Thursday, March 13, 2008

Sunshine in the house

Last week I posted that I was becoming increasingly concerned about Abby. She had been very anxious, and that anxiety had been erupting whenever she was home, in the form of serial meltdowns. Meltdowns in the morning, meltdowns in the evening, meltdowns at suppertime.

Of course, she could not articulate what was bothering her so much. My junior-varsity shrink persona surmised that it was concern over her dance class, which we had switched to a better time and environment for her, coupled with grief over Camille. Maybe things were extra-tough at school; maybe she was getting sick. We didn't know. We just put on the kid gloves and hoped for the best every morning.

And then, a note came home from school, saying that she seemed anxious about the elevator in the building, specifically the emergency buttons on the elevator. Her in-class ABA support person, M., hit on the idea of writing a social story about elevators (why didn't I think of that?) and sent it home with her on Thursday.

Who knew a few pages of elevator information could put such an efficient end to the turmoil in our house?

Abby kept the elevator story with her for the better part of two days, reading it and sharing information with anyone who would listen. And the anxiety evaporated, taking the meltdowns with it.

I marveled to T., Abby's therapist, that Abby could have been so worked up about elevators. And T., in her wisdom, pointed out that sometimes kids on the spectrum funnel their anxiety into one particular topic. Abby's world of worry was stuck in the elevator at school, and the story M. wrote opened the doors and let it out on another floor somewhere. We haven't seen it since.

Abby's been very happy at home for about a week now, and it's been like sunshine in the house. I know it can't last forever, but for now, we are all basking in the glow.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

What a fascinating story! I'm glad that Abby has such insightful and caring people on her team. The human mind is really amazing.