Long-term success in autism ... How will you feed the joy?

Today on the blog we welcome a "guest blogger": Carole, mom of Kevin (whose art work has been featured in previous blog posts). Kevin is a young adult on the autism spectrum with limited verbal language who uses drawing for communication.

Kevin playing the drums

Those of you who have been following our blog for a while may remember reading a bit about Kevin's early days in a post called A glimpse back at where one boy's drawing for communication started - the post included links to video clips of young Kevin and older Kevin, giving an idea of how far he has come. I recommend that you take a look at those clips before you read what his mom has to say:

How Will You Feed the Joy? by Carole G

(originally published in the Fall 2013 Access Integration newsletter of CISS Ottawa)

I’m sure there is not a parent among us raising a child with special needs, who does not have forever imprinted on their minds and in their hearts, the day their child was diagnosed. For our little family, it was the virtual blow from a two by four to the gut; the breathless shock to the system; the blood rushing to your face and the feeling that you needed to sink to your knees as some faceless voice uttered “severely autistic”. It’s amazing what power a few little words, quietly spoken, can have on a whole bunch of lives. Then comes the ricochet effect as the power of love for your child sends you hurtling into action as if on a permanent adrenaline rush: therapy, preschool, social programs, interventions, doctors, what program, how many hours, what can we afford, who are the best service providers and how much can we fit into a day? All the while, like an irritating song stuck in your head, the words so many will utter without truly understanding the impact they will have; “there’s a window of opportunity, and then development slows or stops.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It occurs once we’ve made our mistakes, and we’ve experienced the learning curve. So I thought I’d share a couple of the things I see so clearly now, as we progress on our journey with Kevin who is now a young man of 20.

Yes, therapy is tantamount to success! Thank heavens, no matter how we bemoan the waiting lists, the cost, and what we feel is a lack of service, there is so much more available today than when we entered the system. Information and support is now out there in abundance, a few keystrokes away to any home that owns a computer. But what is success? We took our little boy on a marathon journey of learning. We enrolled him in Thursday’s Child Nursery School. We took parenting courses in behaviour modification. We used Children at Risk, which at the time provided supervision of behavioural programming and I worked with my son, as did a couple of special needs workers. The little boy who screamed and whined constantly in frustration, tantrumed continually, hit and kicked and couldn’t bare to be touched, was stubborn and defiant and who lived in a world that completely separated him from us, made gradual and very slow changes. Then we decided to take him to a doctor who practiced fundamental medicine, to look at his eating and digestive issues and low weight. While we waited for our first appointment he sent us a questionnaire. The first question was, “what are you hoping to achieve?” Such a simple question, but for me it opened the flood gates that culminated in a philosophy for our home, our child and our family.

What I wanted was for my son to experience calm, to reduce his pain, to calm his overactive senses, to be able to exist in his own skin and to have a quality of life and experience joy. By extension I wanted this for every member of the family and I wanted Autism to be a part of our lives and not the driving force. Yes, I wanted to teach my son and continually raise the bar so that he moved towards his potential. Yes, I wanted to feed his mind, and treat him like any other child, with some added supports to accommodate the autistic characteristics, but what I really wanted was to feed his soul. I felt that any child with as many hurdles to jump just to make it through the day and who was being forced to live in a world that really suits us and not him, should absolutely be given a reason to love life.

So, I watched him like a hawk trying to discover what fueled his interest. It really wasn’t hard to figure out that music calmed him. As he rocked to the beat, his body seemed to ease and he beamed in absolute delight. I looked for something to engage Kevin and sought to find things that would also provide entertainment for Raymond, his older brother. It is rarely discussed, but when you add a disability to a family unit, your plan of action has to include every member, and take into consideration how they relate to each other. Raymond chose drumming. Kevin, who couldn’t abide certain noises, who had to be taught to touch his nose with the aid of a mirror, who didn’t cross the midline to pick up a pen with a preferred hand for an eternity and who was clumsy and uncoordinated was about to embark on drum lessons. I found a local music school (www.jeffsdrumacademy.com) and sat with the two of them for an hour a week. Fate, kismet, a guardian angel, call it whatever fits your beliefs but we were matched with a wonderful young man who was patient, fun, not only didn’t mind Kevin’s rote scripting of movies, but joined in. He willingly turned to me and asked for teaching suggestions. He accommodated the diagnosis, and expected Kevin to learn like any other student. The boys loved it.

