Although behavior problems were not part of the original design of this workshop, in our previous training, questions on behavior came up so often that we realized it was necessary to address this common concern.
Routine: Children with a variety of disabilities, including mental retardation and autism, may be very definite about having a certain routine.
From the time my daughter could walk, we used to joke that you could set your watch by her. She woke up at 8 a.m. and she had cereal and milk for breakfast every morning. She laid down for her nap at 11 a.m. and woke up at 1 p.m. At 8 o'clock she had milk and cookies for a bedtime snack and at 9 pm she laid down and went to sleep. Friends used to say, "What an easy baby!" and they were right, most of the time, except God help us if we did not have cereal in the house for breakfast, especially if we were snowed in by one of those North Dakota blizzards. We could offer her eggs, toast, bacon, pancakes - it didn't matter. It would all get tossed on the floor as she screamed and cried until - 11 a.m. when she lay down for her nap and went to sleep. No matter what we were doing, no matter what was planned, we needed to make sure we were somewhere she could lay down and go to sleep at 11 a.m. We were very lucky with her preschool. The first few days, they tried to get her to adapt to their schedule, convinced, I think, that we were just not very good parents and someone needed to just stand firm and show her some discipline. After the first few days, the director stepped in and told the teacher to just let her eat lunch right before 11 and lay down for a nap. She sleeps while everyone else has lunch and then wakes up at 1 with all the other kids.
We knew she would not be able to take a two-hour nap in the first-grade. We started two years early, putting off her naptime just one or two minutes each week. In kindergarten, we were lucky again. We asked around and our friends told us who the most experienced, easy-going kindergarten teacher around was and we got her enrolled in that class. If she really needed to take a nap in the afternoon, the teacher would let her.
Why do children with disabilities desire routine more often? There are a number of possible explanations. The answer that makes the most sense to us is that a young child with a disability may have difficulty understanding and interacting with the world. If you did not understand language very well, how could you trust that someone was going to give you food that would taste good and make you not hungry any longer? One way might be that it is the same exact food that you had the last time and that food tasted good.
If everything happens in the same way, in the same order each day, you don't have to remember exactly what you were supposed to be doing or where you were supposed to go next. . For children who have difficulty making sense of the world, due to autism, mental retardation or other disability, a routine is less frustrating and increases the child’s level of comfort in interactions
For children with attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities that impact attention, routine may reduce the difficulties experienced by the child. If she puts her lunch box in her cubby every day after lunch, this may be one less thing for her to remember. We say, “may” because we have worked with children who simply do not pick up such obvious routines and after two years of putting their lunch boxes in their cubbies after lunch will still forget to do so as they are distracted by looking at the class goldfish.
Children Who Don't Mind