Direct visual approaches to teach social skills may be very helpful for children with autism who are mainstreamed in elementary school.
Students with high functioning autism, in the absence of social skills training, who are placed in the classroom with neurotypical peers may have problems with normal behavior. The purpose of this study was to see if concept mastery routines could be used to enhance the social skills of children with high functioning autism. Concept mastery routines are a type of direct training of social skills that uses a visual method of teaching. The children were also given many chances to practice their social skills with their peers. All four students in this study showed improved social skills after the use of concept mastery routines.
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The long and winding road
Jul 4, 2009 by AnonymousConor is the name of my beautiful green-eyed boy who last year was formally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. We had been told by a teacher at his daycare that she felt he needed to be evaluated. We took him to our local school district and they agreed that he had "developmental delays." It wasn't until January of last year that his speech therapist actually uttered the word "autism" in assocation with Conor and that was the most devastating word we had probably evere heard. However, whatever we started to read about autism didn't seem to fit him completely. Conor is a very affectionate, articulate and happy little boy. There didn't seem to be any books out there to describe him in the context of having autism. That seems to be changing but it's still quite lacking. I guess I'll have to write my own book!
Nevertheless, as it turns out, loving a child with autism is not the worst thing in the world. We have been enormously blessed with the school Conor attends, where he has been for two years now. He is attending summer school now to keep up the work and not have it disrupted. He only has two more weeks left at this school and then will move to his new elementary school for kindergarten. We are trying to prepare him as best we can. We have set up meetings with his new teacher and drive by the school whenever we have an opportunity. His new school has the same cross-categorical program that his current school has so while he'll have a whole new teacher, school and routine to adjust to, he'll at least have the same program. In the morning, he'll have one-on-one work for his IEP and then in the afternoon, he'll attend regular kindergarten witih his peer group and have an assistant who will shadow him and another cross-cat student. I am excited to have him start this new school with all the possibilities it will provide. He'll be in a class with children his own age, whereas now, he's in with some kids who are a little younger than he is, whom he often imitates (i.e., screaming, hitting himself, making baby noises, etc.). His teachers are confident that he'll outgrow this tendency to imitate, which will come with maturity. We can ask him, "Hey, who are you imitating now?" and he'll respond, "Justin, Payton, Jacob, etc." So he knows he's doing it and knows it's not an entirely desirable behavior. His teachers have commented that this is upsetting to the child he's imitating so we work diligently to overcome that behavior.
Conor has come a remarkably long way and his teachers agree. There are many things he can now do that he wasn't able to do before. Academically, he's right on track, but socially, not so much. He has a hard time making friends. We hope that he will develop better skills in kindergarten to make connections with friends and learn the appropriate ways to interact with friends. Sharing is a big hurdle!
Conor has an 18-month old sister and that has been an interesting journey. When we first brought her home from the hospital, he didn't want us to get her out of the car! He has had to learn what is appropriate behavior with her and how to be gentle. It's very disconcerting when he laughs inappropriately when she cries in distress. However, if I cry, he shows immense concern and empathy. It's pretty remarkable to witness. I think as he and his baby sister get closer and closer as they grow up together, his connection to her will be more compassionate.
Conor has been a study subject to research the low-dose effects of Risperdal in ASD children. Having him participate in this study was a very arduous and painful decision. His participation ends next month and we're not entirely sure how much it has helped him or affected his behavior positively. In fact, there seems to be an emphasis on some undesirable behaviors and we're not sure if it's environmental or biological. Who knows? All of this is such a crap shoot... everyone just wants a definitive explanation about how to heal/treat/cure autism. Lord knows I sure do! But as I have said, this I can handle. It's certainly a challenge but it's not insurmountable. My child is healthy and happy... we can work together to get him where he needs to be.
Orientation frustration
Apr 24, 2008 by AnonymousSomething happened to the apostrophe key on my keyboard. One of my darling little children seems to have pried the plastic apostrophe key off the board so now I have to press this green rubber nodule when I want an apostrophe or quotation marks. Such fun!
