Loganese

One day at church someone came up to Logan and shook his hand.  This person, and I don't remember who it was, looked at me and smiled and said, "I haven't learned to speak his language yet."

This was such a delightful thing to say because it let me know that somebody "gets" it and that they understand that Logan's communication is, at times, very different from ours.  If that individual is reading this blog, I would just like to say thank you, so much, for understanding.

Logan is a verbal autistic.  This means he does use words, can carry on conversations, and understands exactly what is being said to him and about him in any given situation.  Now, processing all of that, and then spewing it back out in a coherent form is sometimes tricky for him.  Imagine someone who is just learning how to speak English.  They know all the words.  But they don't understand the proper context for the words, so they may say things that don't make a lot of sense.  Because a particular individual named "Bob" wears a blue shirt, this person may call a blue shirt "Bob clothes" because they can't think of the word for "blue".  Or they may call something by the wrong name.  Imagine that they cannot convey that they are nervous or agitated, so they just start saying the only phrase they can think of over and over again.  Logan is much like this.

When Logan gets agitated or anxious, he will say, over and over, "I want to go to Cici's pizza".  He really does like Cici's pizza and loves to eat there.  But when he is anxious, this is what he thinks of to say.  Or he may say, "I want to get milkshakes."  Does he really want a milkshake?  No.  He does not.  The key is not to listen to the words he is saying, but HOW he is saying them.  Is he repeating them over and over again, almost frantically, in a different voice?  This indicates agitation or nervousness.

At times he will also laugh uncontrollably.  A lot of people have seen him do this and they laugh right along with him and ask him what is so funny.  Let me tell you:  NOTHING.  Nothing is funny.  He is, again, exhibiting anxiety.  The key is, once more, to pay attention to the context and the tone.  Is he doing it over and over?  Is it out of control?  Is he using a different voice?  Is there something there to laugh at?  It's difficult to determine how an autistic person is really feeling sometimes because they don't have a lot of control over emotions at times and may exhibit emotion in ways that we don't.  An angry person may actually cry.  A nervous person may laugh.  It's not because they think something is funny.

Another thing Logan likes to do is grab my arm and jerk it up and down and say, "Quesadillas, quesadillas" over and over.  It makes no sense.  He does it to annoy me.  Then he will stop and look at me and say, "I want to play quesadillas".  It has nothing to do with quesadillas and everything to do with annoying his mother.  So most of the time I look at him and say, "I don't want to play that."  Occasionally I will grab his arm and say, "Hamburgers, hamburgers" over and over.  He doesn't know what to do when I do that...he laughs nervously and leaves.

The overall point of this is don't assume that what you're seeing with an autistic person is how things really are.  Ask yourself what is really going on.  Do they need attention?  Are they in pain?  Are they nervous?  Being observant is the best way to learn to speak "Loganese".