Story
Most infants and children follow a natural trajectory of development. Milestones have been identified as a child acquires skills along this path. It is a trajectory that leads to learning readiness and successful school outcomes. It includes the social competence needed to navigate uncertain and unpredictable exchanges with peers and community members. It is a shared set of customs that are agreed upon as acceptable within a culture. Encompassing an essential skill set, it makes lifelong independence and survival possible.
A person with autism may not be inclined to follow this same trajectory. The strength and variety of autistic features unique to that person may result in a developmental path that veers in a different and unique direction from the start. As development continues the path may become increasingly different and in some cases limiting.
Perhaps the most helpful intervention strategy would be to identify missing and delayed milestones and attempt to replicate the natural learning experiences that might lead to acquisition. Autism friendly lessons and activities could be tailored to accommodate a person's unique learning style and sensory needs. The following are my observations and ideas for possible interventions. They are offered here for discussion only and not as recommendations for treatment.
Framework: Event
When we experience the world we most often focus on an event rather than an isolated object or person. The context in which we view something is critical.
Context and Connectivity:
- When we focus our attention on an object we will most often take note of the person who is involved, what that person is doing with regard to the object. Other important points of interest include where the object is, when and how it got there, and why it is there.
- When we take in the context of an object we also learn to describe the scene. Vocabulary that names the actor, action, and object and other important details.
- A scene may be charged with feeling or emotion and is noticed.
- Often some reasoning occurs with this contextual information and some inferencing as to cause and effect and predictive aspects.
- Connections are made with all aspects of the event and become the information source for answering wh- queries.
Strategies for Activities, Lessons, and Materials:
- Children learn when immersed in activities that encompass the critical elements of an event as a complete connected set of ideas or scenario.
- Language that describes these critical elements can be introduced as the child is ready to incorporate new information. The built in redundancy of common scenarios and experiences increases the speed of acquisition.
- Telling and retelling events and scenarios enhances recall and encourages exchange of related information.
- Use wh- questions to check for understanding.
A person with autism or other developmental delay might:
- dwell on objects and fail to put them in context with the person in the scene.
- struggle to derive meaning from speech or text.
- not focus on the eye gaze of the person in the scene.
- be preoccupied with sensory sensitivities.
- experience the emotion that may be present but miss the nuance of feeling that should follow.
- make limited superficial connections.
- struggle with wh- question forms and either not understand what is asked or not know the answer.
- lack assumed skill levels in related areas.
User Friendly Strategies for Activities, Lessons, and Materials:
- Use manipulatives that separate out the various aspects of the event.
- Rely on visual displays and prompts rather than speech or text.
- Ask wh- questions about the constituent parts of a sentence describing an event.
- Intersperse wh- questions throughout all activities about the event. Pose multiple queries about one type of wh- question with multiple answers. Teach one before testing several types.
- Use visual images that make the eyes of the actor prominent.
- Name and emphasize any emotion and feeling that may be present.
- Use event aspects in numerous different types of activities that provide redundancy and encourage more varied and dense connections.
- Observe and detect sensory sensitivities to materials and environment and alter as necessary.
- Observe carefully to detect competencies in order to know what they don't know.
