Mindreading.

Mindreading. One word, no space. Not referring to David Copperfield style parlour tricks - I'm back to thinking about theory of mind, understanding emotions, understanding people, all that jazz. I'm exploring the Small Boy's interpersonal side. In the Autism research community , "mindreading" - one word - is the buzzword that describes all that - the ability to work out through your eyes and ears what's going on inside somebody else's head. Particularly, their emotions.

One of the most effective weapons in our armoury at the moment is Thomas the Tank Engine. The Small Boy loves Thomas. Well, no surprise there - he is, after all, a Small Boy.

I love Thomas too but for a different reason. I love him for the faces. Clear, round, single colour - perfect for thinking about expressions.

"Look. There goes Thomas going along the track. What sort of a face has he got on? Happy face? Yes, I think that's a happy face. Thomas likes going on his tracks. Uh-oh. There's a cow on the line. Beep beep! She's not getting out of the way. What sort of a face has Thomas got now? Look at those lines on his forhead. Those are grumpy lines. I think Thomas has got a grumpy face on. He doesn't like having a cow in the way."

Thomas gets us happy face, sad face, surprised face and grumpy face, so far. I'm looking for more. I think we can probably get in bored face, excited face - maybe scared face (do trains ever get scared?) before we've exhausted the emotional range of Thomas the Tank Engine. After that, I'll be looking for some good boy-friendly books that do body language. Not much of that in Thomas.

We go to Social Skills group every week at the moment. The Speech Therapists in charge report that the Small Boy has a limited range of emotions he understands - happy, sad, anything beyond that is "funny face". But I'm not so sure. Where it counts - understanding emotions in context - he's way ahead of that. Witness the following dinnertime scene...

The chief protagonists - one Small Girl. One grumpy, wriggly, squirmy, whiny Small Girl. And one Daddy. I forget what her issue was, TBH. I do recall she was pushing the parental buttons for all she was worth. And the viscious spiral escalated.

SG: Squirm squirm squirm

D: Instruct Small Girl to Sit Up With Legs Forward.

SG: Whine. Squirm in the other direction

D: Instruct Small Girl to SIT UP NOW and EAT FOOD.

SG: Whine more. Listlessly pick up fork in two fingers. Trail it towards food at..........about.......thissssssss.......s....p....e....e...d..........

Drop food in lap due to inadequate hold on fork.

D: Instruct Small Girl to SIT UP, HOLD FORK PROPERLY and EAT FOOD.

SG: WHINE! Get up, run into bedroom, slam door

D: Silently rise, follow Small Girl to bedroom.


Small Boy's comment. "Daddy want to Smack Julia."

Well labelled.

Words - the Final Frontier.

My Small Boy is now very much in favour of words. He understands the power of them. In fact, he believes in the power of them a little too much. So we get conversations like:

"Can't go to the playground. It's wet and raining."

"No. Is actually not wet playground. Is wet inna house. Playground is dry."

There is a little corner of his mind that is telling him that if he insists hard enough that the playground is dry, the playground will in fact become dry. And the house - which he can see clear enough is not, in fact, wet at this point - will become wet in its place. Basically, he believes in primitive nature magic. Sadly, it's not quite working out for him. He needs to work on his incantations a little.

His belief in the power of [em]my[/em] speech is a little closer to the mark. After all, if he can induce me to say important words like (not-so-random example) "Time to play Minecraft* now" then it's true, this will actually turn it into Minecraft playing time.

It does not, however, follow that taking my lower jaw and moving it up and down will cause me to say the magic words. Apparently worth trying as an experiment though.

The biggest roadblock for the Small Boy at the moment, is the problem of conflicting labels. See that cat in front of you? It's also an animal. And a pet. That roast potato? That's food. Also dinner. Trying to keep things simple, he has an intense aversion to this concept. No! Is NOT dinner! Issa tater! This is probably what's behind the whole "Yourcraft" confusion too. How can "mine" be a word for a hole in the ground? It's already the word for something that belongs to me.

Learning about grouping things - people, animals, foods, clothes - is an important abstract task. Important for being able to sort out and categorise and organise your world too.

Ah! Organisation! That sounds like a whole blog post in itself...



* Logically enough, Minecraft is only Minecraft to the Small Boy when he's playing it. When somebody else is playing, it's "YourCraft". Or "Rachel's Craft" or "Daddy's Craft". After a fair amount of time spent laboriously pointing out the difference between mine, yours, his and hers, I can hardly complain!