He wakes up screaming and keeps it up for the first twenty to thirty minutes every morning.
The most difficult part of the screaming is that I have no earthly idea what it is that turns my small child into a screeching banshee every morning at 5:00 a.m. All I have are guesses and assumptions because he can't tell me what is wrong.
I try to plan ahead by having all the possible things he may need set up and ready to go in the morning. I have the DVD on standby with a favorite show, a fresh diaper with wipes on the floor inside his bedroom door, a sippy cup of juice waiting in the fridge, and the container of frozen waffles open and ready for toasting. The idea is that if I immediately turn on the DVD, give him his cup and waffle and then sit down to change his diaper that things will run more smoothly and prevent the screaming.
But if that were the case I would not be writing this blog post.
If the screaming was reserved only for the morning hours I could probably keep white-knuckling it and make peace with the fact that at least he doesn't do it all day.
Except he does.
The screaming, it seems, has become a form of communication for Noah. There are specific phrases and scripts from TV shows he has memorized that make up the majority of the words he screams. It is as if his mind places them on auto-repeat and he can't keep his mouth from replaying them over and over again.
I know all too well that children on the severe end of the autism spectrum can have serious delays in their speech. Sam didn't say his first 2 word combination until he was over the age of five. At three he had only a handful of words and none of them were "Mommy". Noah's speech is even more delayed and I have often wondered about his future and a possible need for an assisted communication device.
Most doctors and speech-language pathologists would agree that when a child is unable to express their needs they will often resort to screaming or other outbursts in frustration. I would have to say that knowing that is of little comfort to me when I am frantically running through the house trying to figure out what it is Noah needs to calm himself down.
Thankfully, I do have some options for improving this screaming situation. The first is to go back to using sign language with Noah when I am speaking to him. The idea behind the use of sign language is that a child (as early as infancy) will learn words faster when they both hear and see them. Another popular form of communication for non-verbal children is the use of small pictures called PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System).
Photo courtesy of boardmakershare.com
PECS is similar to sign language in that it gives words both a verbal and visual meaning. PECS is commonly used in special needs classrooms and is the most popular form of communication for non-verbal adults with or without an assisted communication device. The purpose of PECS is to give a non-verbal individual the freedom to use pictures to show a person what item they are wanting or needing.
The only downside to PECS is that the software is quite expensive and it does require that the pictures be kept close at hand at all times. Similarly, the assisted communication devices run hundreds to thousands of dollars and are not covered by insurance.
Clearly there are options for me to consider. While buying an assisted communication device is out of the budget I do have the ability to use Noah's school's copy of Boardmaker Pro. Their resource room is open to parents and for a nominal fee I can print PECS cards, laminate them and then affix velcro stickers to create my own communication boards and schedules.
My sincere hope is that when I begin using the PECS cards with Noah he will also begin using them with me and while I am sure it will not completely eradicate the screaming I am hopeful that it will lessen it.
Perhaps this realist-Mommy has some room for optimism after all.
