Expressing New Emotions

When I first was told about Ryan's diagnosis, I did the research excessively about emotions and moods in Autism. Many of the articles mentioned, " Children with autism often have difficulty labeling and understanding emotions and moods." However, I made my own determination to work on his emotions and moods skills.

During the first year after he was diagnosed as Autism, I started teaching him by using his emotions in a front of mirror daily. He started showing his expression in basic feelings without using in a front of mirror: happy, sad, crying and hurt in signing. This also came from reading a book to him at night, "The Way I Feel."

Eventually, he was able to show his emotions easily. He had the ability of telling me both in signing and verbally when he was hungry, tired, thirsty, or sick. The way I taught him was to capture the moment if he was looking for a drink, then I would encourage him to tell me, "I'm thirsty," or "I'm hungry" if he was looking for a food. Frankly, I discovered teaching my younger son the emotion was a lot easier at the moment that it happen than showing the pictures of emotions.

The next step was to teach Ryan angry/mad, excited or lonely. It was not an easy task. When Ryan was so mad at us, I kept forgetting to teach him to tell me, "I'm angry at you." But this time he did something I did not expect him he would say out loud in a front of my father in law when I asked him to stay away from the dirty waterfall in their backyard. "You have ruined my life. I'm angry at you" shouted by Ryan out loud perfectly. Then, he stomped back to the house. Both my father in law and I laughed, but I honesty was pleased that he FINALLY used the most difficult word I wanted to teach him, "angry."

Apparently my teaching methods are more effective by showing him at the moment than showing the labels alone. Who knows I will become a famous for the Autism article???