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

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.

Blending hi-tech and low-tech for optimal learning

The world of technology is developing at the speed of light, and the advent of good touch screens and affordable well-written software that takes advantage of the direct visual interface brings new and wonderful possibilities into classrooms, therapy rooms and family homes. Putting an iPad (or android tablet) into the hands of every child seems like a great idea. But there are challenges: how do you choose good apps? how do you integrate the use of a touch-screen device into your current programming? how do you develop practical aptitude on devices that only existed in the imagination when you were growing up?

Today's post addresses the second challenge: "How do you integrate the use of a touch-screen device into your current programming?" I will give some examples (with illustrations from recent therapy sessions with Kevin and Adam) of how you can use both iPad apps and "real world" tasks together in language learning activities.

First a little background:

Comic Strip stories allow a visual person to create coherent narratives (see blog post ... it's all about stories ). As my students become adept at drawing stories, we use the visual story format as a "scaffold" to teach traditional written language (initially the picture is drawn first and then a sentence is written to go with it, some students have moved on to writing a simple sentence first then adding extra details in the comic illustration).

Scrambled Sentences is another general type of learning activity that I use to teach grammar without the extra challenges of spelling and fine motor (see blog post Scrambled Sentences - using drawing to support language development and teaching video Drawing as Communication - Scrambled Sentences ).

Recently, I broadened both of these learning contexts by adding in some iPad apps.

Comic Strip Story:

Word Wizard is a spelling to speech app by l'Escapadou. On the "movable alphabet" function, you can drag letters to the board and the program will sound out both the individual letters (as you select them) and the letter combinations that you spell. You have the choice of several voices, and you can have the entire phrase/sentence read aloud when you touch the speech bubble icon:

I started Kevin out with the words "mister bean" and he wrote the rest of the sentence (his own words and ideas). Then we switched from high-tech to low-tech, and Kevin drew out the meaning of the sentence to start his Mr. Bean story. Subsequent story events came from sentences spontaneously written by Kevin using the Word Wizard app:

 

 

 

all pictures drawn by Kevin 2013

I'm not concerned about the grammatical errors in Kevin's written sentences, since the point of the activity is for Kevin to express his own ideas using a combination of written language and drawing (I actually like to see grammatical errors - it's an indication that I'm getting novel generative language rather than phrases and sentences copied verbatim from another context)

(and on another note, this looks like a pretty good plan for a post-secondary learning program!)

Scrambled Sentences:

Word Mover is a creative writing app by ReadWriteThink (National Council of Teachers of English). It works on the same premise as magnetic poetry for your fridge. You have the choice of starting with a pre-existing "word bank" that provides you with a collection of words that you can use in your writing, or you can start from a blank screen ("My Own Words"). Additional words are added with the "+" function.

During the same session as Kevin wrote his Mr. Bean story, I set up a traditional "scrambled sentence" using the Word Mover app (I selected and wrote the words, Kevin unscrambled them into a sentence):

 

 

Then Kevin drew out the meaning of the sentence using markers and big paper. (the second sentence "Kevin and Raymond are making an art project" was independently written by Kevin, using the Word Mover app, based on the structure of my initial sentence):

drawn by Kevin 2013

The benefit of adding the apps into both of these language activities was an increased ease and flexibility in the writing process for Kevin. I'm hoping that this will stimulate further development in his functional expressive written language.


Two more quick examples of "Scrambled Sentences" from Adam's recent work:

1. Adam's mom gave him the words "boy", "girl" and "snowball" on a Word Mover screen. Adam added more words and unscrambled the sentence to read "The boy and girl is fighting in the snowball.", then he illustrated his meaning using markers on paper. With the picture making his meaning clear, his mom was able to show him (using Word Mover) some minor changes that made the sentence grammatically correct.

drawn by Adam 2013

2. Adam's mom started him off with the words "baby", "dragon" and "fire" on Word Mover. Adam added more words and created the sentence "The baby this is fire the dragon". With the support of the picture Adam drew to illustrate his intended sentence meaning, his mom was able to help Adam modify his sentence (on the Word Mover screen) so that his written words matched what he meant to say.

drawn by Adam 2013

(love the expression on the baby's face)


Technology is a great tool that can be used to enhance the learning environment - it works best when you use it to augment your current effective techniques, rather than using it to replace traditional play and hands-on learning.