Dangerous!

This morning I'm working on a social story for a child who 'knee walks'.  She folds her feet behind her, holds them with her hands, and walks on her knees.  This might be OK in the ball pit at McDonald's where a frontal wipe-out would be minimized, but on the floor, at home or school or church, could be really dangerous and painful!

Thinking about other dangerous situations that elementary aged children might face, I begin my list with the "Do Not Walk" sign that you'd see at an intersection.  This particular child knows that crossing the street when the sign is on is dangerous.  Add: looking both ways before crossing the street; riding a bicycle without a helmet; jumping out of the swing at the park; running with untied shoe laces.  Coming up with a list that is customized to include activities that commonly occur in the child's life helps to link many potentially unsafe activities into one category ~ what is dangerous.

That will probably be the title of the book ~ Dangerous!  The story will start out by saying that Kelly* likes to walk on her knees.  It will go on to explain that feet are for walking on, and knees are for bending as part of the walking motion that helps move us forward.  The next couple of pages will show what can happen when Kelly walks on her knees.  She can fall forward and hit her nose and face on the floor ~ OUCH!  She might accidentally fall into someone else and cause them to fall, too ~ double OUCH!.  Then I'll add pictures or line drawings of the other dangerous situations specific to this child's routines with simple sentences that tell what's going on and why it's unsafe.

Including several activities that are unsafe in the book on knee walking helps the child create a category related to danger and it adds several dangerous activities to this category.  As more, different, unsafe behaviors emerge, parents and/or teachers will be able to draw on the activities already in the danger category to directly connect the known with the unknown.  Typical kids most often make these connections with little effort.  They're able to process IF/THEN scenarios.  But for someone on the spectrum, who can't automatically make the connections, this kind of direct instruction is necessary.

Every time I write a story, I think of Temple Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures and how that title applies to the effectiveness of social stories for children.  Thank you, Temple!

Make it a great day.

~ D

* not her real name, of course!