Emily Rubin is a very talented Speech and Language Pathologist, an amazing professional committed to kids on the spectrum. She gave me a very important understanding today. She explained another difference between us and kids on the spectrum. Kids on the spectrum view us as objects, not people. Their brains categorize us much the same way as they interpret circles, squares or triangles. When they watch videos involving shapes that move and a stick box that opens and closes, Neurotypicals ( us) will attribute social stories to the scenario, for example, assign genders to the shapes, make inferences about their "relationships" to each other. Kids on the spectrum will just report the movements of the objects but not make any stories. They can't infer relationships or read anything past the objectively visible movement. It is the same issue they have with us. They can't predict our reactions or behaviour.We are objects that do seemingly random things and we are not trustworthy or predictable.
She gave this very common example that illustrated this very clearly for me. An aide in the school shows up to take "Tommy" for speech and language pathology. She stands in the doorway. He sees her in the doorway but ignores her. He is not being rude, he simply does not interpret intentions and the fact that she has come before doesn't matter because he also has difficulty generalizing contexts. He only sees her as an object standing in the doorway. There is no visual support to indicate the next steps he should take. Now imagine that because he hasn't moved she is going to approach him and move him. Now she has become a big unpredictable crane that is going to violate his space. You know how this story ends. When we understand how their minds work we can learn to lure them to tasks using visual supports rather than causing them huge amounts of stress and engaging them physically which is very stressful for them. Visual supports act as a road map to support their progress with tasks giving them predictability and more success.
In order to make our kids successful within the context of life, we need to teach them to fall in love with people, to study them. To treat us as a library project and learn everything they can about our reactions and our behaviour. That will not happen if we are unable to reach them without confusing or traumatizing their systems. We need to understand how they see us and work around that. Emily talked about how these neurological differences impact social competence. She discussed three distinct areas.
The first area is "Transitions". Kids on the spectrum have great difficulty with transitions. When shifting from one activity to another without visual supports or cues, there is a lot of heightened anxiety. Visual supports provide a lifeline, a visual schedule that they can follow. Autistic kids are often labelled oppositional defiant, when in fact they have no idea what we want. They are confused and need visual support.
The second area is their difficulty with "active engagement and functional communication". An example of this is a teacher places math problems on the desk in front of one of our kids. If the student can't predict the purpose of this task, they are not likely going to do the problems. We use statements like you can't go for recess until your problems are done. What does recess have to do with math? Sometimes we can use the child's special interest to make the math problems relevant for them. that gets them interested and we become interesting. We need to teach our kids and adolescent's to self advocate and ask what the purpose is. Autistic kids will not engage in meaningless, purposeless activity. We must learn to engage the "what's in it for me factor" according to Emily.
The last area is "reliance on immature or unconventional emotional expression and coping strategies." When we are not a predictable or reliable source of emotional support , coping strategies tend to center around self soothing behaviors. These involve repetetive, rhythmic, soothing behaviours. Involving envirnomental adaptations and learning supports has a very significant impact on supporting our kids abilities to work on their social competence. When we become predictable, reliable sources of support they need their self soothing behaviours less and less.
One of the best ideas that Emily offered for use in the classroom and home were "Help Boxes".
A help box is as easy as this. It can be a spot on the teachers white board that is consistent so the students know where to look for it. For any task requiring multiple stepped instructions, you write the number and a word or a brief phrase based on the language abilities of the child. Simple is better. Here is an example she gave. One kindergarden teacher was having trouble with her class at the end of the day getting organized. Her help box looked something like this.
Help Box
1. read
2. bathroom
3. mailbox
4. backpack
5. read
The funny thing, is that it was every bit as effective for the neurotypical kids as is was for the spectrum kids!! We all benefit from supports! Imagine a home help box, perhaps one about personal grooming and getting ready in the morning. We can post it on the mirror. The key is to enlist the class and the child's help in creating the help box which engages them in it.
As our kids progress through their education, Emily suggests we create help box cards for anything that we or they feel they need added support with. They can be laminated and could extend to concepts like "what to do when you get to the airport". These supports have the potential to increase their independence and self fullfillment as they progess through life.
