We are heading towards 600 orders for Dominic's business. Since our long-term goal for Baked Goods By Dominic is having a "brick-and-mortar" and hire those with disabilities, it is essential and imperative that I continue to teach him all parts of the business. Since I prompted Dominic for so many years for speech, he has become "prompt dependent." What that essentially means is that he will look at me for a prompt, like, "what do you do next?" I do that one a lot. Dominic has been going to a private speech therapist for over ten years and she reminds me often that Dominic usually will know the answer, if I am patient and wait for him. That has been a very hard habit to break! Dominic has an incredible memory, so I put it to the test this morning. I didn't write out the steps, I wanted to see how much he could do completely on his own. We have a customer picking up his order today, but the only thing that had been done is putting the cookies into the four separate containers (our customer wanted one dozen of each kind of cookie). All I told Dominic was the customer was coming this afternoon. I sat at the kitchen table with him but was doing something else. He first said, "scissors," and then cut out all the labels. Next, he said, "scale." He went over and got it off the kitchen counter. After a few attempts to turn it on and me not prompting him, he said, "I need help." That is HUGE. This is a skill that his teacher has said he needs help with. He will stand in front of a cabinet at school and not say anything until someone asks him what he wants.
When we have more than one item in an order, I have started to write the initials on the top of the product in black marker (SC for sugar cookie, etc.). For the first container of cookies, he looked and told me they were chocolate chip cookies. I reminded him that the initials were on the top and he didn't need to look into the container. For the last three containers he did that. He put the first container on the scale, told me the weight and was getting ready to tape the label on. I waited about 30 seconds and then said, "did you forget something?" He had forgotten to stamp the logo on the label. He then said, "stamp," and finished the label. He next said, "where is the tape?" I kept my mouth shut and he found it in the drawer, taped the label to the container and then finished the three other containers. Lastly, he signed the invoice, went into the desk in our living room where we keep the long envelopes and tucked the invoice inside.
He took a look at the front of the envelope which was blank and realized he forgot to put the customer's name. He pulled the invoice out, looked at the name and wrote the name on the outside of the envelope and then tucked the invoice back in. During the entire time from beginning to end, anytime he would look at me to prompt him or tell him he did the step right, I didn't say anything. More than once, he got pretty upset with me and would start "scripting" from Barney. "Scripting" is when you repeat a certain line or favorite part of a movie or television show. Some of those individuals with Autism will flap their hands or bang their heads when they are overwhelmed. Dominic typically talks about Barney. I just kept telling him he was doing a good job and learning to be "confident and "independent" of mom. After about an hour or so, I asked Dominic if he preferred mommy telling him what to do or whether he liked doing it himself. He said, "mommy." Guess we have a little way to go!
Great job mom!
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