"Autism Inspiration"

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brake. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life."

- Mary Manin Morrissey

Painting with Shaving Cream

Painting with Shaving Cream

By: Phillip and Ms. Heather

I made letters in the shaving cream. It smells good and feels goopy on my hands. I used paint brushes and my fingers to paint with. It was a lot of fun. For fun I added color to the shaving cream. My two favorite colors are green (John Deere green) and blue.

What is Remediation?

What is Remediation?
By: Nicole Beurkens, M.Ed.

The word “remediation” is very important in the work my colleagues and I do with families affected by autism and other neuro-developmental disabilities, but it is a word that is unfamiliar to many people. I thought I would take a moment this week to talk about what remediation means in general, and specifically in the realm of autism.

Let’s start with some basic dictionary definitions:

• Remediate (verb) - To remedy a problem
• Remedial (adjective) - Intended to correct or improve one’s skill in a specific field; therapeutic, corrective, restorative
• Remediation (noun) - Use of remedial methods to improve skills; the act or process of correcting a deficiency
• Dr. Steven Gutstein’s definition of remediation: Correcting a deficit to the point where it no longer constitutes and obstacle
• My definition: Work ON something, not just around it

Whether you are a parent or professional, it is critical to understand what remediation is, and the distinction between remediation and compensation. Perhaps the most common application of this distinction is in the area of reading problems. If a child is diagnosed with a reading disability, we typically apply remediation approaches to help them learn to read. At various points we may use compensations, such as books on tape, to support them. However, our goal is to remediate, or correct, the problem that is preventing them from reading so they can become functional readers. In my professional experience, I have yet to come across a situation where adults believe that if an 8 year old child is not yet reading, that we should just compensate for that and give them books on tape to listen to for the rest of their lives. Remedial efforts are taken to get to the root of the problem and overcome the issues that are preventing successful reading.

Now take this same concept and apply it to individuals on the autism spectrum. By definition they are struggling in many areas: socialization, communication, thinking flexibly, and the list goes on depending on the person. What approach do we usually take to these deficits? By and large, we take a compensation approach. We find ways to work around these problems so that the students fit into the mold of what we do at home and in school everyday. Our main motivation becomes applying strategies that help them exhibit what we consider to be “typical” behaviors —sit appropriately in the classroom or at church, learn academic skills, play on the playground equipment, wait in line without becoming upset, greet others when we see them, etc. While we may also look for ways to support their communication and to improve their relationships with others, we do this on a very surface level without really understanding the obstacles that create those problems in the first place. And, because we don’t really understand the root issues that create these problems, we resort to compensation techniques rather than remediating the root causes.

When you look at the history of treatments in the field of autism, it has been primarily about compensation. While research on the brain and autism has continued to move forward and provide us new information, our treatment approaches have stagnated. The methods we were using 30 years ago are still the methods being used today, despite the fact that we have a whole host of new information available to us. We now have the capacity to take what we know about the disorder of autism and how it impacts brain function, and develop new techniques and approaches that move beyond compensation and actually work to remediate (correct) the primary features of the disorder. This is one of the exciting things about newer approaches such as the Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)® Program, which focuses on remediating, rather than just working around, the core deficits we see in individuals with autism and other neuro-developmental disorders.

It is time to move beyond thinking about treatment as merely capitalizing on strengths, and begin thinking about how to strengthen areas of weakness. Research has shown us that autism is primarily a disorder of connectivity in the brain—with some portions over connected and others under connected. What is so exciting about this is that we know that neural connectivity can change throughout the lifespan. The human brain has an enormous capacity for developing new connections and changing the patterns of connectivity when given the right types of stimulation. This is what allows us to look at autism treatment in a new light. It cannot be merely about strengthening the areas that are already strong. Effective education and treatment must be focused on building new connections in the areas where connectivity is deficient. This is the essence of remediation.

"Autism Inspiration"

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be."

--Charles "Tremendous" Jones

Learning to Think: Part One - All Students Can Learn to be Mindful

Learning to Think: Part One - All Students Can Learn to be Mindful
By: Courtney Kowalczyk, M.Ed.

Summer is quickly coming to an end, and school has begun for many children. School buses are busily picking up students and dropping them off during the morning and evening commutes. With the beginning of a new school year, I thought it would be helpful to look into the realm of education and the way our students think and learn.

For most students in the general education population today, the focus of education is on their ability to think and use problem solving skills. We are seeing more and more schools moved towards integrated curricula that teach children math, reading, and writing skills in a more dynamic fashion. A majority of these curricula pose real world problems that students work through and solve as they learn concepts along the way. For many children, this type of curricula proves to be beneficial; for others however, it can be very challenging. For example, children who struggle with reading typically have greater difficulty using curricula formatted in this fashion, since most of it is comprised of written language that needs to be read, dissected, and understood in order to progress through the problem at hand. For these individuals, accommodations to the curricula are usually made to make it easier for the child to understand and process.

When thinking about children with more significant disabilities like cognitive impairments, neurological issues, or Autism, we typically see educators using curricula of a more static nature. These types of curricula tend to be more repetitive. I wonder though: How are these types of materials preparing children for the real world, given that these students typically have the greatest amount of difficulty in the realm of problem solving and creative thinking?

As a teacher of children with severe multiple disabilities, I found myself in an interesting predicament several years back. How was I going to prepare my students to be active participants in the community? Reading books and doing worksheets was not going to cut it. My students needed to learn how to think and be mindful of their surroundings. I decided to take a developmental approach to their learning, and to provide as many opportunities during the day for my students to think and process information. I threw out all of the extras I had plugged into our day, and gave myself and my staff the time that was needed to help our students become mindful. One of the greatest challenges that I faced was getting out of the rut of doing the same thing day in and day out. I had to do so much more thinking in order to plan activities that would allow my students the opportunity to do their own thinking as well. Here are the first few of several modifications and suggestions that I will be sharing with you over the next few months:

• Stop asking so many questions! I found myself constantly asking my students questions like “What color is this?” I used such questions to gauge their understanding of what I was teaching; but, I found that they were responding to my static questions in their own static way. Static questions, do not offer opportunities for idea sharing or comparing and contrasting. With this knowledge in mind, think about the questions that you ask. Can you change those questions to more open-ended statements? Instead of “What color is this?”, you could say to a student “I forget the name of this color.” With a more open-ended statement like this, you will be opening the door for more dynamic dialogue and social interaction.
  
• Slow down and let your students think! With the demands on today’s teachers, it is tough to consider slowing down—especially when you have so much to cover in such a short period of time. I must say, however, that they old saying is true: “Slow down to speed up”. By giving your students time to process information, you allow them to think and problem solve on their own. If they can make their own discovery about a topic area, it will be so much more meaningful to them than if they had been told what to do or how to fix the problem. All children have the ability to think and conduct problem solving on their own at their appropriate learning level; but they need to be allowed to have the time to do it, and they need to feel supported in the learning process.
  

By allowing my students to think about the topic we were studying and providing them more opportunities for open-ended dialogue, I found that my students were learning and thinking about so many different things in their environment. It was wonderful to discover how much of an impact I could make on the learning process of my students and their quality of life now and in the future. See what amazing things can happen when you make little changes like these!

"Autism Inspiration"

I'm hoping this quote inspires some of you to get motivated to stop doing NOTHING. Please be involved with your child and do something, but better yet would be to do the right thing.

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

Making Salsa

By: Raul and Phillip

We put some tomatoes, peppers, green onion, white onion, and lime juice in a large bowl. Cutting up all the vegetables was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we cleaned the table so we could eat the salsa. The salsa is very good. It was a lot of fun.