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Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 12:38:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      All I have time for today.

Thanks to all of you who sent me email in my hour of need. I don't have
time to reply to you individually (I have to go to work soon), so I hope
you will accept this as a personal reply....in lieu of a private one.

Bob manaaged to fix everything up for me and make sure I was still on the
list. I'm beginning to wonder if I've done something to offend 'the powers
that be'..... first Princeton went down; then both Princeton and CUNY; then
last night CC was taken down for an upgrade supposedly lasting only three
hours but it wouldn't let me login until this morning and, almost the last
straw, this morning my washing machine decided to develop an electrical fault
and tripped out the power while I was online ...... it was raining at the time
so I was really worried when the power went that it may have been a major
fault with the electrical circuitry of the house - I ran around the house
trying one powerpoint after another until I found the culprit - at least
I've now had my daily exercise. :-)

I was lucky it didn't do any damage to my computer or hard-drive and
I was only reading my mail so I didn't lose any of my work....but now I'll
have to handwash for the next few days until I can scrape enough money
together to get it fixed..... with a family of 6 that's no easy task and
worst of all, it's going to severly limit my computer time. :-(

I just had a very creative thought - if I put the dirty clothes in the bath
with Helen, the way she plays in it would give an extremely good imitation of
an agitator. :-) I wonder if bubble bath works as well as laundry detergent???

Just a few comments in answer to some of the questions I've been asked:-

Helen's very 'easy-going' approach to life/language and her delightful sense
of humour is almost the exact opposite to my oldest son, Chris - he has
always taken things too seriously; is an incessant worrier and is always
extremely uptight about everything.... he calls me 'naive' because I just
'go with the flow'. He also thinks Helen is very immature (for a 6 year old?)
and needs to grow up - he claims she 'stresses him out' with her singing and
her laughter. He's one totally 'miserable' human being!

That reminds me - this morning Helen asked me if I was 'hummen' (sounded like
'humming') it took me quite a few guesses before I finally worked out that
she was saying "Are you human?" :-) I'm still trying to work out the reason for
the question in the first place - I know she knows what 'human' means in
spoken language, so I think she was either trying to elicit the correct
pronounciation of that word she had seen written....or it was another one of
her jokes with a deliberate attempt to confuse me - if so, she certainly
succeeded. :-)

Bob asked if Helen uses analogies - the only instance I can recall is her
reference to a road as a 'rollercoaster road' - she knows about rollercoasters
only from what she's seen on TV. It was a very accurate description of the
road we were on at the time. When Dr. Fenelon asked her what was similar
between a ball and a wheel, even though he rephrased it several times to
make sure she knew what 'similar' meant (and I know she does) she wasn't
able to give him an answer. I tried this with her since asking about
similarities or differences between objects and I get no response until I
ask her to name just one similarity or difference after identifying one for
her and taking turns to identify others. Could her 'wholistic' view of the
world be interfering in this process making it difficult for her to identify
isolated features of an object without the added incentive of the 'game'?

Carolyn
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