Competence: Why Bother?!

Competence has been said to be a greater motivator than M&M's! However, autistic children often do not develop competence across a wide range of skills. They experience failure to a much greater extent than typical children as:

• They are confronted by tasks that are too complicated for them.

• They are confronted by other children who do the task better, faster and for them.

• They are confronted by well meaning adults who take over the task for them.

• They are confronted by adults who are impatient and do not give them the needed time to perform the task.

• They are in mainstream classes with support and have no time to do the tasks independently.

• They are confronted by people who prompt excessively, never eliminating the prompting, thereby creating a child who is prompt dependent with low self esteem.

• They are in mainstream classes and realize that they are not given the same tasks as the other children.

• They are confronted by teaching methodology that tests them as opposed to teaches them.

• They try doing the same task repeatedly in the same way and fail each time.

• They are on tight schedules and there is no time to allow them to try tasks independently.

• They learn that if they moan or groan, some well meaning person will come along and do the task for them, so why bother?

Due to the need to feel competent, autistic children will often refuse to accept change. They continue with the task at the same level so that they don't feel incompetent due to the additional challenge created by change. The children have experienced failure when changes have been too great for them to handle. Often when confronted by change a child will have a tantrum. If the child cannot stop the change, he stops the action through the tantrum thereby regaining control of the overall situation. The autistic child does not want to yield to change for fear of loss of competence.

The autistic child has been trained to accept support without request or question. These children do not send their parents messages re the desire to change or to assume responsibility for tasks. Without these messages, especially if there are no older children in the family, the parents do not act as guides to push the child to the next level. Why should they bother as all is calm without the challenge of change.

The "why bother" is because it feels good to succeed. The child feels good about success and the parents feel good about the child's success. When a child confronts a task and succeeds, it can lead to further successes and an increase in the overall sense of competence. With competence, challenges and change are more acceptable. Life can become smoother!