Kevin has been playing drums for over a decade. He now has barely any noise sensitivities and he’s able to count out music at incredible speed. He is well coordinated while playing and continually improves. He reads music at a university level and most importantly he loves it. He looks forward to his lesson, is thrilled to see his teacher and has a face bathed in bliss as he plays along to the music, confident and proud. The brothers share a common enjoyment and this feeds their mutual love of music. One of the best gifts Kevin ever received was a website made by his brother. It contains all the music videos Kevin loves and the commercials that send him into fits of laughter. I’m sure Raymond thought he was just creating a gift that his brother would enjoy. I saw it as an example of a brother’s love. He took the time to create something that was perfectly suited for a differently abled sibling and one that fed into the interests they shared and a place they connected.

In a similar fashion, we have long used the services of the most incredible, out of the box thinking speech therapist. This wonderful lady forged an amazing bond with both Kevin and our family. She taught Kevin to draw and paired that skill with language (www.autismandtheartofcommunication.com).

Once Kevin began to draw he didn’t stop. When he picks up a pen, his face relaxes, he becomes spellbound and competent. His art is his love and is pervasive in his life, almost like a visual dictionary that he uses to order, understand, and relay his life. I am very grateful for a way to communicate with my son and him to me. When a situation arises that I need to explain or prepare him for, I pick up a pen and draw a comic strip. When I need to understand him, I will draw a picture and ask him to finish it. He shows me in pictures what any other child would describe in a conversation.

Kevin ticked all the boxes on the Autism diagnosis criteria save one, he didn’t spin objects. He was loved and challenging, big time. It has been a long, gradual journey. Kevin could not speak, tolerate sounds, touch, textures and taste.  He was distant and isolated, screamed and hit and lived in constant frustration. He was in pain often, slept rarely and appeared to be on the edge of a cliff always.

Today Kevin is barely verbal but communicates with us. He is calm, joyful, affectionate and can tolerate anything with a little preparation. He is smart, eager to learn, helpful, and does anything and goes anywhere you would expect of a young man his age. We taught him, fed his mind, helped find and develop his loves to create his joy.

What is success? It is ongoing and our journey continues. We still have a long way to go, but success hit me like that initial two by four at diagnosis, albeit with a much different effect, when our family attended Raymond’s university graduation. Success was never thinking for a minute that Kevin wouldn’t be there to share that joy. It was also watching Kevin, gently rocking with a smile pasted on his face as he listened to the quartet play as we waited for the service. He sat quietly through a long, hot service, getting up and cheering beside us as Raymond walked the stage. Raymond caught sight of us and sent a special wave specifically for the brother he is connected to. We were a family sharing a day of pride and meaning, where Autism was present but not the driving force.

So as you embark on a journey that will push you to your limits, my suggestion is, as you race to do all the things you can for your child, take a moment to relax and consider; how will you feed the joy?

 

Untangling the "Why?"

Probably the most common questions I've fielded over my years working with individuals on the autism spectrum all start with the same word: "Why ... ?"

Why is he doing that?
Why doesn't he look at me?
Why did she run away?
Why did he melt down?

Some autism professionals will tell you that all of the information you need to know (to answer your question) can be found by observing the person's behaviour in the environment where it occurs. I would agree that this can be a good place to start (especially if the person is non-verbal) because you get some clues about what might have gone wrong, what might have irritated, upset or overwhelmed that person. But it's just a starting point.

Many human actions and reactions are more complex than "if this, then that" - they are driven by thoughts, feelings, perception, understanding - to figure them out, you will need to find a way to ask the ASD person what the situation looked like from their perspective and you will also need to listen to, respect and act on the answer you get.

