Dominique's StoryThe Long Road to Functional Independence
Dominique at 5 My youngest daughter is autistic. Her ability to learn is severely hampered by her pervasive communication deficits. The severity and scope of Dominique's disabilities became more and more obvious as time passed and it eventually became clear that she was unlikely to ever develop full verbal speech. Her difficulties aside, Dominique had tremendous untapped potential for manual tasks. In understanding this, we restructured Dominique's intensive behavioural intervention program and concentrated more on teaching her functional daily living skills, while still working on language skills. Dominique has taught me that people with special needs can learn, and, in particular, that they have substantial untapped potential. Dominique's language skills are similar to an average 2-year-old. Yet, she has numerous other skills, including the ability to do many crafts and chores. It is not easy to teach Dominique a new skill, as she resists every step of the way. Temper tantrums and violent behaviour are the order of the day whenever something new is introduced. Dominique does not like to be wrong or to make a mistake, which makes learning traumatic. However, once a new skill has been fully learned, it simply becomes another thing to do. To Dominique, chores are no different from activities that most children would see as playing. Whether she is baking, doing laundry, or playing Solitaire, she is simply doing things that interest her. 
Dominique playing at age 7 To the amazement of many, Dominique has been able to learn many functional living skills and recreation activities despite her severe behavioural challenges. She has learned and continues to improve her skill at latch (rug) hooking, painting, origami, needlepoint, knitting, crocheting, and beading. Dominique does household chores such as dishes, laundry, changing the sheets on her bed, vacuuming, setting and clearing off the table. Her cooking and baking program have advanced to the point where she is now baking food for the entire family. She is an excellent swimmer and loves riding her tandem bicycle, hiking, canoeing, and even riding horses when she has the chance to do so. She can play turn-taking games with others and enjoys solo activities such as Solitaire. I am often amazed by people's low expectations of my daughter's ability to learn things, once they see her limited language and social skills. When we first attempted to teach Dominique to make chocolate chip cookies, she threw the ingredients on the floor or simply refused to measure them. She was, however, fascinated by the "flour dust" when a handful was heaved up into the air. Temper tantrums were the norm when it was time for cooking lessons. Who would have predicted at the beginning of her cookie-making lessons that she would actually grow to love baking cookies? 
Dominique riding a horse at 10 Nothing motivated Dominique more than the promise of her favourite foods. How better to capitalize on her untapped potential than to take advantage of her love of food and teach her to cook for the whole family? I searched high and low for picture recipes that were suitable for a cooking program for Dominique, but was unsuccessful due to safety and nutritional concerns. The use of recipes with stovetop burners or ovens with exposed elements are not appropriate for any person who has neither a sense of fear nor an understanding of the dangers of fire. In addition, I saw no reason why my daughter or other people with special needs should be limited to cooking fast food or pre-packaged meals. Therefore, I began making individual picture recipes one by one. A three-ring binder became Dominique's personal cookbook, allowing her to achieve a new level of independence. She also learned to participate and contribute to her family. Sharing her baking accomplishments has become a common event in our household and provides positive feedback to Dominique. 
Dominique at 11 I have no doubt she understands that if she follows all of the picture directions in her recipe book, she will end up with the food in the final picture and then will be able to eat it. I believe this is so, even though Dominique does not seem able to compensate for mistakes or ambiguities in a recipe. She does not appear to understand what she is doing or why she is doing it. Instead, she simply follows the directions exactly as represented in the pictures with the knowledge that when she is finished, either she or the family can eat what she has made. The most important thing I have learned is to never give up or to assume that a child with severe disabilities cannot learn. In the case of my own daughter, it has become clear that even a child with her severe disabilities can learn much more than many professionals ever believed she could. Soon after learning to make some of her favourite foods, Dominique wanted to cook all the time. Finding her half-way through a picture recipe for the first time was exciting for me. Several times later, I began to wonder just how many batches of chocolate chip cookies my new cookie monster needed to make! Dominique has become skilled at using her picture recipes. She now makes scrambled eggs, bacon, muffins, banana loaf, brownies, biscuits, salad, tuna sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, hamburgers, cookies, as well as many other dishes. The more independent Dominique becomes in the kitchen, the more interested she is in watching other family members preparing food. 
