At what age do you start communicating your needs? How? At what age do we start using equipment to organise our needs?
Students who have difficulty regulating themselves may climb to great heights e.g. tops of fridges, tops of swing sets in the backyard, up a set of shelves in the classroom or onto the roof of the house. What equipment did they use to organise themselves to get there? To help them? What people do they use to help them?
I want. I need. I don’t want. I don’t like.
If I put myself in the right position at the right time do I get something? If I ask enough times of my parent do I get some more snacks / some more turns before we leave the park on the swing?
Knowing what we need in advance allows us to prepare the steps (E) so that we have enough equipment, resources and the right people around us or not around us to help. This has to do with organisation as the kids can sometimes treat others as objects requiring them to be in certain places at certain times to do something for them. Their reliance on others to complete steps or all of the task with them or for them and the insight into how the child is using the other person to do this can be hidden to them because of the intense need to complete the task or solve the problem in the first place. Yet to the others it may be highly visible that they are being used as an object, being asked to stand in a specific place, then move here, then move there. This is a form of organisational skills, the awareness of the breakdown of tasks and steps required and what is necessary to get them done, which is then to work out what resources will help you get something done.
Kids need to have very clear limits set when using other people to make up for their lack of cognitive and knowledge skills on how to complete tasks as it can impact on how they socially engage with others and the appearance of being controlling of others physically and emotionally in a way that is not healthy.