Jet

Jet about Dejana and myself.

I am a second-year student "Sociaal Pedagogische Hulpverlening" at the "Hogeschool van Amsterdam". For this study I have to do an 8-hour per week internship. At school I had applied for the mentoring of autistic children. This way I found myself at Dejana's home. Now I have been asked to write something about Dejana. I like that very much, because I see a lot of 'miracles' happen when I am with her. I would like to share these. I mentor Dejana now 8 hours a week. At our first meeting I was quite nervous. How do you approach her? I found this out quickly: At our first encounter, Dejana stood against me and looked for contact. At the first stage I helped her mother with the brain-train exercises. The bond between me and Dejana started to grow. After a couple of weeks I could start playing a few of hours with her. Playing is difficult for Dejana as she is very passive. She won't take initiative quickly. Nevertheless I played football a couple of times with Dejana. I kicked the ball away and asked Dejana where it was. She went looking for it with her eyes. Then I would give her the task to walk to the ball. When she got there, I would tell her to kick against the ball. This she did. As I reacted very enthusiastically, Dejana walked to the ball spontaneously and kicked it. I was well pleased and so was Dejana. The game unfortunately ended soon, as it requires a lot of concentration. When possible, I do this game every week. By nature I am always very enthusiastic. Dejana always senses this very well and my enthusiasm often rubs off on her. Initially I could make her laugh that way. Nowadays Dejana is always laughing. I can hardly say anything serious anymore, as Dejana always rolls up laughing. This is very funny to watch. I often have to laugh about it myself. These were some remarks about my being with Dejana. I still like to go to her. Her father had said, that Dejana always has many friends and now I count myself to be one as well.

Jet about goals

Dejana is a special girl. If it were up to her, she would sit on the couch all day with her hands in her mouth. To get her off the couch, sometimes you have to motivate her and sometimes get pretty strict. When motivating I am always creating an atmosphere. To get her to do things, I will do almost anything: make funny noises, sing songs, look her straight into the eyes. You'll find out, by trying various things, to what she respond best at that moment. The most important thing I find is to stay positive under all circumstances. This I find not always easy. Especially not when Dejana for the sixth time almost threw the fork at you or on the floor. When I find out I can't be positive anymore, I take a break together with Dejana. We will joke around or I let Dejana run around a bit. I did find out, that if I can't be positive myself, she can't be either. To deal with the creative methods, first I have to talk about her passive behavior. Dejana doesn't show 'play-behavior'. The playing in this situation has a completely different meaning. I give her the task to point out to me on the communication-computer what she wants to play with. Most of the times that is reading a book. On Thursday I have two hours I can fill with playing. I found the playing restricted. I had seen that Dejana is very good at fulfilling tasks. While reading the book, I often gave her little tasks, by way of pointing at pictures. Dejana liked this very much. We would be lying on the floor. When she got enthusiastic, she turned her head to me with a huge grin. In various observations I had noticed, that Dejana was capable of taking the initiative. She showed initiative to indicate when she wanted to drink. This she did by using the word 'pie'. Because Dejana is not interested in objects or surroundings, I wondered whether she showed object-permanence. This means that a child knows that although an object is out of view, it still exists. I have tested this by showing her a ball and then putting it somewhere in the room, out of her view. Then I asked here where the ball was. She went looking for the ball with her eyes. As soon as she found the ball with her eyes, she kept looking at it. This exercise was a game in itself. I expanded it a little bit. I gave her the task to walk to the ball when she spotted it. Mother told me one day, that she had done the exercise outside, and that Dejana then also kicked the ball away. I then also did the game outside with Dejana. Mother had put the ball in front of Dejana and told her to look at the ball. I changed the game slightly by letting her look for the ball. It was immediately clear, that outside Dejana is much more focused. Outside she puts her hands in her mouth much less. Dejana saw the ball quite quickly. Encouraged by me she walked towards it. She stood by it and kept looking at it. I encouraged her to kick it, which she did. The ball rolled away and the same procedure repeated itself. The ball eventually rolled away again. This time Dejana ran after it without any prompting and also kicked it on her own initiative. Dejana was playing! These sort of games are wonderful but never last very long as they take a lot of concentration. I sometimes feel sorry for that. Some moments she is playing so well and then I see her concentration slipping away.

Jet about the Team meeting

The cooperation within the team until recently didn't amount to much more than one team meeting. I'll describe this meeting and my role in it. Before the team meeting all participants were filmed while working with Dejana. We watched these films together. This way everybody could give feedback to each other. I did this as well. The people I gave my feedback to, where pleased with it. I noticed this, as they themselves, after being shown a certain point, saw what they were doing. I found the discussions in the meeting valuable. Everybody said how he/she dealt with some of Dejana's problems. Everybody could compare his/her method and adapt it if necessary. Together, we looked for solutions for certain difficult issues. Various agreements on our behavior towards Dejana were reached. As I said, I found this very valuable. It also gave me a certain confidence. Normally I came two days a week not knowing how others handled certain problems. You don't know whether you are doing things well and whether they will work. Apart from you, there are so many other people working with her. I actually felt the need to have more of these meetings. I decided to take the initiative to make a common communication point. Here all participants could read how everybody handled certain things. By giving information about Dejana and making proper agreements we should be able to act more consistently towards Dejana. In my view it doesn't work if someone makes her use her fork herself while someone else still feeds her.

Amsterdam, september 2004