Adult life in supported housing is full of opportunities to imagine!

Can I imagine what a cozy blankie this will make for my FIRST grandchild, coming soon? Sure can!! 💙

In my last “Step Into My Sessions”, I talked about wishing, and how important that MSV is always, but especially, as our students get older. Wishing sets us up for making and executing plans that actually turn wishes into reality. As I have worked with MSV over the past six or so years, I am constantly amazed at the importance of MSV like wishing, deciding, planning, and choosing. And imagine – what a handy process that is:

My work with older students reinforces this idea every week, as I support my students integrating MSV into how they see their lives unfolding.

Elliot is a 25-year-old Autistic young man. After living in the same family home with his parents for all those years, Elliot was VERY excited 🤩 to tell me that he will be moving into supported apartment living about 40 minutes from his parents’ house. Excited, but also nervous and unsure. While paperwork runs its inevitable course, we are using our sessions to prepare for this big transition – I suspect we have about six months or so before THE MOVE. 🧳

Elliot and I work via Zoom, and he often takes over the keyboard to create written narrative. He creates his own visual support 👏 as he writes, so his written language is significantly more complex and better organized than his verbal narrative. After years of working on complex language, he has significantly increased his ability to spontaneously produce solid, complex paragraphs. Let’s peek at some of his most recent writing…

In October, I asked Elliot to imagine what his apartment might look like. At that point, he had NOT seen it. For added confidentiality, all names have been changed to initials. Here is his spontaneous writing, with no input from me – a shoutout to clinical silence 🤫 on our part being one of our most important tools.

I imagine that the apartment will have 3 floors and it also might have a roof deck or a balcony where I can see the view. I haven’t visited it yet, but I will visit it this week. I imagine that the inside will have a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen where I can cook, garden, closet, television room where I can watch television. Once I move into this apartment, I will visit my whole family if I want to when I feel excited. Some of my friends like to visit their parents like for example X goes to see her mom in B, C goes to see his mom and stepfather because they live in D, E goes to visit his mother, father, and brother, F goes to visit her mom, dad, and uncle, G goes to visit his mother and father. I’ll always go to (Day Treatment Program) like I normally do when my parents are not alive anymore when they’re older. I might also visit my grandmother if I want to if she’s still alive. Sometimes I also visit my brother if he’s still around. When I’m at the apartment, someday I’ll have a cat to take care of. If I don’t like this apartment in X, I go to another apartment which is in Y. This is so exciting that I will be at my own apartment. I might do some fun stuff like go to museums, see movies, go out to eat at a restaurant, go hiking, and maybe go swimming. If I decide to stay with my parents for a little bit, I will do it if I want to or not. This is going to be a great adventure. I’m imagining a lot of wonderful stuff that I know of.

This is so amazing that I’ll enjoy this whole entire apartment and not living with my whole family anymore.

Such richness here! A real sense of looking into the future and imagining, well, a full life. There is concrete knowledge of the actual apartment and what that entails, but also very abstract references (for the first time ever) to a budding understanding that parents don’t live forever. 💔 There is a clear and real understanding of a new level of independence and self-agency. This is what we want for our students. This is what they deserve.

Remember, if you haven’t downloaded my FREE copy of MSV to post in your office or distribute, it’s never too late!