too close or too far away from his conversational partner either, nor would I say he walks away during conversation..unless hes being reprimanded and I wouldn't even say his facial and hand gestures are inappropriate. ..except for the finger clicking and flicking when he's trying to find words and organise thoughts. He does still rock and sway though, and he does tend to have a habit of being a bit "touchy-feely". He will often twist and play with my hair when he talks to me and it can be a bit annoying.

With regards to structural language, he has made some very good progress in this domain. We have had some targeted support for vocabulary and other aspects related to word finding difficulties and it has paid dividends. His use of personal pronouns, where he would often confuse she/ he, him/ her, his/ hers has improved wonderfully. I occasionally hear a mistake but it is now rare. His syntax (word order) is now good, we dont tend to hear words placed in the wrong order and verb endings seem to have been mastered too. His written language does need to catch up with his spoken language levels now though. Problems such as plural endings missed off words, words missed out altogether, very bitty story lines, very short sentences, set ways of writing a story, ie "first, next, then", punctuation errors such as missing off capitals, writing not seeming to flow well and no real depth to it, means that he cannot be marked higher than a level 2 for literacy. We need to do some more work in this area as he is (only to be expected)starting to fall behind as his peers progress. His reading levels are good, although processing language is obviously still difficult, and his understanding of verbal information and written texts using complex grammar or syntax is not too good either. Complicated long winded sentences can cause problems for his understanding. As can understanding semantic relationships, generalising vocabulary, making connections, creating links and mastering how word meanings can change in different contexts. An example of his poor inference and deduction skills and making connections of how certain vocabulary is associated with certain categories of words was when he was doing some homework about Gypsies. He had to read a passage about them and then had to answer the questions. The passage spoke about their faith, their religious views and how they were usually either Roman Catholics or Christian. The question, "What was their religion?" was answered with "Gypsy and Traveller". After a good six years schooling, talking and writing about all sorts of religion, Roman Catholic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, along with daily prayers, he had failed to make the connection using information provided and drawing on his own knowledge and experiences of the religious education taught to him. This is a good example of why it's so important to be explicit when introducing new concepts and ideas, to build in those links and to create some flexibility for good understanding to take place. Semantic webs are a good place to start....build in that flexibilty, for the child to be able to make those connections.

OK, Ive written a bit there on language use and understanding, I now want to talk about:-

Autistic Behaviours

Well I'm sure you want to know whether or not my son still has autistic features. The answer to this is just come and see him when he's having a bad day. Yes, he can and does display some of the behaviours associated with Autism, ie he is still rigid and obsessional at times, can find transition difficult, can have anxiety when encountering change without warning and in new situations.He still rocks, has difficulty with flexible thinking, social communication difficulties, displays challenging behaviours sometimes...I have to say it is definately getting much better with age. His sensory difficulties still remain. I still cut his hair with clippers because of the whining, he can't stand to have his toe and finger nails cut, and he flinches his head away from the brush when I brush his hair. He also complains of itching legs when wearing trousers sometimes too. The noise sensitivity appears to have gone. It was noticeable at age five, with him putting his hands over his ears, but he no longer does this.

In play, he appears more confident. He will attempt things other children might be doing, for example climbing, but there's a limit to his confidence. Some children run and climb without any fear of danger, my son is not like that, he is still hesitant when it comes to climbing frames, slides and rough and tumble sort of games boys play at his age. He loves to play football though now and he recently joined a club. He had difficulties when he tried this earlier, not understanding the game, how you might get kicked by accident. He always took it personally and would storm off shouting about his raw deal. Now he appears to have a better understanding of the game and the likelyhood that you can get injured and he seemed to be coping better and enjoying it. His skills with the ball are quite good. The manager was quite impressed with him.That was until he had an argument with a boy on the pitch about getting tackled and that was it..he wont play anymore. I dont know why I bother buying football boots!

Eating difficulties have subsided. He will now try most foods. Infact, he likes to. Just the other week I gave him some smoked mackerel, which he wolfed down. He doesn't eat enough though. He often leaves his sandwiches untouched at school, but he will usually eat half his lunch. He does eat all of his breakfast and 3/4 of his dinner, so I am not too concerned. Toileting, well let's just say we have the odd accident still at night, but it is now weeks apart thankfully.