It’s been a busy week for us. I went to that kindergarten orientation that I was urged again and again to attend. We ended up leaving halfway through. It was basically a reiteration of what Jonathan and I heard at the special needs kindergarten orientation a few weeks ago, only this was in the middle of the afternoon and without complimentary childcare. I asked the principal if they were going to have an MLP classroom at our home elementary school and she replied that yes, they were going to have a bi-lingual MLP there. So most likely, Thomas will not be attending that school. She urged me to stay for the remainder of the “registration” - they handed us a flyer saying that registration would be in August. I was so ticked off! Like I’m going to hand over all the registration papers and monies so that the district geniuses can lose them when they transfer them to whatever school in Timbuktu Thomas will be attending. They lost all of his stuff last August and he wasn’t even changing schools! So I stormed off (the kids weren’t being great, which didn’t help) in a huff and the principal asked about Thomas before we left – like she’s going to do something about the injustice of it all. The thing that angered me the most was that the special needs kindergarten people who gave the presentation a few weeks ago insisted that it was of utmost importance that we all attend our home school’s orientation. It was completely unnecessary and I’m going to mention it at Thomas’ IEP meeting on May 6th.
So after walking to this school and playing at the playground and explaining to Thomas that he might go to school there next year, he’s not going there. The silver lining to this cloud is that the district starts school at 8:30 a.m. so Thomas will be on the bus and off to school in plenty of time for me to get Hayley to pre-school at 9 a.m. I have to register her on Saturday morning and then get her over to her make-up dance class at 10 a.m. Finally, Hayley will be able to start school and then, dare I even write it, I will have a couple of hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to myself to do “stuff.”
Thomas is still doing well at school. Yesterday, a police officer came to visit Thomas’ class. The kids got to try on handcuffs (Thomas refrained from that particular activity), sit in the police cruiser and listen to the sirens. Thomas loved sitting in the car and he was able to actually tell me the officer’s name when I asked! I said, “Thomas, what was the policeman’s name?” He said, “It was just ‘policeman’!” I explained that the officer had a name. “What was his name, Thomas? It was Officer…” And then he told me! I couldn’t believe that he could remember, but he did give me a plausible last name of the police officer. I thought that was great!
I’ve had it with the bed-sharing again. I finally had to mention “sleep study” again to try and whip things back into shape. Those kids come in every night now and I wake up sweating with someone’s (not Jonathan’s) elbow in my face and knee in my rear. I mentioned sleep studies in the bathtub tonight and Hayley said she’d like to do one. Thomas looked at her and said, “Hayley, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Too true. We’ll see who comes in tonight.
So I’m waiting for that IEP meeting to hopefully find out where Thomas will be going to school next year so I can go to THAT orientation instead. Or maybe I’ll just show up the day before school starts with a greasy birth certificate, coffee-stained immunization records and a dubious-looking check to hand to whatever poor sap is behind the desk that morning. That may be what happens just because I bet they won’t know where the MLP class is going to be in early May. I just hope that Thomas doesn’t have to be bussed too far. Our school district is fairly large and sprawling, so he could have to ride the bus for quite a while every day, depending. I’m a little concerned about that.
I’m excited for Hayley to start pre-school and get some socialization at long last. I’m hoping they’ll teach her a little about how everyone is different and it’s not polite to stare, point, or loudly say, “Mommy! Why is that old lady’s hair blue?” (Luckily, that old lady’s hearing was apparently not what it used to be and I escaped that situation.) She’s just like every other kid when it comes to pointing at someone who looks different, walks differently or has any characteristic that doesn’t jive with Hayley’s definition of “normal” which is probably a bit skewed, to say the least. I’ve been trying to tell her, after we’re home or in the car, that it’s not polite to point or talk about how people are different when they can hear us. How do I do this? Does anyone have any words I can use that an almost four year-old will understand? If you read my blogs regularly, you already know that I have a tendency to get a bit wordy and use some goofy vocabulary. Unfortunately, I find myself doing that with the kids and I don’t notice so much when their eyes glaze over. Sometimes, Hayley will say, “Mommy? I don’t understand your words!” At least she can tell me when nothing is getting through.
Tennis, anyone?
Apr 15, 2008 by AnonymousFinally, the weather is improving! We’ve been spending a lot more time outside playing in the yard and walking to the park. Last year, it seemed like no matter how old Thomas got, I’d still be strapping him into a stroller or making him sit in the wagon to take him to the park. It’s really amazing how much things can change in what seems like no time at all.
Thomas loves to ride his little pedal car to the park. The only problem is that riding the pedal car is all he wants to do when we get there. Hayley wants to play on the slides or the swings but Thomas wants to keep on truckin’. So we go on to the next park and the next (there are three nearby that are all connected by paths) and by then Hayley has seen a flying bug and it’s all over; we have to go home immediately. We saw a very sluggish and sleepy bee on the ground at the park yesterday and Hayley flipped out. (I was rather surprised to see a live bee this time of year too, as a matter of fact.) She is suddenly quite imprisoned by her intense and irrational fear of bugs and it’s worrying me for the coming summer. I’ve tried explaining to her that bugs are important to trees and plants and that bugs live outside and we have to get along with them when we’re outside too. Not much of that is sinking in. I hope she can get over it before summer really gets going. Our family vacation will be one very long week if she doesn’t.
