The first time I even heard the word “perseveration” was when I was working with a developmentally disabled client. I had worked in jobs with people who had various disabilities. The person I was working with was deaf. The definition of the word perseveration is: “the uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus.”
My client, since she was deaf, would sign the same thing over and over again, even after my response was given. It would continue like this for my whole shift. Of course she couldn’t help it, but I needed this behavior to be adjusted (lessened) or I was going to go crazy. Needless to say, this was quite an undertaking! It didn’t go well at first, because she had always done this and it had not been curbed in any way.
One of the things that had to end was for her to stop poking me in the arm every time I was not looking directly at her. I developed tiny bruises from this behavior. It didn’t rile me in any way. She couldn’t help it. But it was upsetting. I just had to come up with a way of handling it, for my sanity and her benefit.
Part of the reason she did it so often, was that no one had successfully tried to change it. She had been allowed to continue, probably because she had been with people who didn’t communicate with her very much. Sign language was not required to work with her, as it should have been.
I was assigned to work with new staff and teach them as much vocabulary that I could while they shadowed me.
In time she had staff who understood her better, and although the behavior didn’t stop completely, it improved substantially as time passed. Something I learned from this experience was that patience and persistence are valuable character traits that should be cultivated and applied in daily life. Not only do they increase our abilities to learn, but they make us kinder and increase our capacity to empathize with others.
Dealing with perseveration taught me these things. And I am grateful.