Social Stories at work

Once MJ was confirmed to have Autism and I knew social stories was a common therapy I became incredibly more intentional about using them in MJ’s life. Yes –we had the nightly regimen of “What are we going to do tomorrow?” but I knew any time MJ’s routine would be disrupted we would have to be much more pro-active and intentional about it.

We are extremely blessed that in the last year MJ’s speech has grown tremendously and he no longer is considered speech delayed – he actually has gone the other way and is now considered gifted in his language skills compared to other children his age. However much of it is due to something called echolalia which I will discuss in a later blog. We are grateful that MJ is so verbal and this is why he is described as having “high functioning” Autism because he is so verbal. He is extremely visual and always has a ton of questions about things. I mean a ton of questions.

MJ's plane social story

So when it came to “bigger” routine changes in his life I have literally created story books that we read to MJ ahead of the event. It gives him time to prepare himself, to process things, and to ask questions. We used it for our Thanksgiving trip when we took a plane to CA to see family. It worked amazingly well. He saw pictures of the plane, airport, security – and he knew what was coming so he felt more in control of his environment.

 

MJ's surgery social story

So this week as we were getting ready to discuss and prepare MJ for his surgery I knew a social storybook was going to be crucial. We took the boys out for ice cream on Saturday 2/23 then retreated to a quiet area and read MJ (and his brother JR) the story book. MJ knows the situations we are reading are real and he knows we do it to prepare him and give him the opportunity to ask questions because we know it helps him. He recognized some things from the hospital in the story book due to his other visits he has had the past 6 months including MRI’s.  But you could tell he was really trying to process everything. We gave him lots of encouragement and lots of time to ask questions.

Discussing the surgery story with both boys.

The interesting thing he gave us at the end of our conversation when he decided he was done …he said “Mommy – when you are talking about this and reading this to me – it feels like I am not here – it feels like we are not here”. I didn’t quite catch what he was saying and just closed with some words of encouragement and scripture about putting our trust in God, and God’s peace and healing.  It wasn’t until we got home and put the boys to bed that Dan realized what MJ may have meant by that comment. We think he was trying to explain that surreal feeling you get when something you hear is just beyond your comprehension or you haven’t been able to come to terms with it yet.  How amazing that our 5 year old with Autism was able to put that feeling into words. Blessing counted.  

We know this is taking time for him to process everything. We are just praying he has peace and no fear. We are also praying for our own peace so that we can be strong for MJ.