So Thomas pedals to the park, being careful not to get too far away from me – and I can trust him to not run away! (Or pedal away, as the case may be.) Tomorrow it’s supposed to be even warmer and I suggested tonight during baths that we go to a different park. I’ve seen some other neat-looking parks on my jogs and I hope we can try some of them. Thomas is ill-disposed, however. He said that we shouldn’t go to different playgrounds; “that wouldn’t be too much fun.”
Tomorrow is Spring Picture Day at school and I can’t wait to see the kind of picture Thomas brings home. He’s been very into having his picture taken lately. I’ve been selling a lot of old clothes on eBay as I lose weight, and every time I get the camera out to take snaps of these items, Thomas insists that I take a picture of him and then show it to him. It hit me that Thomas and Hayley will never know a time before digital cameras! They’ll never fool around with film and flashcubes (I’m only just barely old enough to remember flash cubes, I swear!) and waiting four days for film to be developed only to find out that Aunt Maude had her eyes closed in every single picture of her at Uncle Joe’s retirement party.
Which brings me to another aspect of life that our children will never remember in its original form: We located and purchased a Nintendo Wii this weekend. Jonathan and I really wanted one (Happy Mother’s Day to me; Happy Father’s day to him) not just for us but for the whole family. I like it better than the average game system because most of the time, you’re standing up making wild, gesticulating motions as you pretend to punch with fists, poke with an epee, display a blazing backhand or perfect a breaststroke. We were playing yesterday and I remember wondering what an alien would think if they were to watch us through our windows as we had what looked like severe seizures in front of the TV. Anyway, the point is that there is more physical activity and coordination required to play this Wii system. You would not believe how much my biceps hurt yesterday from that tennis game! I think those are biceps…anyway, Thomas loves it, too! He is actually really good at the tennis game and Hayley likes to play golf. Thomas laughs so hard when his little character waves the tennis racquet and admittedly, he’s only really able to volley the ball because he’s always moving and therefore his character is always swinging, but he likes it and that’s what’s important. There’s a little “Mii” section of this system where you can create the characters you play with, from the height and body type to face shape, hair color and pretty much every aspect of someone’s appearance. So we made characters for our whole family, plus the kids’ aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. I showed Thomas and Hayley and now they like to see who’s in the stands for tennis, who’s watching at the bowling alley and who’s on their baseball team. It’s very cute! I’m hoping that as they grow, they’ll get better-coordinated with the Wii. We bought a couple games we thought the kids would be better at, but even those were too advanced. I’m going to try to find some games that are rated “EC” for “early childhood.” Those would almost certainly be more appropriate, educational, and easy-to-play. One thing’s for sure: They’ll never remember Atari cartridges and joysticks.
Thursday or Friday, I have to go to kindergarten orientation and I feel rather unprepared. I’m not sure if they’re going to have childcare available – and I don’t know if our home school is even the one Thomas will be attending next year. If our grade school doesn’t offer an MLP class, he’s going to be bussed somewhere else. I’m going to have to call his school or our elementary school tomorrow to find out what I’m supposed to do. We’re not going to decide on Thomas’ placement until May 6, and even then we could change our minds over the summer.
We’re going to the cottage this weekend to put the pier in the water. After we were there two weeks ago, I really don’t dread it. The kids are so good up there now that this is finally the year that things get better! We’ve been waiting for it and now it’s here. Undoubtedly, God will jar me out of my reverie somehow – like I’ll get pregnant or something. (I’m not pregnant, mom. That was a joke.)
Strains, trains and automobiles
Mar 17, 2008 by AnonymousIt’s been a while since I’ve written…there’s been a lot of stress and drama here! Yesterday, we had a fun family outing. Thomas has been expressing interest in taking a train ride, and since we live so close to Chicago we thought we’d take the Metra downtown and see Sears Tower. It’s only a short walk from Union Station and there are special weekend family fares on the train, so we talked to the kids about it and they were excited to try it. They loved the train ride! Thomas had fun looking out the window and noticed that Jonathan and I were available for more interaction because we weren’t driving. He brought his little steering wheel along to pretend that he was driving. He has this miniature orange steering wheel that used to be on his Jeep walker when he was a baby. He went from crawling to walking so fast that he never used the walker much, but the steering wheel has been a perennial favorite. He brings it on almost every car ride to pretend he’s driving.
