World of Autism

Lucas decided to make his own coffee on Sunday morning!  Luckily, Alan was awake, and unbeknownest to Lucas, was watching from another room.

Here’s Alan’s account:

It took Lucas about 15 minutes to put the water and coffee in.

First, he looked all over the coffee maker for how to add the water.  He finally discovered the little door on top.

What he DIDN’T discover was the gauge on the side of the coffee maker, to help determine how much water to put in.

He’d add a little water and look into the well, add a little more water and look into the well, add a little more water and look into the well, until he thought there was enough water (it took him about 7 minutes just to add the water!)

It took anoher couple of minutes to figure out how to open the coffee basket.  There’s a large blue button on the coffee maker’s top which seems obvious, unless you’re autistic.

Luckily, there was already a coffee filter in the basket, to which he added about 4 LARGE scoops of coffee…

While the coffee was brewing, Lucas searched for the creamer and sugar.  Can you see them in the photo, directly above the coffee maker?  Lucas couldn’t, so he got sugar from the sugar canister.

 Since he DOES know that coffee gets “2 sugars”, he used the giant sugar scoop in the sugar canister to add 2 scoops to his coffee cup.

So all that was missing was the coffee mate.

That’s about when I got up and came into the kitchen.  I asked Lucas what he was doing, and he said “Make the coffee”, and then tried to explain that he couldn’t find the coffee mate.

It took a little work to figure out what Lucas wanted, because he had no idea what to call the coffee mate.  He finally said, “Where’s the other coffee, spoon?”

Since he had the coffee and the sugar, we decided he must be looking for the creamer.  When I pointed it out above the coffee pot, he got it down and added two sppons full to his coffee.

Let’s face it, that coffee couldn’t be drinkable!  So I rushed to make some “normal” coffee as Lucas took his first sip of the very dark (even after the coffee mate), syrupy stuff in his cup.

I asked, “How is it?”  Lucas swallowed with a slight grimace, and responded, “Good.”

I asked if I could have a sip, and holy moly, that coffee would have made a Starbucks espresso seem weak!

God love him, he actually drank that entire cup of coffee!  Of course, since Lucas is hyperactive to begin with, it had the opposite effect on him, and he took a nap that afternoon…

Then he almost burned the house down by lighting the stove in an attempt to help “make pizza”.

I suspect that all this ‘cooking’ is the direct result of the efforts in his classroom to each Lucas and the other kids to be more independent.

Unfortunately, the school seems to have FORGOTTEN THAT SAFETY NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT FIRST!!!

A stove can catch fire, especially when a kid turns a burner on high and then put a cardboard pizza box on it.

A blender can take off fingers, especially when a kid loves movies like “The Goonies”, in which the bad guys threaten to put a kid’s hand into the blender to get info from him.

A kitchen can be burned down, especially when a kid watches old “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” episodes of Will Smith burning down the kitchen, and everyone laughs every time the kid watches it.

Needless to say, Tuesday I went to the classroom, to explain (again) in person that Lucas is NOT to be taught to use any kitchen appliances.  For HIM, it’s a really bad idea. 

We WILL, however work hard with him at home, teaching him how to make a decent cup of coffee…

Tags: Daily life //