Greatest Inventions

This week, I will administer our Indiana state proficiency exams, the ISTEP+, to my seventh grade students. Every year my colleagues have me tell the story of a student I had in class years ago who apparently misread the writing prompt for his essay, which we still find amusing years later. The students that year were to write about the greatest invention in history. As I walked around the room to monitor the students’ progress, I noticed this student had entitled his essay “My Hamster.” I gently suggested that he re-read what the assigned topic was, and as he did, his eyes widened, and he began erasing what he’d written and hopefully chose a more appropriate topic. [Sadly, under the more stringent rules the state has given test proctors this year, I wouldn’t be able to help that poor kid.] Yesterday, I ran across an entertaining blog entry from Look At My Eyes entitled “The Greatest Invention for the Autism World EVER???” [Click here to read this blog entry.] No, the greatest invention wasn’t a hamster, but the electronic timer instead, which holds a special place in Alex’s heart, as I’ve written in previous blog entries. While I’d be hard pressed to choose the greatest invention for the autism world, five items—in addition to the beloved electronic timer—come to mind.

Betty Crocker gluten-free yellow cake mix makes my life so much easier. Before this wonderful product came on the market last year, I had to bake all of Alex’s cakes from scratch. Gluten-free cakes that have a good texture and flavor require measuring three different gluten-free flours (tapioca, potato starch, and rice flours) and adding the proper mix of xanthan gum to help the flours stick together without gluten along with baking powder and/or baking soda to make it rise. With Betty Crocker’s GF cake mixes, I just dump the mix in a bowl with three eggs, a stick of Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine, a little water, vanilla extract, and orange extract (my own addition that Alex really likes), mix with the electric mixer, pour in a pan, and bake. Not only is it easy to make, but also topped with Duncan Hines vanilla frosting, this is one tasty cake.

I’d personally like to thank the creator of the Game Show Network for entertaining Alex for hours on end. Between Family Feud, Lingo, Deal or No Deal, Press Your Luck, and others, Alex has not only enjoyed watching these shows, but he’s also learned some information and strategy by playing along at home.

I don’t know what Alex would do without his beloved calculators. He has calculators of every shape, size, color, and format and can spend hours punching in numbers. Of course, his love of math and numbers has shaped his affection for these handy gadgets. When he was a toddler and had to sit through faculty meetings with me, I’d put him in his stroller and hand him a calculator to play with, and he never let out a peep, fully amused by punching the buttons. Early on, I guess I knew how to keep him happy and calm in such a simple way.

If it were not for melatonin, we would have spent many years sleep deprived. When Alex suddenly developed insomnia around age five, he would wander around the house and watch middle-of–the-night tv, such as CNN. Of course, we couldn’t allow him to be up without our supervision, so we had to give up sleep, as well. The first night he started taking melatonin under the guidance of our doctor, he easily fell asleep at a reasonable hour and slept soundly through the night. I really suspect that he did not have enough natural melatonin in his system, and this supplement provided what he needed. Fortunately, he has overcome this problem and can sleep without taking melatonin anymore, but for those years he couldn’t, I’m thankful he responded so well to this supplement.

For Alex, I think the greatest invention is the computer and the Internet. He has learned so much by playing games, doing Google searches and subsequent research, and typing information into spreadsheets and word processing programs. As I mentioned in a recent blog entry, he is currently fascinated with a website called “Ask God,” and now he begins every morning by consulting with this artificial intelligence site. He shares his worries with “God” about rising gasoline prices, and apparently, he has some good sense about not sharing his identity online. Last week, “God” asked him his name, and he typed in [game show and talk show host] Regis Philbin. Ed and I thought that was pretty clever of him. In addition, I’m pleased that he knows the best way to start the day is by having a conversation with God; now if we can teach him that prayer is better than the Internet, we’ll have taught him well.

“Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works!” Psalm 105:2

Getting Christmas Presents

As I mentioned in my last blog post, buying gifts for Alex is sometimes a challenge. While I’m fortunate that we have Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Kohl’s, Penney’s, and Barnes and Noble in our town that offer a variety of items for shopping, I also do a lot of online shopping for him. When I can’t find items locally at the aforementioned stores, I often check their websites to see what I can get online. Both Kohl’s and Penney’s websites [www.kohls.com and www.jcp.com] offer a nice feature where the shopper can browse for gifts by the intended recipient and/or cost of gift. Besides these stores, I also shop a great deal online at Amazon [www.amazon.com], which is Alex’s favorite online store because of the wide variety of books, toys, games, and electronic gadgets they carry. In fact, I often suggest that Alex’s aunts and uncles get him Amazon gift cards because he has so much fun shopping for items online.

Since Alex has often had interests that were not typical of kids his age, I also have found specialty catalogs especially helpful in finding Christmas gifts for him. I have no connection with the following companies other than being a pleased customer, and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for unique gifts for hard-to-buy-for children and teens.


Bits and Pieces offers a variety of puzzles, games, and interesting gadgets primarily for teens and adults. In addition, their website also provides the helpful feature of suggesting gifts for specified recipients and/or amounts to be spent. Their website is www.bitsandpieces.com.



Young Explorers carries a wide variety of interesting toys and games for children of all ages. They specialize in educational toys and games, many of which have won awards. Their website at www.youngexplorers.com organizes its content by age of recipient and by categories of items. Alex’s favorite gifts from this company often came from the Brainy Toys or Science/Nature/Math sections of the catalog.


Toys to Grow On, whose website is located at www.ttgo.com, also offers a nice variety of educational toys and games for all ages of children. Alex especially liked the items from the “Love to Learn” and “Science Discoveries” of this catalog.


Mindware, which bills itself as carrying “brainy toys for kids of all ages,” provides a terrific variety of educational and award-winning toys, games, gadgets, and books. Over the years, I have found various items for Alex in the “Science,” “Brainteasers and Puzzles,” “Games,” and “Great Gifts” sections of the catalog. Their catalog is not only informative, but it is also appealing with its layout and photography. Their website is located at www.mindware.com.


A catalog I received for the first time this year, Museum Tour, also offers a nice assortment of award-winning educational toys, games and books that are carried in museum stores throughout the United States. Their website is www.museumtour.com. For Alex, I was especially interested in the science-oriented gifts, particularly those dealing with biology, meteorology, and astronomy.

Even though trying to find gifts for Alex sometimes requires some creativity and searching on my part, I’m glad to have found some terrific stores whose catalogs and websites allow me to find Christmas gifts that are right up his alley. Not only has he enjoyed playing with the specialty gifts, but he has also learned from them, which is an added bonus.

“You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 20:35

Ghosts of Christmases Past

As the official Christmas shopping season has begun this Thanksgiving weekend, I find myself thankful that I have basically finished shopping for Alex. Buying gifts for him always proves to be somewhat of a challenge because he rarely asks for anything, and he is not good about giving suggestions. Nonetheless, I try to find things I think he would like. Sometimes, my ideas are right on target, and other times he looks at me as if to say, “Why would you think I would want that?” Interestingly, some of the gifts he has been less than enthusiastic about receiving at first later become favorites of his, which is gratifying. The other evening after he went to bed, I noticed an array of his belongings in the family room, where he had been spending time, and I realized that all of these items had been Christmas gifts from various years—Ghosts of Christmases Past, so to speak, that reveal his various interests.


One of these former Christmas gifts was one I’d gotten him last year, a retractable ballpoint pen with ten different colors of ink. I had seen one of my seventh grade students using a similar pen in class and asked her where she’d gotten it, thinking that Alex might like one, too. She told me that she’d gotten it at Claire’s Boutique, and I dug through all the hot pink pens to find a purple one I thought he’d find acceptable. While he didn’t seem very interested in the pen when he received it, he’s been using it quite a bit lately to write his assorted cryptic lists in multicolored ink.