Socially, well, he appears popular at school. But he's like a little social butterfly that flits from new friend to new friend to new friend. He tends to stick to one friend and then gets upset when the new friend plays with someone else. It's like he must have exclusive rights on the friend and he can only have one friend at a time. When the friend then plays with someone else, he falls out with them because, "they arent his friend any more" and he then retreats a while before moving onto the next child. When he's been through the class, he then has a shortage of friends, because he finds it hard to make amends. He often misunderstands the nuances of friendships and takes things very much to heart. It can ruin what could be a lovely friendship sometimes. He can and has sustained good relationships with milder mannered characters though, those children who dont mind following his lead all of the time. He is especially good with younger children, because he is "in charge" of play. It's nice to watch how younger children look up to him. His peers can pick up on his difficulties though and coupled with his quick temper when understanding goes awry, it can lead to episodes of him being bullied because his "friends" no longer like him because he got cross with them or wouldn't listen to their point of view. His rigid understanding often seems to get in the way of knowing when to back down in an argument. He finds it hard to accept anothers point of view and will try and force every issue. He will deny to extremes in an argument, e.g. the sun could be blazing in the sky and he would say it isnt!. The problems obviously arise when he meets someone who is intent on winning the argument.

A Word of Caution

You may feel slightly depressed reading that your child may not outgrow all of their SPD difficulties by the time they are ten and beyond. But I think it would be very foolish of me to paint a rosy picture of our difficulties for the sake of the many families out there that are struggling with their young and teenage children and are being told by their teachers and professional support workers that their problems are resolved because their language "sounds ok". Let me say emphatically that SPD does not go away. I have watched my son very closely over the years to know that this is true. Research is showing that the children's difficulties change as they develop and they need continued support and monitoring backed up by a team approach to problem solving throughout their schooling as they meet the challenges trying to keep up with their peers. Without that support, parents who don't fight for it and professionals who wont give it are denying a child the opportunity to reach his potential. No amount of professionals can tell me my child's difficulties have resolved or that he has made such good progress that he no longer needs support. Do not EVER accept this for your child. The very nature of SPD means that the difficulties are masked under superficially good language, and those who are not trained to look for the subtleties of abnormal pragmatics and the impact of semantic difficulties on understanding can have a damaging effect on the child's potential when being so dismissive of something they don't really understand or know little about.

I recently spoke to a primary school teacher socially who admitted to me that she knew "NOTHING" about SPD, that she had "never heard of it". I enlightened her. This is not her fault, it's a fault of the system, not spending enough time on educating those who are to support these children. If mainstream inclusion is to succeed we need more training and awareness. Hopefully this site will help to do that in some way.

You shouldn't feel depressed by reading this article about "Life at Ten" and give up now, you should feel empowered to get out there and fight for your child's future. They really are making admirable progress under your nose. If, like my son they are ten/eleven years old you may be able to recall life at five years old, their world was a scary place wasnt it, all that not knowing what was going to happen....but they still kept on going didnt they! Look what they can do now what they couldn't back then. Progress might be painstakingly slow for some, or if it's all going well, it might be with leaps and bounds for others, but either way, whilst following SPD's twisty path you will undoubtedly reach more crossroads and end up back on a rocky road now and again. That's the nature of the beast I'm afraid, good days with bad days..two steps forwards one step back...But with targetted support and a good understanding of the difficulties your child is facing and likely to encounter in the future, it will make all the difference between struggling, coping and reaching their potential. I am pleased to say despite all of the "low points" mentioned above, and there are more I haven't mentioned, I still remain very optimistic for the future. I am not saying my son will turn out to be an astronaut or a literary genius, I am saying I am hopeful he will find his niche in life and be happy. By continuing to educate "our professionals" on the nature of SPD and his needs, so they make informed decisions regarding his support and by taking an active role in persuing that support when it doesnt materialise, I hope to help him to find that niche.

I hope you have found this article useful and like me will stay in the fight.