Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Notwithstanding the difficulties that families have living with autism, there are still many positive things we all learn from being around autism. Probably the one thing I find the most valuable is the Zen concept of living in the moment. The world around us may be falling apart, our budgets may be cut to the bone and discord among our politicians reigns, but that doesn't bother kids with autism. What do they care about all that and indeed, why would they? They are much more concerned with the present and what is right in front of them. They make us all practice "mindfulness", and teach us that we should focus our senses on what we are experiencing in the here and now rather than thinking ahead and anticipating trouble. I often wish that when I wake up in the middle of the night ruminating about all the things that keep me up I could have the presence of mind to simply breathe deeply and listen to the darkness. Occasionally, I remember to try to be in the moment and relax, but typically my mind is racing.

So, this morning in our staff meeting, it was particularly delightful to hear from our teachers about the things going on in their classrooms. One teacher told us of her excitement that some of her students are improving their abilities with AAC devices. On her last field trip, one of her students told her via his device to slow down and the other told her to get on the freeway! (She assures us she was going the speed limit!). Another teacher talked of the Thanksgiving luncheon that has become a tradition here. This teacher started the lunch a few years ago, inviting other classrooms to participate and families as well. Each year, more people join. So nice to give families the opportunity to join us and be with their children in a safe and fun environment. So, as I write, the students, staff and families are arriving to share the meal that many have prepared, including the students. These are all little things but how nice to hear about the simple things that make our days so wonderful. Next time I wake up at 3 am I will try to remember these simple things and embrace the day with the enthusiasm of our students. I have a lot to be thankful for,  not the least of which is the ability to be part of this great program and part of the lives of such wonderful people. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Adolescence and Autism - Don't Stop Teaching!

People with autism may go through many different developmental stages in their lifetimes, probably the most dramatic being adolescence. Puberty is typically evident in our autistic kids a year or two before there are any physical signs, and then, most unfairly, lasts much longer than it seems to linger with typically developing students. Very few people recall those mostly middle and early high school years with nostalgia, so just imagine the chaos the hormones inflict on kids with autism. But there is some good news for those families in the throes of adolescence. If we can get their kids safely through the teen years without too much upheaval, they typically arrive on the other side of adolescence calmer and more relaxed.

Another phenomenon we’ve seen is that during puberty their learning seems to plateau or at least, not progress as it did in earlier years. That is when schools mistakenly want to limit educational offerings to only functional work to match their apparent halt in acquiring information. But I think it is important to recognize that this ‘hiatus’ from learning is likely only temporary. While we clearly need to emphasize the acquisition of functional skills and work on independence, we should keep in mind that as they exit puberty, people with autism will typically go through another uptick in their ability to learn new things. At least, that has been our observation, with all the students we have seen move from childhood to adulthood. Puberty grinds everything to a crawl while emotional and behavioral problems become paramount and then, they begin to get back to where they left off in their pre-teen progress.

So, it remains important to continue to present information to these students, even if it seems futile or useless, for we never know when that window of opportunity to take in information might open up again. To that end, I feel that it is important to continue to explore academics and present science and math and encourage opportunities to read. The students need to continue to be challenged and engaged in activities as they move into adulthood. We all need to keep our brains stimulated and open for learning, and people with autism are no different. Who knows what we may discover?  

Mysterious but Exceptional Abilities with Autism

How is it that some people with autism can have some truly extraordinary abilities and indicate exceptional intelligence in certain areas, and yet require so much assistance in daily activities? This is one of the conundrums of autism: the ability to excel in specific skills, but the practical application of these very same skills is another story. Our students who are verbal offer us some glimpses into their unique world and cognitive processes. But we also have a program full of children and young adults, many of whom have unique traits and remarkable talents who are non-verbal with significant communication difficulties. We can generally ascertain their language receptive skills by how they respond to us, but gauging what or how much they truly understand remains an enigma. This we have to guess through those fleeting moments when it is as though the fog lifts and there is clarity. Even with technology and AAC devices, the initiation of communication is typically the hold up.

We have long known that many of our non-verbal students can learn to read, not phonetically, but through their strong visual memory and perception skills. And the acquisition of math skills can be equally mysterious with some of our students. While we struggle to teach one-to-one correspondence or other math concepts, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the student may well be beyond us in understanding concepts. But how to get that information out and make it useful is our difficulty to surmount. It doesn’t particularly seem to bother our students that we don’t know what exactly they really do know.

A recent article published in Nature by Dr. Laurent Mottron at the University of Montreal's Centre for Excellence in Pervasive Development Disorders notes that many autistics have qualities and abilities that are superior, but he doesn’t necessarily refer to them as ‘savants’ as so many others do. Dr. Mottron’s research team was searching to establish the superior abilities of autistics in multiple cognitive operations such as reasoning and perception. He analyzed a group of autistic people, one of whom, Michelle Dawson, was able to describe her thinking process, which was obviously very helpful to the research. Michelle Dawson's interpretation of autistic strengths is that they are indicative of authentic intelligence rather than a serendipitous trick of the brain that allows persons with autism to mindlessly perform intelligent tasks. Dr. Mottron suggests that among the many reasons people with autism have been assumed to have mental retardation is the administration of inappropriate tests and the misinterpretation of autistic strengths. While some people with autism evidently do have limited cognitive abilities, just how limited they really are is not at all clear.

So, if its not a fluke or trick, how do we capture that knowledge and help our students make it useful? Perhaps instead of focusing on things people with autism don’t seem to know, we should instead be helping to create more opportunities to demonstrate what they do know or are capable of. And this may be the advantage of newer technologies. We have computers, AAC devices, and iPads with some wonderful programs that can illustrate a conceptual level of understanding that no pencil and paper assessment can mimick. For the most part, our whole focus on programs and devices is to foster communication, which obviously is important. But we shouldn’t sacrifice the opportunity to explore their other abilities and knowledge, however obscure. Then, the next critical step would be to figure out how to access that learning in a way that would be functional and constructive. In my opinion, that’s where the next research should be heading.