Helping Lauren Change Negative Thoughts to Positive Thoughts

Lauren’s latest visit to Dr Johann had her working on the table below.

Chart to Identify Unhelpful & Helpful Thoughts

The purpose of this exercise: How to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts.
This came about because Lauren has a big (gigantous) fear and dislike of water. She thinks she will drown in the pool. She tells us it is dirty. She hates the feeling of being splashed even with sprinkles of water. So she shuns swimming as much as possible.


Kevin and I, on the other hand are trying to get Lauren to understand that she must learn to swim, because it is a life-saving skill. She does not need to love it, but she should try to live with it.


So, for many years, we have been trying to get Lauren to swim – with and without her swimming cap, with and without her float. One time, she tried swimming without the float, and she felt herself sinking. That freaked her out even more!


And then there is the vomiting after the swimming. Intense emotions of triumph that she has managed to swim without her cap and float, coupled with even more intense anxiety…results in Lauren rushing to the toilet to vomit after her swims.


But she has agreed she will continue trying. She is a real trooper. Such resilience. And I must remind myself to continue to encourage her and be more patient.


So, our task is to identify negative thoughts, for example,

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
I might drown if I swim at the deep end without my float.
My book will be destroyed if my friend touches it.
The movie I am watching will be gone if my brother uses the laptop

Thought Process Leading to Emotional, Physical and Behaviour Changes

POSITIVE THOUGHTS

We discuss with Lauren the process that leads her to positive thoughts like,

“You can practise swimming without your float at the shallow end first, so you know you won’t sink without the float.”
“Think about how you can operate the laptop and find the spot where you last stopped at the movie.”


This exercise hopefully helps Lauren (and all of us who are more pessimistic in nature) to build new pathways in her brain. From default negative thoughts to thought-out positive thinking.


Cup Half Full or Half Empty. How do you see your life?

No In-Betweens for An Aspie

The ASC brain is an on-off switch when it comes to emotions.

I am either happy or sad.

I am either very angry or not angry at all.

There are no in-betweens.

So how do we get them to try and recognize the “I am going to get angry” feeling?

Using a feelings temperature check and defining the different tangible changes their body feels can be one way.

For example, heart beats faster.

They start sweating.

Fists start clenching.

Feelings Thermometer: Helping ASCs Identify Emotional Signs

Once they start recognizing these signs, then they can use strategies to calm down.

Strategies that help them move their behaviour from primal instinct (fight or flight) to rational thought and rational behaviour.


Two strategies for Lauren, to help her calm down:

1. Count 1-100…backwards in multiples of two or four or six
Dr Johann advised that the more she has to use her brain to process something, the faster she can move from her primal instinct of explosive anger. This helps her use more of her pre-frontal cortex.


2. Breathing exercise
Breathe in, hold for 3 seconds. Then breathe out. Do this until she feels less upset.

Breathing Technique to Relax

Breathe In...Breathe Out...Breathe In...Breathe Out...Breathe In...Breathe Out...Feel Better?

Big presentation! And Big Scene!!!

Lauren had to prepare for her school project on natural disasters (she had apparently forgotten to do it and we were informed on a Thursday, with just Friday-Sunday for her to research, complete the poster and memorize the talk). We helped a fair bit! Kevin did wonders with the visual poster and Lauren worked hard on how to present her work.

Me? 

I helped to make her sentences simpler and easier to present. And Lauren was so good - she took in our comments, was willing to present so many times just to get her words, her action all right.


On Monday, she presented her A2 poster and talk about the natural disaster to the whole class. She had to keep the audience interested for her 3-6 mins presentation. She scored an 'A' for it. A great morning for her.

Nov 2014: Lauren's "A" Project

Then came big break at school.


A couple of kids were playing handball and Lauren accidentally got hit by a bouncing ball.


She exploded!!!


She reacted by shouting that she was going to 'hurt' them (not sure what the actual words were) and threw her book and pen to the ground. Her pen broke as a result, which made things worse.


Sally, her Special Education -SEU - teacher heard her from the office and came to get her. Sally calmed her down. And another girl gave her pen - which was similar but not 100% the same - to Lauren to make her feel better.


How do we help Lauren when she has an explosive outburst?


Can we prevent it?


Lauren felt really bad. We know because she tells us what she should have not done and what she should have done.


After talking to Dr Johann about this, we are reminded that we must continue to run the scenarios and practise appropriate actions with Lauren, and practise them, and practise them and practise them until they become a habit.


We are also reminded that our frontal lobes, which control rational behaviour and reasoning, do not mature until we are about 25 years old! And we are also assured that new neural pathways can form for newly learned habits…


So while we have a long long journey ahead of us, and it won’t be a bed of roses, we can take time to smell the roses and know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.



Know that the enjoying the journey is as important as reaching the end.