Kate Wilde - Autistic Logistics: A Parents Guide to Tackling Bedtime, Toilet Training, Meltdowns, Hitting, and Other Everyday Challenges

by the same author

The Autism Language Launcher

A Parents Guide to Helping Your Child Turn Sounds and Words into Simple Conversations

Kate C. Wilde

Foreword by Samahria Lyte Kaufman

ISBN 978 1 78592 482 8

e ISBN 978 1 78450 870 8

Autistic Logistics,
Second Edition

A Parents Guide to Tackling Bedtime,
Toilet Training, Meltdowns, Hitting,
and Other Everyday Challenges

Kate C. Wilde

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

An Hachette Company

Copyright Kate C. Wilde 2022

The Son-Rise Program is a registered trademark of Barry Neil Kaufman and Susan Marie Kaufman.

The Autism Treatment Center of America is a Trademark of The Option Institute and Fellowship.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress

ISBN 978 1 78775 749 3

eISBN 978 1 78775 750 9

Jessica Kingsley Publishers policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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To my mother, Elizabeth Wilde McCormickthank you for your
amazing and continual support, love, and wisdom

I have so many people, wonderful people, to be hugely thankful for. I think of every child that I have worked with and every family who has invited me into their life at times of great despair and joy. These wonderful experiences are in the pages of this book. Thank you for sharing your life with me. To every staff member at the Autism Treatment Center of America, thank you for your dedication, your love, and your excellence in helping children and their families from all over the world. William Hogan, who I co-taught with every day for 20 years! Although you are no longer with us in the physical world, everything I do today is on your shoulders. To Raun Kaufman, who I co-teach with today. Thank you for your support, insight, friendship and sheer brillianceand for all your fabulous contributions to this new edition. To Bears and Samahria Kaufman, your love, dedication, and trust in me has helped me grow into the teacher I am today. Thank you for creating this amazing work and offering it to me with such enthusiasm and tenderness. To my sister Nicky, thank you for taking the time to read this book and giving me your support and feedback.

However, there are two people in particular who have poured hours of love and care into this book. My mom, Elizabeth Wilde McCormick, thank you for being my first role model of what it is to be an independent strong woman in the world, and for teaching me the importance of doing meaningful work. Thank you so much for your continual support, inspiration, and belief in me. You never gave up on the vision of this book and helped me birth it into the light of day, with your great feedback and wisdom.

To my best friend and Son-Rise Program teacher Bryn Hogan. You spent so many hours reading and editing the first edition of this book. You went above and beyond to transform this book into a better version of itself. Thank you for your love and wisdom. For your feedback, great clarity, and wonderful attitude. Thank you above all for your amazing friendship.

Heartfelt thanks go to everyone at Jessica Kingsley Publishers, in particular to Lisa Clark and Sarah Hamlin for standing by my books and for being their champion.

I was 13 when I decided to work with children on the autism spectrum. The catalyst and inspiration for this decision was a movie called Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love . I watched this with my twin sister, Nicky. Watching this movie was the beginning of everything. It was my first introduction to autism and I was completely intrigued and fascinated by it. I became the kind of teenager who only read the CliffsNotes for her school-assigned books because she was too busy reading other books on child development. It was also my first introduction to the concept that love and acceptance is the most powerful force for healing and change. Luckily my 13-year-old brain was still open enough to receive the powerful truth of this message.

The movie Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love is the real-life story of Samahria and Barry Neil Kaufman, whose son was diagnosed with severe autism and an under-30 IQ at 18 months, and their journey to help him. In the 1970s, there was little available in the way of autism treatments as at that time only 1 in 10,000 children were thought to be affected. At that time, harsh behavior-modification techniques, including electric shock, were being used to treat severe autism, and this was not something they wanted for their son. The Kaufmans searched for help for their son and were told repeatedly that autism was a life-long condition and that there was no chance for their son to lead a normal life, or even learn very basic skills to take care of himself. Doctors advised institutionalization. Instead of going with the treatments they were offered by professionals, they decided to work with their son themselves. They took a very different approach from the mainstream thinking and attitudes of that time. Instead of viewing their sons unique behaviors of hand flapping and rocking as a tragic sign of his terrible disorder, they took a different view.

They decided to see him as a gift in their life. They decided to approach him not with disapproval or fear, but with love and acceptance. Instead of forcing him to conform to their world, they decided to Join him in his. They saw his repetitive behaviors as a doorway into his world, so when he flapped his hands, they flapped theirs. When he rocked back and forth, they rocked with him. By Joining him in his world, they were able to make a connection between them. They worked with their son 12 hours a day for three and a half years. Today he shows no signs of his condition and he travels the world lecturing about autism and the Son-Rise Program and is the author of the book Autism Breakthrough: The Groundbreaking Method That Has Helped Families All Over the World . Ironically, all these years later, I can say that the little boy that I once saw depicted in that movie when I was 13 years old, the little boy who was the center of a movie that changed my life, is and has been my dear friend and colleague for the last 28 years.

Special note: Joining is a technique that is used to help and connect with our children when they are engaging in their repetitive behaviors/stims/isms. Please go to of my book, The Autism Language Launcher .

From that point onwards, working with children on the autism spectrum became my dream, my focus, and one of the great passions of my life. Throughout my teenage years, I would spend my summer holidays and spare time working in play schemes and after-school programs where I might encounter special children, and most importantly children with autism. One summer, to my great delight, I met my first child with autism; I was 15 and she was 14. She wore a helmet because she would bang her head, and was at least a foot taller than me due to the specially designed high-heeled shoes she wore to accommodate her toe walking. I was assigned to her for the day, and within seconds of our meeting she got me in a headlock and started walking, dragging me along. She walked straight out of the school building and headed for the white line in the soccer field. The only knowledge I had about autism and how to be with a child with autism was the movie I had watched. It had left me with two ideas: Join the child in their own world and love and accept what they wanted, which in this case was to walk around the soccer field. So I concentrated as much as I could on enjoying the white line and the walking, and felt good that at least she wanted me with her. She was assigned to me for the rest of the summer, because when she was with me she never banged her head. This was my very first sign of the healing power of Joining. We walked, laughed, played, and had the best time together. She was my first real-life encounter with autism, and I was hooked.