A glimpse back at where one boy's drawing for communication started

We have gradually been expanding the library of teaching videos on our YouTube channel (AUTISMartCOMMUNICATE). One of our recent videos features Kevin, a less verbal young man (age 20) who has a diagnosis of autism. I have known Kevin since 1998, and we have been drawing together since 1999.

picture of Mr Bean & Teddy at the movies by Kevin

I thought it would be interesting for you to see where Kevin started. In March 2000, when Kevin was 7 years old, we videotaped some of our therapy activities - this series of 5 short video clips (extracted from those tapes) gives a "flavour" of who Kevin was at that point. He was a beautiful boy, physically delicate with many medical issues, and he was mostly non-verbal (occasional single words to give basic information, echoing of longer word strings from computer games and movies). He was prone to melt-downs, especially in the school environment, and would be unable to say what was wrong. He was clearly intelligent but very difficult to engage in social/communication interactions.

Click the following links to see the video clips:

Kevin (2000) - part 1 - hard to engage

Kevin (2000) - part 2 - non-verbal turn-taking

Kevin (2000) - part 3 - simple dramatic play & scripted story play

Kevin (2000) - part 4 - Kevin engages in drawing

Kevin (2000) - part 5 - drawing of person continues

I'm still hoping to be able to post the longer versions of these therapy clips, but at the moment, these small snippets are all that I was able to successfully convert from my old VHS videotapes to video files that will play on YouTube.

Drawing was a context that gave us long stretches of quiet focused attentive interaction. The boy who actively blocked me out of his play scenarios (in favour of playing every part himself) would now watch and listen and soak up all of the information, then wait for more. It felt like magic to a desperate "attention-seeking" therapist like myself.

Over the years, we have used drawing to teach language, literacy and many other social and academic topics. Kevin draws wonderful stories full of emotional reactions and interactions between the characters (usually Mr. Bean, Teddy and the members of Kevin's immediate family). We "back-fill" meaning into his reading and writing activities as we draw out the complete meanings of the words and phrases. In addition, his mom has made an extensive library of visual teaching materials to help Kevin learn complex subjects (like higher level math & computer animation) with meaning. He is an intelligent young man who learns in a very different way.

Here's an entertaining series of pictures from last week, when Kevin and I were doing a language drawing activity involving unscrambling word tiles to make words, then writing and illustrating the word. Successive turns added more words that created a growing phrase with constantly changing meaning. Take a look (all writing and pictures by Kevin):

When you do activities like this, the point is teaching not testing.When we added the fourth word, Kevin did not fully understand the meaning of the new phrase:

He drew the baby eating an apple, and then drew the wart? or eyeball? protruding from the top of the baby's head - we weren't able to figure out what this was, and Kevin couldn't verbally explain it (but he put it there very carefully and purposefully, so it obviously reflected what he thought the changed sentence meant). I then added the visual clue of the sad face by the word "sadly" and he drew the worm in the apple (apparently the reason that the baby was sad). When we asked him how the worm made the baby feel, he drew the arrow and the second picture showing a sad baby.

And here's a recent video of Kevin drawing with me (demonstrating a language-learning drawing activity). Kevin has developed his own distinctive style - he draws in a relaxed confident way, and he enjoys displaying his art-work to share it with his family.

Click the following link to see the video:

Kevin (2012) - give & follow directions (a language drawing activity)

It's hard to connect this calm young man sitting attentively beside me, interacting visually and verbally, with the challenging reactive young boy that he used to be - but they're one and the same. Drawing is a great way to make the connection and find out who's inside the complicated exterior.

drawing of Mr. Bean & Teddy by Kevin

I love a surprise ending!

Monday, Monday ...

I'm looking out my window, and it's snowing! A spring snowstorm AND it's Monday. So, for all of you who, like me, might be having a hard time getting your work/school week started, here's a great picture that my friend Owen drew a couple of weeks back when he was having a hard time starting his week:

The title he gave to this picture? "Hangover Monday".

