3 more videos added to the YouTube channel!

Hi everyone!

Quick post to let you know that there are three more new teaching videos on our YouTube channel AUTISMartCOMMUNICATE :

1. Part 2 of the "how to weave" video ... for all of you out there with unfinished pot holders!

How to weave (part 2) - finishing the edge

2. A video demonstrating how to use a "follow me" approach to teach young children how to draw:

Drawing with young children - part 1

3. A video demonstrating how to use a "follow me" approach to teach new art media and techniques to less verbal ASD individuals:

Teaching Art & Communication - "follow me" pastel drawing

We would appreciate your feed-back as we expand our library of reference videos. Don't be shy to let us know what you think!

Sheila B

Another video on the YouTube Channel!

It's difficult to teach individuals who are very bright, but compromised in their ability to understand and use verbal language. The challenge is to teach to the level of the intellect (so that the person finds the learning activity interesting and engaging), while not overwhelming the weak language processing.

You can go around weaker language skills by presenting concepts and skills visually, with very simple language (written and verbal) used to highlight key information. Video is a strong visual medium because you can demonstrate skills in sequence, you can add printed captions, and you can tailor the sound track to match the language level of the person you are teaching. The other major advantage of having teaching materials on video is that they can be paused, rewound and replayed as many times as necessary for the person to get all of the information.

Emma is a bright and artistically talented young woman with limited verbal language skills. Over the years, we have developed many teaching techniques based on drawing and visual demonstration to help her to learn new skills in a variety of artistic media. One of the most effective ways to teach her is side-by-side demonstration of new techniques, using very simple repetitive verbal language (that she can later repeat to herself as she does the activity). Our most recent project is to translate this type of instruction to video, so that she can continue to learn more independently.

This is the first in a series of teaching videos, the "pilot episode" of "Emma's how to videos". Her mom has kindly agreed to share the video, to help out other ASD individuals who might learn in a similar way.

This video is designed to be used with or without the sound-track on. One of the most common issues in teaching ASD individuals is their irritation with too much language and noise - they become overwhelmed and overloaded and they shut down. Another choice is to turn off the sound-track of the video and add your own "voice-over" as you sit beside the student and watch the video together. Pause and rewind are your friends.

Here's the link:

How to Weave - an Emma "how to" video

We are very interested in hearing your feedback about this video, and about the new YouTube channel in general .... Stay tuned!

Sheila Bell

... we're launching a YouTube channel!

This blog is one part of the larger project "Autism and the Art of Communication" - a non-profit venture with the goal of freely sharing information and teaching techniques that parents and teachers might find useful in educating their ASD children and students. The project also includes a website: www.autismandtheartofcommunication.com , and a facebook page.

In response to some great suggestions from family (thanks Ter!) and friends (thanks Carole!), and with help from my friend Adam (who was very agreeable about being filmed), we have just expanded our project by adding a YouTube channel called  AUTISMartCOMMUNICATE .

And here is our first educational video (click on the link below):

Drawing as Communication - Scrambled Sentences

We are very interested in getting your feedback after you watch our initial attempt at producing a teaching video - your comments and criticisms will help us as we build our video resource library.

Sheila Bell, SLP

... love, love, love .....

Today is Valentine's Day and the topic, of course, is love.

drawn by Owen 2012

My youngest nephew is 4 years old ... a small person with large heart and great passion ... he recently asked me to marry him multiple times (to be fair, he also asked his mother and his brother to marry him, but I was honoured to be included in the select group). His love is bold and loud and unapologetic. I love that about him.

People on the autism spectrum also love in a big bold unapologetic way ... the expression of this love may be unorthodox, but the emotion is sincere and heart-felt. Because their emotions are often un-named, unprocessed and unexpressed, others can mistakenly assume that emotion is lacking. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is always interesting to me to see ASD individuals who have difficulty expressing their own emotions in everyday life (through words, facial expression, tone of voice) produce drawn stories showing clear emotional reaction and interaction between the characters. Here are some stories where love is the topic:

.... a romantic love story where a knight slays a dragon ...

by Adam 2001

... to win the hand of the fair princess in marriage ...