Speaking of lists, another part of the Christmas Past menagerie included one of his all-time favorite books, I Love Lists! by Linda Schwartz. In fact, Alex loves this book so much that he’s now on a second copy of this paperback because the first one fell apart from being read and carried around so much. The book describes itself as: “More than 200 fun-filled lists for reading, science, math, geography, music, art, sports, and lots more!” Essentially, if Alex had asked someone to write the perfect book for him, this would be it. I happen to know that he finds the following lists in the book especially interesting: “Big Numbers,” Presidents of the United States,” “Bones in the Human Body,” “Palindromes,” and “Weather Words.” For compiling these clever lists into this book that Alex has enjoyed for years, I would personally like to thank Linda Schwartz.


Another book he has been reading was a Christmas gift from 2006, The Best Stocks You Can Buy 2007 by John Slatter. Alex has had a fascination with the stock market for a few years, so he has about five annual editions of Slatter’s book that we gave him for Christmas gifts. I’m not certain why he selected the 2007 version of the book, but I’m sure he has some reasoning for his interest in this particular book that is now five years old. When he starts giving us good investment advice, we’ll know that we made wise decisions in encouraging his interest in stocks by giving him these books.


Since Alex has an interest in money, I found a toy cash drawer with play money a few years ago that he has enjoyed from time to time since he received as a Christmas gift one year. Lately, he has been doling out the fake currency and coins, leaving the phony money on the floor and on tables throughout the house. Maybe he’s leaving tips for Ed and me for the excellent service we provide for him. Whatever his logic, he has certainly gotten our money’s worth out of that gift that only cost two dollars.


Another Ghost of Christmas Past in this collection is the television “plug and play” video game 1 Versus 100, based upon the game show of the same name. Since Alex really likes playing video games and watching game shows on television, this seemed like the perfect combination. A Christmas gift from thee years ago, he pulls it out to play every few months or so.


One of Alex’s favorite Christmas gifts from the past is one he carries around nearly every day, a handheld educational electronic toy called an iQuest. Loaded with questions about science, math, and social studies, this electronic gadget has keep Alex amused for hours Unfortunately, the manufacturer Leap Frog no longer makes the iQuest, which is a shame because it’s a great learning device. While the Leap Pad that replaced it offers more entertainment in the form of color and graphics, the iQuest’s simplicity and emphasis on facts appeals to Alex, and he has learned a great deal from playing with it. Most kids probably wouldn’t appreciate that, though, which is probably why the iQuest is now listed as a “collectible” toy.

As I surveyed the group of former Christmas gifts that had engaged Alex’s interest that day, I was pleased that I had been right about what kinds of things he would like. Also, I’m glad that he still enjoys things he has had for years, finding them entertaining even after all this time.

“Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me.” Isaiah 46:9

Acccessories

One of the most interesting aspects of my job as a part-time middle school teacher is that I can observe [mostly] “normal” teenage behaviors. Often I compare and contrast how my students act with how Alex does to note how autism has impacted his behavior. The apparent need for teenagers to travel with accessories is something I have noticed in my seventh grade students as well as in Alex, so this must be a characteristic of teenagers in general. While my students frequently carry electronic devices, such as cell phones and iPods (although they may not display them openly during class since school rules prohibit their use during class time), Alex carries around different accessories that reveal his interests and needs.


Before and after school, students often use their cell phones to text, e-mail, and call their friends and parents. Because we cannot trust Alex to use a cell phone wisely, he—unlike most teenagers—doesn’t have one. I’m not sure who he’d call or text anyway, other than maybe 911, and we don’t need the police showing up on our doorstep to answer Alex’s false alarms. Besides, communicating verbally with others doesn’t rank highly on Alex’s list of priorities, anyway. Instead of a cell phone, Alex prefers to carry an electronic dictionary, perhaps so that he can look up the meanings of words he wants to know. In addition, he often carries around the more traditional dictionaries, in the form of books, but he likes the convenience of the compact electronic version.


Another accessory middle school girls carry is lip gloss, which they sometime surreptitiously apply during class. A few months ago, Alex went through a phase where he carried around lip balm. He only applied the lip balm before he went to sleep, but he liked to carry not one but two tubes of Blistik with him—one regular type and one mint flavored. If he couldn’t find his, he’d take mine. Before he went to bed, he had to make sure that he put the lip balm on his dresser. At some point, his fascination with lip balm ceased, and now I occasionally find tubes that he’s left behind in various places.