So, a few personal stories to illustrate:

First, a story that I've mentioned previously in this blog. When Adam was in elementary school, a social goal was written into his IEP (Individual Education Plan) stating that he would learn to say "hi" to other students in the hallway. From the start, Adam was clearly (and observably) upset by this program. So, I drew a picture to "ask" him what was wrong - here's what he drew:



#1 is my picture "question" to Adam - pictures #2-4 are his "answer"

Picture #3 was the most compelling for me - Adam is inside the locker, hiding from the horrible smiling greeting girl (visible in pieces through the locker vents), his distress and upset clear for anyone to see (no lack of emotion on his part). While we still didn't know "why" it was so awful for him, there was no doubt that it was, so the "greeting program" was scrapped.

Respect for his perspective. In retrospect, my guess is that he was not able to process faces and voices very well at that point in time, so he couldn't really tell who was talking to him (or why they would be). When he got to high school, he seemed to suddenly be more comfortable with other people and started to spontaneously greet them and call them by name - because they were the same height as him? because his neurology had developed to the point the he could distinguish one person's face/voice from another? because life in general was more comprehensible to him? - maybe one or all of these reasons (or something else entirely). Interesting, but not as important as listening to him and respecting the fact that a program meant to be helpful was actually not.

Second story, also from elementary school, involves a different young boy with a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. We had been doing a lot of visual work to help him figure out social dynamics on the playground (an environment that was full of conflict and distress for him). Suddenly, his EA (Educational Assistant) made a worrisome observation - the boy's eyes were rolling up in his head when he was out on the playground with his peers. Some of you may have jumped to the same conclusion that we did - fearing he was starting to have seizures, we discussed a referral to the pediatric neurologist. But just before we did that paperwork, I realized we hadn't really asked him what those incidents were like from his perspective.

So, I drew him a visual "question" (although this boy was verbal, his language often failed him when he was trying to discuss more abstract or emotional topics). The question looked something like this:

I asked him to fill in the thought bubble, and this is what he wrote: "I don't want them to read my mind". Interesting. We had been having a lot of discussions about the "invisible" social cues (facial expression, tone of voice, body language) and about how eye contact was important because it let you "read" these social cues and make guesses about what another person was thinking (to help navigate a social situation more successfully). This boy was very intelligent. He decided he wasn't all that comfortable with having other people know what he was thinking, so he purposely denied them eye contact to prevent them from reading his mind. A logical and reasonable conclusion based on the information he had been given.

So, we had a new discussion about the difference between guessing and knowing, and the fact that the other kids couldn't actually read his mind. Once he felt reassured that his thoughts were still private and it was his choice which ones he wanted to make public, the eye rolling stopped immediately, and the neurology referral was no longer necessary.

Not a "why" that could be figured out in any other way than by asking the person doing the behaviour.

Third and last story. This one is about another beautiful and sensitive young boy with a diagnosis of autism, preschool age, who suddenly seemed to go backward in his toilet training. It turned out that he was fearful of the noise made by the public bathroom hand-dryers and his fear quickly extended to all toilets. A psychologist suggested to the mom that she make the boy go into the public bathroom (drag him, I guess), stand him under the dryer and repeatedly turn it on until his "avoidance" response was extinguished. The mom didn't think this sounded like a good idea, so she asked me for a second opinion. I strongly backed up her intuition that this was a very bad idea.

Observation showed that the boy was terrified by the hand dryer noise, although he couldn't articulate "why". Parental common sense says that you protect your child from fearful situations, rather than purposely exposing them to scary and overwhelming situations (because that's abusive).

Here's what we did instead. I made him a tape of sounds - ones he liked (like my piano) and ones he didn't (like the hair dryer). Then I let him be the boss of the tape machine (this was a while ago, it was a cassette tape). He controlled the on/off, the volume, which ones we played and which ones we didn't. Very interesting because he would choose to listen to the "fearful" sounds in this context, very softly to be sure, but he seemed to want to figure them out.