... or how about a story of the love between friends, sticking together through good times and bad? here's one of a series of stories about Mr. Bean and Teddy, drawn by my friend Kevin, where the two friends are swallowed by a whale ...

by Kevin 2012

... and don't forget the love and comfort that a "stuffy" toy provides in the middle of the night, even if you're a big fierce dragon ...

by Adam 2001

I will leave you with a final portrait of love ... the love between a son and his mom, drawn by my friend Adam when he was in elementary school:

by Adam 2001

.... I know her personally, and she actually is ...... Happy Valentines Day!!!

... of babies and monsters

What scares you? What do you love? Likes and dislikes are very personal things, and none more unique than those of people on the autism spectrum.

From the beginning, Adam loved monsters and skeletons and all things creepy ... Halloween was his "high holiday", and he learned to spell "skeleton" before he could spell "and" or "the". So we taught him everything from language arts to math and science using monsters and mayhem:

Sentence construction & comprehension - January 2000 - by Adam

Monsters were great! ... but babies? ... well, that was another story entirely. Adam found babies to be scary and unsettling - they would poke you in the eye, move your stuff, cry loudly - they were even more unpredictable in their actions than regular people (and that was saying something!).

Here is one of my all-time favourite stories drawn by Adam, answering the question "Which is more dangerous, a lion or a baby?"

I set up the situation by drawing the first square .... a baby encountering a sleeping lion:



... the baby takes action:

... the lion gets a rude awakening:



... look how scared the lion is, and how happy (and in control) the baby is:

... the baby has had his ride, and now he leaps off:

... love the theatrical flair as the baby casually lifts one leg and leans over towards the lion's tail:

... with one hand, that baby grabs the lion by the tail and swings it around his head:

... then sends the poor lion sailing off into the stratosphere:

.... babies are much more dangerous than lions!


And this is why I work in the field that I do ... I love the minds that see the world in such a different (but equally valid) way ... once you look through the eyes of autism, the world never looks quite so mundane and humdrum again.

And just in case you were wondering what might happen if a baby met an alligator .... here's one more picture for your education:

picture by Adam

... no contest!!!

Transformations and Everyday Magic

HAPPY NEW YEAR, and welcome back to the blog!!

Adam and the Magic Lamp - drawn by Adam (2001)

This is the season when our minds turn to changes and transformation. What would you wish for at the start of this new year if you found an old lamp and unearthed a genie?

Sometimes when life is difficult, we give up on wishing and hoping and dreaming. New Year's resolutions can seem like something meant for people who don't know how sharp a left turn life can take, people who have not yet experienced an event they can't budget or diet their way out of.

While you may not be able to use a "genie wish" to change the basic circumstances of your life, you can still try this bit of everyday transformative magic: choosing to change your perspective can change your daily reality. Sounds simple, but it's true.

Here's the challenge: How about taking a week and rather than thinking about the deficits and challenges your person with autism must deal with, instead focus your attention on the gifts and talents they also possess? 



And to illustrate my point, as always, a couple of stories (about transformations of the visual kind):

Here is a story that was drawn by Adam when he was 11 years old (just one of a series he drew involving magic and transformations):

The story shows humour and imagination, people interactions and emotional reactions. He was fascinated by plot lines where witches and wizards used magic to transform people into animals (his favourite movies were "The Emperor's New Groove", "Shrek" and "Aladdin"), and he loved to create his own fairy-tale story lines. None of this rich thinking was evident in his spoken or written work at the time - we had to move into the unconventional context of purely visual communication to connect with the true creative intellect that lay underneath the more obvious surface deficits of impaired verbal language.

Michael is another young man that I work with who has always been fascinated by visual transformations. Awkward social situations where he has removed hats and glasses from strangers in public places turned out to be his attempt to see what people looked like with and without the extra features (something we discovered as we drew out the problematic situations).

