Telephone Safety

"Hello!"

"Who is this?" Marisa asked.

And again I heard Marisa ask,

"Who is this?"

Then a third time she asked,

"Who is this?" before she then said to the person on the other end of the line,

"It's Marisa ... Marisa Rubin."

That was how it went as Marisa answered the phone, but it was far from the typical way most of her experiences answering the phone go. I quickly tuned in when she repeated Who is this? three times and obviously was not getting an answer. Then she gave her name to a stranger on the phone.

I grabbed the phone to ask, "Who is this?" When I got that same question repeated back to me, I then asked again, "No, who are YOU?" Okay, I finally got an answer, and then asked,

"Who do you want to speak to?"

When the person on the other end of the line finally answered me, I realized it was a wrong number and then told him. When I got off the phone, I knew that Marisa had a small moment to learn from as a result of this incident.

"Marisa, when someone calls and doesn't tell you who they are, you don't give them your name. You need to find out who you are talking to. You might as well be giving your name out to a stranger on the street. Except in this case, the stranger already has your phone number," I explained.

So how does one go about teaching our very naive children on the autism spectrum how to answer the phone safely? This was not an easy task.

I started out by telling Marisa that when someone doesn't give you an answer to the question

Who is this?

you don't turn around and allow them to ask you the same question! You should never give out your name to a stranger on the phone or anywhere else for that matter.

I wasn't sure if she really understood this idea so I decided to try a few practice conversations.

"Okay, pretend I'm the stranger calling, and you answer the phone and say hello. You say, Who is this? and I say in response, Who is THIS? Marisa answered by telling me her name just as she had done on the phone with the stranger. "NO, NO!" I said, feeling totally frustrated but not willing to give up. It took about 5 or 6 tries to get Marisa to finally answer the question by repeating the question, Who is this? Finally we were making headway. I think she was getting it at last.

Then one afternoon, the phone rang as usual, and Marisa answered the phone.

"Hello, who is this?" she asked, as she always does when she answers the phone.

I looked up and waited to find out who was calling.

"Who is this?" she asked a second time.

"Who is this?" she repeated yet again. Marisa was listening, and then I knew that the lesson I had given was going to be put to the test at last. Then she said,

"Who do you want to speak to?" She listened and then said,"Oh, you have the wrong number!" This she announced with pride in her voice as she hung up the phone.

"Marisa, who called?"

"Oh, it was a wrong number!" she said.

"Well, I'm proud of you for remembering to get the person's name and who they wanted to speak to. You did a great job today!"