Of Alex’s accessories, his favorites are his clocks. Because of his fascination with time, he rarely goes anywhere that he doesn’t carry a clock with him. Although he has several battery-operated clocks that he can move from room to room, he seems to have three that are particular favorites. One is a talking clock that announces the time, often startling me when he’s left it behind in a room where I’m sitting. Alex especially likes clocks that also have thermometers built in so that he can keep track of the temperature along with the time. The other day, taking advantage of a temperate November afternoon, Alex went outside and sat on our backyard deck, carrying, of course, his clock with a thermometer. As he happily watched the time pass before his eyes on the clock, he noted the temperature changes as the sensor sat in the sunshine. While most teenagers would prefer listening to music on their iPods, Alex enjoys watching the numbers change on his digital clock/thermometer as the temperature varies and the seconds and minutes go by. Even though Alex carries different accessories than his peers do, he seems to enjoy the same sense of security, comfort, and entertainment they provide for him that similar items do for other teenagers. Hopefully, soon he’ll prove trustworthy enough to earn the accessory most of his peers possess—the ever-present cell phone. Of course, knowing Alex, he’ll just be thrilled that he can use it to find the time and temperature; he doesn’t need much to make him happy.

"Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away." I Corinthians 7:31

Maps

As I was attempting to re-organize our home office yesterday, I discovered that we have a fair number of geography books. Although Alex loves math best, and science comes a close second, he also has enjoyed studying geography over the years. Like me, at an early age he memorized all of the U.S. states and their capitals, and I would bet that he still could identify all fifty states on a blank map simply by their shapes and locations. If asked to name his favorite state, he would pick our home state of Indiana, but for some reason unknown to us, he also holds great affection for Texas. No one we know lives there, nor has Alex ever been there, but he likes the Lone Star State. He even says “Texas” with a big smile and an enthusiastic yet soft voice as he emphasizes the last s of the name. He gets especially excited if he sees a Texas license plate, which is pretty rare here in the Midwest.

I think Alex’s love of geography is directly related to his fascination with maps. Like my dad, he can spend hours poring over maps in atlases. I would guess that a lot of the appeal behind these maps lies in the various numbers, such as interstate, national, and state highways; distance scales; charts indicating mileage between cities; and tables listing populations of various towns and cities. Those kinds of statistics amuse Alex as he studies them. In addition to road maps and atlases, Alex also likes large world maps. In fact, he has had several world maps over the years because from his frequent handling of them, they’ve become worn, torn, and battered, and they needed to be replaced often. He likes to spread the maps out on the floor, then sit or lie on his stomach, gazing at the countries before him. For a while, he had a particular interest in the smaller countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly those that ended in –stan. As I recall, his favorite was Turkmenistan, probably because it reminded him of turkey, one of his favorite things to eat. However, he also found talking about Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan entertaining, too.

In addition to his traditional maps, Alex also has electronic interactive maps of the United States and the world. These electronic toys not only contain maps of the states or countries, but they also teach various facts about the places by pushing buttons that activate sound to tell about places or ask questions in a game format. While these high-tech maps have kept him engaged for hours over the years, he also has enjoyed studying the inexpensive place mats that I found at Kmart with a map of the United States and one with a map of the world. He especially liked that the world map placement included degrees of longitude and latitude, and the United States map designated the various time zones, which combines his love of maps and clocks. Besides his maps, he also likes globes; he has two globes of the world in his bedroom that also double as lamps because they are illuminated by a night light bulb. For many years, he kept one of the globe lights on all night long as a night light for his room, perhaps comforted by the idea that everything in the world was right so long as it were lit. Ironically, though Alex loves studying various places far and near, he hasn’t traveled much because his unpredictable behavior makes him not a good traveler. Maybe the maps allow him to venture in his mind to places he’s not ready to go. On the other hand, I like to think that he’s planning trips to places he’d like to see in the future, once the obstacles of autism are a faint memory for all of us. I hope so.

