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(Crystal) unintelligible, enhance audio
I know it's not about Chelsea, she has no money.
She doesn't understand money at all.
For me, I have a very hard time budgeting..
Making money last and knowing what I got, and what I can do with it
I decided a Fred Meyer's card works pretty good.
Getting a certain amount of money and only using it for groceries.
I can't buy anything else with it.
And make a budget with rent and bills first.
So those are rules that Crystal has come up with, with the help
of some other supportive moms in the community and other service providers.
So that she would have enough money to feed her kids and pay the rent on her apartment.
Summer or winter.
One of the things that you might not have heard, was the person that was doing the interviewing,
she started to ask the question,
"So what are your strategies about budgeting money?" And then she stopped.
She knows Crystal and she knew that,
that word 'strategy' was not going to be one that Crystal would be able to decode.
And think about the level of language that you use when you’re talking to people.
Quite often we use really complex words when we could a more simple one.
And that's what Vicki did, the interviewer, she went back and she said,
"Tell me what it's like around money."
About making it last.
So, that, that would be one of my really take home, key tips to you;
is to keep the language as simple as possible, and the sentences as short as possible.
And then give people time to think about it,
process, come up with an answer, before you come up with another question for them.
Yeah.
(audience member) Are there some people with FASD that are actually above average intelligence?"
"That have other, I mean they might be really smart actually,
but just have all of the other characteristics?"
Absolutely.
"But, it’s not always low IQ; it can actually be high IQ?"
Actually, only about 10% of the people that have had prenatal exposure,
that have come to the that have come to the attention of diagnostic teams.
So we're already talking about the people that somebody has noticed
are developing, growing, or learning differently.
So that people that there’s something different about 'em,
enough that they're referred for diagnosis.
So, those people that are the tip of the iceberg, only 10% of that tip
are going to be identified as having an IQ below the normal range.
So 90% of people are in the normal, or average, above average range.
I've, I've got a really good friend, one of her adopted kids has an IQ of 137.
Computer ***.
Amazing with biology and the sciences.
Really into rockets.
Does not have a friend in the world.
He, his social skills are really, just abysmal.
He's not able to keep himself clean.
His hygiene skills are just, you know, and it doesn't seem to make a difference to him.
But he gets really angry about his friends, about his siblings having friends over.
Because he doesn't have any. And he, he knows that he's different in that way.
I think it's even more challenging for people with higher IQ's,
because they can see that there's something different.
They know they don't fit in and they don't know how to fix it.
And so it really comes back to the team around them to build in some possibly artificial
supports or social groups to get things rolling.
Another one of the things that we're doing at Stone Soup Group,
and not just for kids with Aspberger's, which is where it started,
Aspberger's and autism spectrum disorders, is what's called a wii group.
We started out with these social skills groups that were really about
"Okay, this is how you shake somebody's hand."
And when somebody says "hello" to you, you make eye contact, and you say "hello" back.
You know, the real basic kind of stuff that we try to teach people when they're little
that, that people that have a sensory and communication issue may have a harder time with
doing or remembering. We found that a more informal kind of thing, like what we do a
twice a month are wii games days. Where you've got preteens on one Saturday,
and teenagers on another Saturday every two weeks apart.
They just come together, and hang out, and play wii games.
And you get that incidental socialization going on,
because you've got to take turns,
you've got to follow the rules,
and these are groups of people that really like the rules followed.
So, it's a really fun thing to watch and to see
the preteens and the teens evolving in their social networks.
These are people, some of them, the first time they've played.
Their parents said don’t have a friend in the world.
And now he can hardly wait to come every month because
he knows he's going to see his two best buds.
Because they both like the same game, and they just really excel at it.
And we've also added rock band now,
and that's bringing in a whole different group of people.
Some really can't sing at all, but they get to play an instrument.
And it's the most unjudgmental group I have ever seen.
They're just happy to have a place where it doesn't matter how you walk, or talk, or look.
You can come and play.
And there's no charge. It's great.
So let’s move on, and pass it to Vicki here.
Here's Betty and Rena again.
You can tell when this was taken.
Remember when we had the really bad fires in Fairbanks a couple years ago?
I still feel a little bit different than everybody else.
But you still pretty much feel like your peers, like your friends?
Um, depends on where I go.
Um, if I go somewhere new by myself then I feel different.
But, if I'm around friends I'm fine.
What Rena is giving is one of the keys right there.
Have some friends; make sure that your kids hang with people that are good influences for them.
Try to keep them in safe social situations.
It's harder as they get older.
Teenagers aren't going to tell you that they're lonely,
they wish they had more friends, typically.
But, you watch them watching the other people in the mall,
or at church, where the kids are giggling, and when they're not included.
And so again, setting up some kinds of artifical situations where
as a parent, you're the one kind of making it happen.
We still have to do that with Justin because he's non verbal.
He doesn't know how to invite people into what he is doing and so,
mom and dad do the inviting and once their together they get along just fine.
He still likes to do more parallel play.
He gets along really well with other guys his own age that experience severe autism.
Because they both like to play legos, blocks, or something like that.
And they can appreciate what each other are doing, and creating
without having to use a lot of language.
And that's been really a fun thing to see develop.
I gotta tell you, some of the most appreciative parents are the ones that
have kids that get to come over to my house, the kids with autism
because there aren’t many families that are willing to have
someone come that will eat your refrigerator empty.