Dominique testing
Teaching her cooking skills brought with it the necessity of always being one step ahead of what she wanted to learn. Every time we were not ahead of Dominique, she let us know loud and clear. If I had not yet made a picture recipe for a food item that she particularly liked, she began to imitate what she saw everyone else in the kitchen doing. While this may sound exciting, it is actually nerve-racking, if not frightening. When walking into your kitchen stops you dead in your tracks, the experience is one that you will never forget. The day that I found an empty pot on a red-hot stove burner was one of those unforgettable days. I turned off the stovetop and picked up the empty pot by the handle — the pot separated and liquid aluminum poured out! I had no idea stainless steel pots had a layer of aluminum that could melt and separate from the pot if heated to a high enough temperature. Can aluminum get so hot that it will ignite? Fortunately, I arrived in the kitchen before finding out. I now have an unusual aluminum paperweight that looks a bit like a silver chocolate candy with a point on the top — made from that original melted pot. It is easy to understand what happened. Dominique had wanted to have some of her favourite soup. Not knowing exactly how to make soup and not having a picture recipe to follow, she simply collected all the items that she had previously seen other people using to make soup and then turned on the burner. The package of soup and the measuring cup were sitting on the counter beside the stove. Dominique was in the other room watching TV when I entered the kitchen. Did she become distracted from her task, or did she simply give up because she did not know what to do next? It is frightful to think of what might have happened. Our kitchen stovetop no longer has any burners. They are removed unless in use. At first, we switched off the power to the stove at the electrical breaker box, but found it very inconvenient to run down to the basement every time we wanted to cook something. Until Dominique can safely make all the recipes she wants to eat, the burners will be hidden when not in use. AcknowledgementsDominique's sister, Chloe Trudel Dassonville was always ready and willing to taste-test each recipe to ensure the highest quality standards. I also specifically want to acknowledge Chloe for enduring years of special treatment for Dominique, when she was often unable to participate in her preferred choice of activities due to Dominique's special needs or behaviour challenges. Dominique's brother Ehren McDow taught me that children could learn amazing skills at a young age. He was demonstrating cooking and baking skills at age two. Ehren has been an inspiration in my efforts to teach Dominique cooking and baking skills. My husband Yves Trudel deserves a medal for all the extras he has done for the family when I was too tired to continue. Yves supported all my efforts to secure both appropriate healthcare and educational services for Dominique. Yves also turned down job promotions as the requirements of the potential jobs required travel — not an option considering Dominique's needs. Elizabeth Allard, MA, speech-language pathologist, was the first health-care professional in Nova Scotia to give our family useful instructions as to the type and intensity of treatment Dominique needed. Without Ms. Allard's involvement, I simply cannot imagine where Dominique would be today. Dr. Paul Nau, PhD, BCBA, set up Dominique's first intensive behaviour intervention program. Christina Cameron, an ABA therapist, without whom Dominique would never have learned half as much in twice the time, was simply amazing in how she tamed Dominique, turning her into a nice little girl and a real member of the family for the first time. Dr. Nau continued to supervise Dominique's intensive behaviour intervention program long after he returned to the USA. Nadine Demone, BA, eventually took over as Dominique's primary therapist under the supervision of both Ms. Cameron and Dr. Nau. Nadine also attended with Dominique at the Thomas Aquinas Center, a private school for children with attention-deficit disorder, accommodating Dominique's special needs when the public school system could not. Phyllis Wyler, MA, managed Dominique's intensive behavioural intervention program during a four-month period when Dominique was no longer attending public school in Nova Scotia while we were preparing to relocate to the other side of the country. Twice a week Dominique and I made the four-hour trip to see Ms. Wyler, without whose assistance Dominique would have been completely without any supervised program during our transition. Linda Pearson, MA, worked long hours to integrate Dominique into the school system in British Columbia, looking the other way whenever bending the school rules was in Dominique's best interest. Ms. Pearson is single-handedly responsible for Dominique having gotten off to such a great start in the British Columbia school system. The staff at both Dorothy Lynas and M.B. Sanford elementary schools worked extremely hard coordinating special need services for Dominique. The school principles, classroom teachers, special-education teachers, autism specialists, as well as Dominique's personal school-based special-education assistants worked extremely hard on Dominique's behalf finding ways to make a public school system work in the context of Dominique's extensive special needs. Over the years Dominique has had numerous therapists and caregivers all working out of our home. We started with Christina Cameron, and then Nadine Demone BA, Rosaline Ward BSc, Erin Wilkie BSc, CTRC, Cheryl MacFarlan BSc in Nova Scotia. In British Columbia Dominique's therapy continued with, Lucinda Johnson B.Mus., BMT, Magdalena Markiewicz, Kambi Wilson BA, Kiran Dosanjh BSN, Dr. Jacqueline Yu M.D., Ruby Li BA, Brenda Vestergarde BA, Connie Doucette SEA, Kirsti Duckworth SEA, Debbie Hassan, Marie Masi, Tammy Taylor BA, Darla Flack and Sara Day. Each of these home therapists or caregivers has greatly contributed to Dominique's development and quality of life. I would like to acknowledge Michael Fabrizio, MA, BCBA; Holly Almon-Morris MA, BCBA, Kelly Ferris, MA, BCBA; and Krista Zambolin, MA of Fabrizio Moors Consulting — they took over the management of Dominique's intensive behaviour intervention program after our move to British Columbia. It was after extensive consultation with Mr. Fabrizio that the decision was made to start Dominique on an intensive cooking and baking program together with an extensive functional daily-living skills program. It had become clear that no matter how many dollars we spent on Dominique's language skills, her ability to communicate verbally was limited and would likely remain that way. Without the involvement of Fabrizio Moors Consulting in setting up a cooking program for Dominique, she may not have thrived in her culinary-skills program, and this cookbook may never have been published. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the youngest contributor to this cookbook. Finding an appealing and attention-grabbing name for the cookbook was more of a challenge than I could manage alone. I invited many of my friends and associates to participate in a "Name the Cookbook Contest". Many had their children suggest cookbook names as well. Five-year-old Anthony Lee Matthew Duckworth, a kindergarten student at Royal Heights Elementary School suggested the most obvious and very appropriate title for this cookbook, while the adults were busy pondering more complex names. The name "The Picture Cookbook" is brilliant in its simplicity, and is suitable for all four volumes of the series. Thank you Anthony. Joyce Dassonville |