Animation turned out to be a perfect medium for him to explore this visual interest without the downside of negative social reactions. Here is a movie that he and I made together a few years ago - he drew the storyboard and I used Flash to animate it for him (click on the title under the picture to activate the link):

"Transformations" a movie by Michael

Again, you can see the humour and emotion in the short story sequence - an interesting glimpse into the thoughts running through his head.

This year we have been using Michael's high interest in visual changes to encourage him to start to learn how to use animation and movie software himself. Our focus is to transform those initially challenging social situations into real-world skills that he can use for enjoyment and maybe even eventually employment. 

And so, some food for thought as you start off 2012:  Life is ever a mixture: good and bad, easy and hard, happy and sad. But, whatever the circumstances, the transforming choice you always have is whether you focus your attention on the full or the empty part of the glass.

... so bottoms up! and savour the sweet part to the last drop.

Comfort in a cold world

A good friend gave me some beautiful red socks the other day ...

... warm cheerful red socks, dropped into a cold spot in my life. You see, my sister is ill right now, and my heart and mind are consumed with worries for her and her family. My friend knew my distress, and she gave me the socks to let me know I was not alone, that she was thinking of me and my sister and wishing us both well. This wonderful unexpected gift set me thinking ...

The world is often a difficult place, with harsh events and seemingly overwhelming challenges; and perhaps no group of people feels this more constantly than those who are dealing with autism. As I was lying in bed early this morning (not sleeping and realizing that I wasn't going to get back to sleep), a story about Adam came into my head. I think it fits, so here it is:

At the time of this story, Adam was in high school. It was springtime, and he was not feeling well because of his allergies. Still, he got up each morning and went to school and did his best. One day, while he was doing some language work with his EA (unscrambling sentences and drawing out their meaning), he seemed stressed and distressed. Then on the side of his paper, he started to add some extra details:

... first this small sad face in the bottom corner ...

... then a whole pageful of sad faces (with one happy face added to emphasize the contrast between how he wanted to feel and how he did feel) .....

It turned out that the night before, Adam had gone out with his mom to get the new Disney movie that he had been wanting to see. Disaster. It was not available in VHS format, instead it was one of the first movies that were only available in DVD. And a DVD was not okay ... it wasn't what Adam expected, and it was a change he couldn't deal with, especially in the spring season. They left the store with Adam in tears.

Next day at school, another "tangent" picture was added to the language work:

Adam wanted to share his happiness that his problem had been solved. We had drawn and written out a comic strip story for him about the change in movie format (from VHS to DVD) assuring him that the movie itself would still be the same. It was challenging, we had more tears, but in the end he tried it and it worked out.

The interesting thing about this story is that the purpose of Adam's communication with the faces was to share his feelings, not to ask for a solution. It was important to him that the school staff understand the source of his sadness and then his gladness. Communication, not for physical wants and needs, but instead a request for human understanding, kindness and compassion.

At the point of contact, therapy is more art than science - yes, you need to know what you're doing and why, but you also need to respond to the person who sits (or hops) in front of you ... you need to focus on the human connection first.  As therapists and educators, we are often poking at the "sore spots", dealing with the challenges and asking our clients/students to do things that are unfamiliar and difficult. Even so, the person with autism should look forward to seeing you, should run towards the door, not away to hide in the closet, when you ring the bell. Regardless of your therapy approach, the person who is the focus of that intervention should feel like you are red socks in their life, not an icy blast of sleet.

One of the things that helps all of us to go on through adversity, to get up in the morning and face another day, is the presence of caring friends ... someone to listen, share the hurt, find the laughter ... someone who lets us know that we're not standing sockless and alone in the snow.

I'm off to see my sister and her boys (little and big) this weekend .... although I haven't got the power to change the circumstances, I'm hoping to bring a pile of warm socks to push back the cold ...