At the same time, we got him some "over the ear" noise protection headphones from the hardware store, and he wore these many places outside of his house to control his personal noise intake. I can still clearly picture the day he arrived at my house with a determined look on his face, headphones in hand and announced: "Sheila, get the broom ... we're setting off the fire alarm!" ... and we did ... and then he asked me to get the hairdryer so he could turn it on and off while cautiously lifting up one cup of his headphones. A very brave boy, facing his fears on his terms.

What was important here? Listening to his perspective. Giving him respect for the magnitude of his fearful response to certain sounds. Giving him control over that scary part of his everyday environment. Giving him strategies to manage the overwhelming cacophony of the larger world.

And here's the most interesting part. The "why" of his reaction, which was revealed as he grew older. This boy is a musical genius. His auditory system is so fine-tuned that he can play back multi-part harmony after hearing a musical piece only once. His auditory processing is far too exquisite for the yammering jack-hammer nature of our mundane world, and that's why he was overwhelmed by everyday noises when he was a little boy. As a grown-up, he is an accomplished musician with a rare talent. Beautiful boy indeed.

WHY is the most common question, and also the most important question.

 

Always seek out the perspective of the person on the autism spectrum. Respect the answer that you get, even if it's not convenient or the answer you hoped for. Bend the world to accommodate the ASD person, smooth the rough edges, make things comprehensible, give them control and the power to choose what they want and don't want, what they will or won't do. Respect them as independent intelligent human beings who may not want to comply with your arbitrary demands, but so what?

 

Defiance tends to lead to more interesting and unusual places than compliance anyway.

Michael's Father's Day Gift

Here's a story that Michael's mom sent me via e-mail yesterday. Michael wrote it for his dad, and with the family's kind permission, I am sharing the story with all of you:

First, an introduction by Michael's mom:

"Soon, he will have enough stories for a book. About six months ago Michael threw out an important wire and (his dad) was very upset, but there's been no talk of it since. How thoughtful of Michael to want to replace that wire ;-)"

And now, Michael's Father's Day e-mail to his dad:

"Dear, Dad,

I made a note for you for Father's day. I hope you like this.

Love your favorite son, Michael

It was Father's Day on Sunday, & Michael wanted something really special for his father. "Hmmm," said Michael. "I wonder what should I give my dad?" He decided if he wants a new wire for dad's radio. He looked at The Canada Computers Store for help. He looked & looked & looked & looked but the wire wasn't there. "Aw, tarter sauce!" cried Michael. "The wire is gone!" He went inside Future Shop & he finally found the wire in the wire box. He paid for it & puts it in his pocket & took it home. "I like my new present," said his father. "Awww, it was nothing," said Michael. "I promise never to throw the wire away again." His father doesn't really like the pink wire. He likes the black wire."

And a final comment from Michael's mom:

"In this story, we realized that the reason Michael threw out the wire was because it was pink.

Love how these stories give us insight into why Michael does what he does."

A beautiful illustration of the importance of opening alternate communication channels in autism, so that ASD individuals can express the reasoning behind the actions that can sometimes get them into trouble ... and there's always a reason.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Happy Father's Day 2013!

It's Father's Day today, and I'd like to share some pictures that express the love of two sons for their dads:

First, from Adam. As you will know if you have been following this blog, Adam is a young adult with autism who has limited verbal language. He expresses his more complex and detailed thoughts through his drawing. The following pictures were drawn in 2001, after he took a trip to Disney + with his dad. You'll see that in Adam's world, "Dad = Fun":




Adam and Dad head off on the airplane to begin their adventure

They can't wait to get to Disney

They also go to Epcott and MGM

Of course, no trip is complete without a stop at McDonalds

It's clear that Adam connects his dad with good times

Second, from Kevin. He is also a young adult with autism who has limited verbal language and uses drawing to communicate. His favourite drawing subjects are Mr. Bean, Teddy and his dad, mom and brother. Here are a couple of pictures of Dad from recent months:

Music is one of Kevin's favourite things, so he puts that together with Dad (one of his favourite guys)

Here's Dad keeping himself fit

... and here's Dad admiring Kevin's artistic talent (he is one of Kev's biggest fans)

When you're the dad of a non-verbal person, they may not be able to tell in conventional ways how much you mean to them ... but if you expand your view, you may be able to see the subtle and unique ways they are trying to say "Dad, you're the best - I see all the things you do for me and I love you for it".