A picture really is worth a thousand words ... hope this visual humour carries you all the way to Tuesday!

"What's wrong?" ... unraveling medical mysteries

An incident from the early days of my autism practice sticks in my mind. I went to see a young boy with autism for a therapy session and he was lying on the couch, listless and unresponsive - this was about the fourth week he had been in that state. When I asked his mom if she had taken him to the doctor, she said yes, for all the good it had done. Apparently the doctor told his mom "What do you expect? He has autism". The mom's comment to me?

I could take him to that doctor bleeding from the head and missing one leg, and the doctor would tell me it was just the autism acting up!

picture by Owen 2012

A diagnosis of autism doesn't give a person immunity to all of the other illnesses and ailments that are unfortunately part of the human condition. In fact, some types of medical problems seem to be more common in the ASD population than in the general population - allergies and food sensitivities, gastro-intestinal problems, and seizures, to name a few.

Diagnosing illness in less verbal individuals with autism is extremely challenging. They can't tell you what hurts, how long it's been hurting, how much it hurts - all questions that the doctor usually asks in a diagnostic medical appointment. They may not even know that the way they are feeling is abnormal (as far as they know, maybe everyone's head hurts and it's normal to feel sick after you eat).

We had a recent medical situation with Adam that highlighted this problem:

drawing by Adam

As I've mentioned before in this blog, Adam has multiple allergies and sensitivities, including seasonal disintegration every spring, and to a lesser extent in the fall. So when he was "fuzzy" and having trouble with learning this fall, we put it down to a reaction to the unusually warm and prolonged seasonal change.

It got worse. He became sluggish and reluctant to do anything. He didn't want to get out of bed. He started to complain that things "hurt", but couldn't really say where.

Then he went to the dentist for a regular check-up, and we got a "puzzle piece" - his wisdom teeth were pushing in, and the dentist said that he would be having pain related to that. The dentist wanted to monitor the situation, and said that the wisdom teeth would likely need to come out within the next year.

So, we drew the situation out in his next therapy appointment, and made two visual cards (for posting on the wall) that he could use to let his parents know when he was having pain, and when he might need to go to the dentist and get the teeth extracted:

drawings by Adam 2011

We thought we had solved the problem ... but we were wrong.

Adam's symptoms multiplied and became more severe. He was sensitive to light, so we wondered if he was having sinus headaches or migraines secondary to his allergies. We made more "I don't feel good" cards to try to help him define what was wrong:

drawings by Adam 2011

And things kept getting worse.

He was barely interested in Halloween (his high holiday). He showed no interest in his up-coming birthday or the lead-up to the Christmas season.

We continued to draw his way through pain and suffering and doctor's visits and specialized medical procedures - experiences that are made worse by a person not knowing what's going on or what to expect next. Here is one of the drawings where Adam explained to us where he was feeling pain:

Long story short ... it turned out to be kidney stones ... not one of the pictures we had drawn, and not something that was "short-listed" (or even on the list) as a possible cause of his pain and distress. Not a "guessable" disease.

Moral of the story? You can't explain everything that a person is doing or feeling by invoking the word "autism". It's not usual to feel sick and sore and distressed every day. You will have to search to find medical professionals who are knowledgeable enough to look beyond the ASD diagnosis to discover and treat the other physical illnesses and ailments that are causing the pain and discomfort. When an ASD person is less verbal, your challenge is multiplied, because they can't tell you what's wrong, and you can't easily tell them what to expect in the unknown world of doctors and hospitals. Drawing helps - it still takes time and effort to solve the mystery, but drawing provides a communication channel to exchange important information.

The good news is that Adam is now on the other side of this episode, and seems to be more himself again. In late January, he made up for lost time and put together his birthday Lego sets, then watched a slew of Christmas videos. He got back on track with his learning, and we had some very productive sessions.

The less good news? ... we've had an early spring thaw, and yay, it's allergy season again!

oh well ... to paraphrase Tina Turner: "We will survive!"

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!!!