Sep 23 2008
Perseveration
“Your assignment is to read up to page 3975…Your assignment is to read up to page 2885…Your assignment is to read up to page 5930…Your assignment is to read up to page 24…”
All night I was being given assignments that I could never possibly complete. This is Gus’s manner of perseveration. He repeats part of an idea and then differentiates the last bit. He does this with questions, with knock-knock jokes, with complaints, with Pokemon speak…with just about anything. It is one of the harder aspects of his condition for me to cope with.
I have trouble absorbing information or thinking clearly when there’s too much noise. When the noise is the same repetitive, very loud sound over and over again, it’s all I can do some days to keep from beating my head against a wall. When that repetition is interfering with something that needs to get done in a timely fashion, homework for instance, occasionally I do pound my head a few times, much to my head’s great annoyance.
When he starts to perseverate, I usually try to get him to stop by saying, “OK, we’re finished with that,” but it doesn’t always work. On a day like yesterday when he gets completely consumed with the giggles over his fixation, there’s no getting through to him. Or when he’s upset and perseverating on whatever upset him, all that can be done is to sit him in my lap, rub his back, and rock him until he calms down.
It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world. Some days I just have less patience than others (I’m in danger of getting kicked out of the Supermom League with that admission, but the truth will out as they say). How do you handle perseveration?