 

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!!!

Drawing out Emotion in Autism

The other day I was asked this question:

Do people with autism understand love? How about emotions in general?

And this was my answer:

Yes – I’m actually just in the process of writing a blog post about this topic. It is a common misconception that people with autism lack emotion. In fact, they tend to have very strong emotions that can overwhelm them. Often emotions are not well categorized and sorted, and one of the important things to address in intervention is understanding, sorting , naming of emotions, as well as defining degrees of emotion – this helps the person deal with their own emotional responses (and those of others) in a better way.

Emotions can be hard:

 

 

..... especially if: when you feel like this inside .....

 



.... THIS is the only answer that comes out when someone asks: "How are you?"

Note to all parents, teachers & therapists: PLEASE do not teach a child to automatically answer "I am fine" to this common question (this response is incredibly difficult to un-teach, and results in sick/injured/hurt/distressed people telling you they are just "find")

Think of a time in your life when your emotions overwhelmed you - when events in your life were so "big", so unmanageable, so unfathomable that you were swept away by a tide of emotion that rendered you speechless, thoughtless, disorganized and discombobulated - perhaps to the point that a pathetic word like "sad" or "angry" or "scared" just wouldn't begin to encompass the experience. I really want you to clearly recall this time and state before you read any more .... ready?

This is often what emotion is like for those on the autism spectrum. Not too little feeling, but far too much. With no automatic system kicking in to name and sort and process, every feeling can become overwhelming - a "happy" surprise can lead to a meltdown just as easily as a negative or sad experience.

Emotional education is important, but it's challenging to directly teach a subject that is not usually taught - if you're a "Nypical" (love this term from John Elder Robison), you may think of yourself as very skilled in this area, but it's all automatic processing for you, so you don't actually know how you know what you know (if you know what I mean), and you probably won't be as good at explaining and teaching it as you think.

 

Drawing is a great way to approach the direct teaching of visual cues that connect to emotion:

Here is a quick overview of the small drawn figures I use to teach body language and facial expression:

With a few simple lines, you can "explain" the visual cues of emotion much more effectively than you can with verbal language (in this instance, a picture really is worth a thousand+ words).

This type of teaching results in a gradual learning process - the skills involved in seeing, processing, integrating and understanding the transitory subtle visual cues that code human emotion are incredibly complex, but they are teachable.

Kevin and Adam are both low verbal adults on the autism spectrum, and they have been learning about people and emotions for many years now. See some of their recent drawings:

Happiness for Mr. Bean is a trip to the condo.

Being "shushed" makes Adam feel a bit sad and uncertain.

Sadness for Kevin is an unexpected closure of a favourite store.

Adam draws the unhappy shock of a boy blown back by a lion's roar.

Raymond (Kevin's brother) is excited about graduating from university.

Loving bond between a seal pair.

Dad shows the universal reaction to computer malfunctions.

Being able to freeze one moment in time, through drawing, allows it to be examined and understood. And recently, the beautifully simple drawing animation programs on the iPad have the extra benefit of letting us put these transient emotional moments in the context of a visual timeline:

CLICK HERE FOR ANIMATED VERSION!!

Understanding and taming emotions is a critical step in developing self-confidence and self-control ... and art is a powerful way to reach and teach when human emotion is the topic.

Pick up a pen and give it a try!

 

Video drawn by Adam on the iPad using FlipBoom Cartoon





Through the Eyes of Autism - part 4

 

How many little kids are "too many little kids"? What follows is a story of autism and spring-time, love, respect, understanding, and family ties.