PECS or the picture exchange system, which you can google if you haven't heard of it actually has the ability to create vertical removable help box strips off of a linear velcro schedule for the day. It is a really great option and the help boxes can be removed to complete a task and then readded to the master schedule.
Thank you Emily for another great lecture and some wonderful pearls..
In love and light,
Kathryn
She gave this very common example that illustrated this very clearly for me. An aide in the school shows up to take "Tommy" for speech and language pathology. She stands in the doorway. He sees her in the doorway but ignores her. He is not being rude, he simply does not interpret intentions and the fact that she has come before doesn't matter because he also has difficulty generalizing contexts. He only sees her as an object standing in the doorway. There is no visual support to indicate the next steps he should take. Now imagine that because he hasn't moved she is going to approach him and move him. Now she has become a big unpredictable crane that is going to violate his space. You know how this story ends. When we understand how their minds work we can learn to lure them to tasks using visual supports rather than causing them huge amounts of stress and engaging them physically which is very stressful for them. Visual supports act as a road map to support their progress with tasks giving them predictability and more success.
In order to make our kids successful within the context of life, we need to teach them to fall in love with people, to study them. To treat us as a library project and learn everything they can about our reactions and our behaviour. That will not happen if we are unable to reach them without confusing or traumatizing their systems. We need to understand how they see us and work around that. Emily talked about how these neurological differences impact social competence. She discussed three distinct areas.
The first area is "Transitions". Kids on the spectrum have great difficulty with transitions. When shifting from one activity to another without visual supports or cues, there is a lot of heightened anxiety. Visual supports provide a lifeline, a visual schedule that they can follow. Autistic kids are often labelled oppositional defiant, when in fact they have no idea what we want. They are confused and need visual support.
The second area is their difficulty with "active engagement and functional communication". An example of this is a teacher places math problems on the desk in front of one of our kids. If the student can't predict the purpose of this task, they are not likely going to do the problems. We use statements like you can't go for recess until your problems are done. What does recess have to do with math? Sometimes we can use the child's special interest to make the math problems relevant for them. that gets them interested and we become interesting. We need to teach our kids and adolescent's to self advocate and ask what the purpose is. Autistic kids will not engage in meaningless, purposeless activity. We must learn to engage the "what's in it for me factor" according to Emily.
The last area is "reliance on immature or unconventional emotional expression and coping strategies." When we are not a predictable or reliable source of emotional support , coping strategies tend to center around self soothing behaviors. These involve repetetive, rhythmic, soothing behaviours. Involving envirnomental adaptations and learning supports has a very significant impact on supporting our kids abilities to work on their social competence. When we become predictable, reliable sources of support they need their self soothing behaviours less and less.
One of the best ideas that Emily offered for use in the classroom and home were "Help Boxes".
A help box is as easy as this. It can be a spot on the teachers white board that is consistent so the students know where to look for it. For any task requiring multiple stepped instructions, you write the number and a word or a brief phrase based on the language abilities of the child. Simple is better. Here is an example she gave. One kindergarden teacher was having trouble with her class at the end of the day getting organized. Her help box looked something like this.
Help Box
1. read
2. bathroom
3. mailbox
4. backpack
5. read
The funny thing, is that it was every bit as effective for the neurotypical kids as is was for the spectrum kids!! We all benefit from supports! Imagine a home help box, perhaps one about personal grooming and getting ready in the morning. We can post it on the mirror. The key is to enlist the class and the child's help in creating the help box which engages them in it.
As our kids progress through their education, Emily suggests we create help box cards for anything that we or they feel they need added support with. They can be laminated and could extend to concepts like "what to do when you get to the airport". These supports have the potential to increase their independence and self fullfillment as they progess through life.
PECS or the picture exchange system, which you can google if you haven't heard of it actually has the ability to create vertical removable help box strips off of a linear velcro schedule for the day. It is a really great option and the help boxes can be removed to complete a task and then readded to the master schedule.
Thank you Emily for another great lecture and some wonderful pearls..
In love and light,
Kathryn
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