We got downtown and walked over the Chicago River which Hayley kept calling “a chocolate river;” likening it to the river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. The river is always a dull green, but being the day before St. Patrick’s Day, it was a bright green from the dye the city puts in. Jonathan and I didn’t like the river so much, worrying about how the kids wanted to stand a little too close.
We had to wait in several lines before actually riding the elevator up to the 103rd floor and Thomas had a hard time with it. His behavior wasn’t unbearable, but we could tell that he was antsy and wanted to keep moving. Standing still is really hard for him, but he has good times and bad times with it. We had to wait a lot longer to see Santa Claus in December, and he was better then.
We went up and looked out the windows – it was a beautiful day in our city and the views were spectacular, as usual (except for the days when there’s low-lying fog). The kids had fun looking at the tiny cars on the ground, and Hayley enjoyed the high-up view of the Chocolate River. I think that they were really too young to appreciate what they were looking at, but it was a fun activity. Jonathan and I have been there before as kids, and we remember it being more awe-inspiring as children, and also less expensive. We didn’t stay long because we had promised the kids ice cream if they were good, so they were very motivated to get to the Baskin-Robbins on Jackson Street. We rode on the top of the double-decker train on the way home, giving the kids a better view.
After we stopped at Subway to pick up dinner, the car died – we thought, for good. We were stranded in a parking lot near our home and the car was not able to be driven because of the torrent of oil pouring from beneath. I know that in a previous blog, I used the word “hemorrhage” to describe what was happening with the oil in the driveway, but the situation yesterday was a much better definition of that word. So we sat in the car eating our sandwiches and waiting for my dad to come and get us. The excitement was fun for the kids. “Why are we here?” Hayley kept asking. I was an emotional wreck, believing fully that the engine had finally gone its last mile and we’d have to take on a car payment in the morning. Even my father, who was an auto mechanic for twenty years and the original owner of our vehicle thought so. Unbelievably, there was only a small defective part and the car is running again and sleeping soundly in the driveway this evening, apparently not worse for the wear. When we were on our way home from picking the car up today, Hayley announced that she was very hungry and wanted a sandwich. “Don’t you have my sandwich, Mommy?” she asked. Because we fed the kids in the car yesterday, having no other option, she thinks that I have a stash of deli sandwiches in the glove box just in case she gets peckish on the road.
That was the stress and drama. I’m in much better emotional spirits tonight than I was last night.
Thomas is still doing great in school. This morning before Thomas got on the bus, he mentioned that he wanted to hold his little girlfriend’s hand at school today. When he got home, he reported that he had indeed held her hand and played with her. Thomas continues to be very popular with the ladies! His usual bus-buddy (a boy) has been sitting with another girl lately (you know how boys get in springtime, after all), so Thomas has been sitting with this other little girl who seemed very eager to have him in the seat next to her. She only goes Monday, Wednesday and Friday though, so Thomas doesn’t get to sit by her every day. This morning after I buckled him on the bus next to his bus girlfriend, I kissed him and told him to have a good day. His seat-mate puckered up for me to kiss her too! She’s a doll and I think Thomas likes sitting by her. I wonder what they talk about.
I got a letter from Thomas’ teacher last week saying that on Wednesdays, there’s a teacher at school who takes parents to their child’s elementary school to check out the kindergarten programs available for the upcoming year. Thomas’ teacher suggested that I look at the regular half-day kindergarten class and the MLP (Modified Learning Program – a class very like the one he’s in now in terms of class size) class. I think we’ll choose to have him split his morning between to the two programs but I am going to reserve the right to change his program if we see the need. Thomas’ preschool has been great about recognizing his changing needs but I’m not sure what to expect from the elementary school. I don’t know if they’re going to be as vocal about what they think Thomas needs or as good at communicating with us. His eventual kindergarten teacher is going to have around thirty kids in her class, so I’m not sure whose responsibility it will be to let us know how things are going or who will have time.
Easter is nearly here – I can’t remember St. Patrick’s Day and Easter being so close together ever before! On Friday, we’re going to color Easter eggs with the kids and possibly Jonathan’s brother’s family. We’ve never colored eggs with our kids before, but I’m hoping I can get them to eat some hard-boiled eggs! Otherwise, I guess I’ll just make egg-salad, which they also won’t eat. On Sunday, we’re going to Jonathan’s aunt’s house for dinner. Spring Break starts this Thursday and goes through March 28th. Then it’s only a short two months until school is over and summer is upon us. It doesn’t seem nearly warm enough for that! I’m wearing sandals on Sunday and I don’t care what the thermometer says. The calendar says it’s spring!