 

 

 

 

To understand the events of this story, you first need to know that spring is a very difficult time for Adam. He has allergies to multiple substances that appear as soon as the snow starts to melt. He suffers traditional allergic reactions (sniffling, sneezing, congestion), but also experiences multiple sensory and cognitive changes in the spring-time months. His sensory hyper-sensitivities increase, his ability to process language and new information drops, and his tolerance for dealing with the challenges of everyday life out in the world is sharply reduced.

 

For more background details, take a look at this previous blog post:

Seasonal Allergies and Autism - April 2011

Here's the story: 

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the spring-time melt in Ottawa, Adam's sister Laura and her boyfriend Ryan took Adam out for a "fun" afternoon. Adam loves McDonald's, and on previous outings, starting off with lunch at McD's had worked out really well .... but not that day.

I have written previously about Adam's views on "babies" - a category that includes "little kids" (see blog post: ... of babies and monsters for more details). They are too short, too loud, too active and too unpredictable for Adam to feel comfortable and safe when they're around.

They get to McDonald's ... the moment Adam entered with his sister and her boyfriend, they all realized there was a problem. The restaurant was full of little kids. They were loud, they were active, they were everywhere. Laura and Ryan did what they could - helped Adam find a table that was less chaotic, tag-teamed at the counter to order the food - and Adam did what he could, distracting himself with his iPad. They managed McDonald's, but it cost all of them energy and sanity.

Adam entered the book store (next on the "fun" afternoon agenda) with few reserves left. What had been envisioned as a long relaxed browse through one of Adam's favourite stores instead became a "dash, grab, buy & leave" mission. Laura and Ryan understood this and were totally prepared to go with Adam's altered agenda.

And then they got to the cash ...

Problem ...

 

 

Laura had forgotten her wallet, and Ryan didn't have any cash either .... Adam was on the ropes, but he held it together.

 

Thinking quickly, Ryan suggested that he could go next door to Walmart and get some cash with his bank card:

 

 

 

When Ryan and Laura were relating this story (post-trip) to Adam's parents, they described their state of high panic in these moments, knowing that Adam was feeling stressed and very close to the edge of what he could manage - they had tried to present a calm exterior, and were hopeful they had not broadcast their distress to Adam. But look at Adam's drawings, the facial expressions, the hand-waving .... he knew their emotional state, he absorbed it, dealt with it and later drew it quite accurately ....

 

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending:

 

 

Ryan was able to get some cash (and chips) at Walmart. Laura and Adam waited in the car (the chips and iPad helped Adam to stay calm) while Ryan ran back to the book store, paid for the items Adam had picked out and brought them to the car. Then they drove home and all separately collapsed.

 

Whew! Triple whew! (one for each of them)

I said at the beginning that this was a story of love, respect, understanding and family ties.

From the earliest days, when Adam was a small, non-verbal, incredibly complex, medically fragile boy, his family has always treated him with respect - seeing him as intelligent with his own view-point and perspective, following at times the faintest of clues to figure out what he needed and wanted, paying attention to his reactions to decide what was tolerable and what was not, giving him choices and power over the direction of his own life, apologizing if they accidentally took him over the edge. As a result, Adam has developed a cool confidence - confidence that he will be heard, that "his people" won't intentionally ask him to do things that are beyond his ability or desire to manage, and that they will understand and help him out when the world coughs up situations that are not reasonable.

Great story, great kid, great family.

Love (and true liking), respect and understanding are the best gifts that families can give to their ASD relatives ... when the world gets tough, it helps to know your family has your back

P.S ... oh, and humour, the story is about humour .... finding comedy in the chaos .... the picture of "there are too many little kids at McDonald's" took over an hour to draw, with Adam periodically pausing, sitting back, reconsidering and adding more and more kids to the picture .... Adam's mom and I were laughing (so hard I had tears in my eyes) and Adam was looking at us sideways and smiling and drawing more kids .... then Adam's dad came in, saw the picture and burst out laughing too .... and when that picture was done, it was scanned and immediately sent out via e-mail for Laura and Ryan to enjoy ... humour is the other key tie that binds this family together ...




note: the concept of ASD individuals having a finite amount of energy to spend daily is well-put by Karla, an ASD adult who is an advocate and a mentor for others on the spectrum (click the link for more information on her "Token Theory"):
Karla's ASD Page - Token Theory

ASD Adults and Life-long Language Learning

One of my strong interests when I went through graduate school for speech pathology was the connection between the brain (neurology) and language learning.