“As the men started on their way to map out the land, Joshua instructed them, ‘Go and make a survey of the land and write a description of it. Then return to me, and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord.’ “ Joshua 18:8

Rediscovery

This past week, Alex seems to be in a nostalgic mood, as he has been busily rediscovering books, toys, software, and handheld electronic gadgets that he hasn’t used in months, or even years. His bedroom, which he has been keeping neat for quite a while, currently looks as though a tornado has torn through it because he’s been sorting through books on his bookshelves, toys in his toy box, and electronic games and gadgets in a basket. In our home office, he has software manuals and CD-ROMs lying on the desk. His desktop computer, which held less charm for him once he got his new laptop this summer, has regained favor as he has been playing old games on it. A few years ago, Alex developed a keen interest in simulation computer games and acquired a nice collection of software that allowed him to plan, build, and run various business ventures. After a while, though, he found Google, Wikipedia, and You Tube more interesting than his computer games. However, this week, he has resumed playing Roller Coaster Tycoon, Mall Tycoon, Restaurant Empire, and Casino Empire. The enthusiasm he formerly held for building roller coasters, malls, restaurants, and casinos has returned, and he gains satisfaction as he watches his plans develop through the sequence of the computer games.

Scattered on Alex’s bedroom floor are books that he hasn’t read in months and toys he hasn’t played with in ages. Among the books he’s studying again are two coin collection books of pennies, the NASCAR Road Atlas, and Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, a gift from a friend who thought I’d appreciate a book whose title contained the name my students call me. I’m not certain why Alex has resumed his fascination with coins, maps, and odd words, but I’m pleased that he knows where to find books that he enjoys. In addition, he’s been pulling out and playing all of his electronic interactive games: U.S. Presidents, Solar System, U.S.A. Map, and World Map. While I suspect that Alex probably knows all the answers to the questions these interactive games pose, maybe playing them again gives him confidence that he has learned the lessons they’ve taught him over the years. He has also been playing with two car-related toys that he’s had since he was little, the Hot Wheels Racing Steering Wheel and the Hot Wheels Auto Tech Service Center, both of which are speaking toys. Since most boys his age are out driving cars, I have to admit that I’m relieved that he’s just dealing with toy cars. Certainly with his motor delays, the Hot Wheels steering wheel is much safer for him to operate than a real steering wheel.

Besides software, books, and toys, Alex has also been digging through his handheld electronic games and gadgets that he has basically ignored for months. He’s been bringing old games to me to put new batteries in them, and in doing his mental inventory, he has realized that some gadgets he previously had have been lost or broken over the years. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, “Progress Achieved,” Alex had a small tape recorder that he would use after provoking us so that he could record our angry comments. He particularly liked replaying Ed’s earnest request “to stop torturing us,” and my middle school teacher voice insisting that Alex “sit down and be quiet because I’ve had enough!” Because he was driving us crazy with that thing, we hid it where he wouldn’t find it. Apparently, we found a really great hiding place because we can no longer find it, either. This week, Alex located a similar tape recording toy online and decided to purchase it using a gift card his uncle and aunt had given him. If he resumes using that gadget for evil instead of good, we will be mailing that Yadda Yadda Yadda, as it’s called, to Uncle John in New Jersey to do with as he pleases. Another gadget Alex decided to replace this week was his Talking Road Whiz handheld device that tells distances between cities and the locations of businesses along major highways—a simpler, less expensive version of GPS. As I recall, angry adolescent Alex threw the original Road Whiz in a fit of temper, which explains why none of the buttons work anymore, despite new batteries. We found the Road Whiz online, and he put some of his gift money toward a new one. Now he keeps using online tracking to see when these new toys will arrive. The other day, he informed me that he also wants a PDA and has been pricing them on the Internet. Although he wanted one several years ago, we did not get him the Palm Pilot he wanted, as we didn’t think he was responsible enough to take care of one of these expensive electronic aids. Now that he does generally do a good job of taking care of his things and has his own money saved to buy one, he’ll probably add another gadget to his collection. Considering that his father now travels nearly everywhere with a Kindle and an I-Pod Touch, Alex seems to be following in his footsteps with all his electronic accouterments. Despite the fun and excitement that come with new possessions, Alex still likes the familiarity of the old things and gains pleasure rediscovering them.

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’” Jeremiah 6:16