living perpetually in the present

I've been doing some thinking lately about the processing problems that are becoming so much more evident and decipherable in N. as he grows older. It occurred to me, probably because of something I read (maybe on Keri's blog, see link under the links heading), that he seems to live--most of the time--in the present moment, and not in a good way. Most of us experience time as a continuous thing, with our present actions linked with what happened yesterday and the day before, and we also bring our ideas and predictions about the future (consequences) into our daily actions and thoughts. We do all this without being conscious of it, of course. It just happens, thanks to normal processing. With N., though, each time he does something, like sneaking and eating all A's Valentine's candies from her little classmates this morning, it's as if it's a discrete, separate situation that is not influenced by the past or consideration of the future. We used to drive ourselves nuts wondering why the normal consequences didn't seem to stop problem behaviors, why he did the same thing over and over and over and OVER regardless of what had happened the day before, or even the hour before. The only exception would be if there was some sort of immediate cueing or reminder (and even then, he might choose to ignore it). He experiences his daily life, and each problematic situation that he encounters as if it's happening for the first time and is not linked to anything outside itself, certainly not to any learning about the situation.

This link explains why typical behavioral-based strategies don't work, because they rely on the individual having the capacity to bring the memory of that past experience and the prediction of a future experience into the present moment and apply that memory to what's happening at the moment:

http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=fasd+memory+generalizations&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.boysandgirlsaid.org/adoption/family_matters/pdfs/FM_Feature_Aug.pdf&w=fasd+memory+memories+generalizations+generalization+generalized&d=dkqoiXDuP_BS&icp=1&.intl=us

We're all so accustomed to the behaviorist methods of raising children--reward or punish. What on earth do you do with a child who responds unpredictably, at best, to either reward or punishment? And if he does respond to it, it has to be so tangible and immediate. It requires near-constant reminders, management, cueing, and it has to be done in just the right way to avoid meltdown or explosion.

The experts say change the environment, because you will not be able to change the child. I'm beginning to think there's some truth to this advice. On the other hand, we can't completely give up on trying to teach him "life skills" and functionality; we can't resign ourselves to the fact (at age nine) that he will never be able to live independently. I know it's a possibility. I'm not that naive. And therein lies the challenge! We have to balance these two competing realities: the knowledge that most of his problems can be traced back to neurological deficits rather than willfulness, and the equally important knowledge that he must improve his functionality over time if he ever hopes to live any sort of independent and successful life and think of himself as a capable and successful person.