At that time (early 1980's), conventional wisdom in the field of neurolinguistics was that there was a defined window for language acquisition. Scientific studies of people who lost language skills because of acquired brain damage (resulting from something like a head injury or stroke) showed patients had a different capacity for language learning, depending on their age - pre-puberty the brain was plastic and had a good ability to relearn language skills, but post-puberty that learning window seemed to close.

I never really questioned this until several years later when I started working with adolescents and young adults on the autism spectrum. Everyone was post-puberty and many had severely limited verbal language skills, with some completely non-verbal. I found myself mixing my clinical experience with stroke victims (including the use of non-conventional communication means like drawing) into my language development therapy techniques. And I learned an interesting thing: the neuroplasticity necessary for new language learning that was not supposed to exist in this population, did exist. Many of the students desperately wanted to crack the code of conventional communication, and their brains were capable. The limiting factor was more me than them - I could see the potential, but was only beginning to discover the tools that might be effective to bridge that communication gap.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I have more tools in my therapy toolbox - my ASD students have been my teachers, and working with the same individuals over time has taught me some very important things about language learning and ASD:

1. The early years may not be optimal for language learning because neural pathways are developing in a different way at a different pace - if the world is a screaming wall of sound, you can't pick out the words.

2. Written words can help to sort out the string of sounds at the ear, so the person can begin to make sense out of auditory language.

3. Drawing can be a clarifying communication tool that helps therapists/teachers/parents to explain and highlight important information about everyday life, and that can help ASD individuals to explain their perspective and experience of the world.

4. Most importantly, language learning is a life-long process and significant language learning can happen in the adult years, so don't give up trying to reach and teach.

And so for today, an illustration of point #4: 

Adam (age 23) has started writing complex sentences in the past couple of months. We begin with a picture (one of his favourite topics is animals):

Adam then uses Word Mover (iPad app) to write a sentence about what he sees (I love this app because it lets you create sentences like a puzzle). After that, he writes the sentence out and illustrates it with a cartoon drawing:

In this instance, he has spontaneously and purposefully made a lengthy compound sentence (using a clause introduced by a preposition "under ....") to express a complex thought. His picture is a projection of his thoughts about the animals and their feelings - he gives the animals personality and connection (it's not copied, it's "inspired by").

I love to see errors in the sentence construction - they show me that I'm looking at meaningful language learning rather repetition of memorized language "chunks".The spelling error in "hideing" indicates that he's using his own grammatical rules to change verb tenses (add "ing" to the verb for present tense), and the missing word "of" in "family (of) elephants" shows me that he's using a rule he's made about modifying nouns with adjectives (he's used the same structure as "baby elephant").

And that's what gets this speech pathologist excited! Especially when this level of language development was not predictable from his language level in his childhood or early teens. It means that I don't know the ceiling on his learning potential.

.... here's a few more recent sentences and pictures from Adam for your enjoyment:

I'm a big believer in life-long learning. My best advice to parents, educators and therapists would be to let go of any preconceptions about how and when things are usually learned, continually modify your teaching methods to match  the individual's learning profile, and never underestimate the power and plasticity of an intelligent brain ... SB




Note: Recently, someone asked me if there were any neurolinguistic studies connected to the type of therapy I do (using drawing/art to teach communication and language skills). I am not aware of any, but I think it would be an interesting thing to study. If anyone reading this blog knows of related research (or is connected to an academic institution and has an interest in this area), please feel free to contact me via e-mail.