|
Principle: Create an Optimal Physical Learning Environment
- Why necessary?
- Many clinical studies have found autistic children to be neurologically challenged by “perceptual filtering”;
e.g. Townsend and Courchesne, 1994 (Children’s Hospital Research Center, San Diego) measured brainwaves of people with autism as they did tasks that required them to focus on certain stimuli and ignore irrelevant stimuli. They found that the brains of those with autism did acted differently than the brains of the people with autism in two major ways, either 1) the brain showed a heightened reaction to the relevant stimuli or 2) the brain showed generalized reactions to all the stimuli (those without autism shoed a pattern of responding more to the relevant than the irrelevant stimuli)
- Children with autism have been seen to become overwhelmed and over-aroused in typical environments - Hirstein, 2001 (University of California) – measured the arousal levels of children with autism and typically developing children and found that those with autism were significantly more aroused in the experimental situation than typical children. Furthermore, that typical children were able to bring their initial over-arousal back to normal levels more quickly whereas the children with autism continued to increase in arousal levels until allowed to put their hands in a bowl of dry beans or being wrapped in a heavy blanket – this then helped them lower arousal levels.
- Some researchers suggest that this over-arousal and reduced ability to control arousal levels is why children with autism shut-down and withdraw from social interaction in order to cope (Dawson & Lewy, 1989)
- - How SRP helps?
- Use of playroom specifically designed to help filter out distractions and maximize child’s sense of control.
- This makes it easier for them to focus on social interaction (see next section)
Practical application: Child worked with intensively one-on-one in specially designed playroom.
Principle: Create an Optimal Social Learning Environment
- Why necessary?
- Children with autism tend to avoid social stimuli - e.g. Osterling & Dawson 1994 (University of Washington) – retrospectively reviewed home videos 1st birthdays of children who had later been diagnosed with ASD in comparison to videos of children who were never diagnosed. The ASD children were seen to be making significantly less eye contact and orienting to their own names significantly less frequently than the typically developing children.
- When they do process social stimuli they process them for features rather than social meaning e.g.:
Heider and Simmel, 1994 (Smith College) – showed highly verbal people with autism animated “cartoons” or simple stick figures moving in relation to each other. Non-autistic people (matched for verbal ability) tended to describe the ‘interactions’ between the two stick drawing in social terms e.g. “it was friendly”. Whereas the people with autism were more likely to describe the movement in terms of physical characteristics “it was heavy”.
- Learning to understand social meaning and respond appropriately in a social situation is gained by typical children through countless hours of interacting with others. Children with autism, who avoid this interaction, miss out on this ‘social education’ from a very early age (Klin et al, 2003, Yale University).
- Development in typical children is seen to be dependent on children’s voluntary engagement in social interaction not upon the specific activity or information presented (Kim and Mahoney, 2004). It is now been recognized that this principle also holds true for children with autism (e.g. Greenspan and Wieder, 1998; Koegel et al, 2001).
E.g. Delprato, 2001 Eastern Michigan University) reviewed eight studies looking at normalized behavioral language interventions, defined as consisting of loosely structured sessions of indirect teaching with everyday situations, child initiation, natural reinforcers and liberal criteria for reinforcer presentation. In all eight studies with children with Autism, this method of language training was found to be significantly more effective than discrete-trial training.
- - How SRP helps?
- Focuses on crux of autistic challenge – social interaction. Once they are more skilled at this they will more readily learn and develop in areas of language and cognition (Tomasello, 1995) and emotional processing (Dissanayake et al, 1996).
By making social interaction motivating and digestible for children with autism they gain the ‘social education’ they missed out on earlier in life.
Practical Application 1: A Child-Centered Approach Makes Social Interaction Motivating
a) Follow the Child: Start with the child’s motivation
Robert Koegel (et al) – University of California – 1987 and 1998:
- Children prompted to engage in activities chosen by adults were more socially avoidant than when they were prompted to engage in child-preferred activities.
- Group games were designed based on autistic child’s obsessional theme and autistic child and typical peers taught how to play. Found increase in social interactions with peers in obsessional-themed games which generalized to non-obsessional themed games.
- Autistic children’s parents reported either no increase or a decrease in child’s engagement in target obsessional theme at home.
- That is, using ism-interest as interactive game helped children engage with their peers more and did not encourage them to ism more.
b) Give Control: Be responsive to the child
Gerald Mahoney (et al) – Case Western University, OH – 1986-2006
- Found that a responsive style of interaction is responsible for increases in cognitive functioning, communication and socio-emotional functioning in children with autism and PDD.
“Responsive” means: i) adult responds to child’s social initiation (however small) rather than adult directs and expects child to follow and ii)when adult responds s/he does so with something s/he deems manageable and motivating for child.
Practical Application 2: A Positive Attitude Facilitates Deeper Social Connection
a) Acceptance promotes responsiveness and b) Appreciation Encourages Engagement
Gerald Mahoney (et al) – Case Western University, OH – 2004-2005
“Affect”= acceptance, enjoyment, expressiveness, inventiveness and warmth. These studies found affect to be significantly related to increases in language, social competence, joint attention and self-regulation in autistic children.
Additionally they found that ‘affect’ increased as children were more socially engaged.
Practical Application 3: Joining Exclusive and Repetitive Behaviors Promotes Social Interaction
a) New Perspective: Isms are functional for child
William Hirstein (et al) University of California - 2001
Children with autism had higher skin conductance response levels (indicative of arousal in autonomic system) than typical children and were unable to bring these levels down until allowed to plunge hands in bowl of dry beans (or sucking sweets, wrapped in heavy blanket or receiving deep pressure)
Sub set of children with flat SCR which were elevated to more normal levels by extreme behaviors (e.g. self-injury)
i.e. the ism helped the children regulate their nervous systems
b) Joining promotes social interaction:
Geraldine Dawson – University of Washington – 1990
-Mothers imitated child 20 minute a day for 2 weeks. Post-intervention showed significant cumulative increases in duration of gaze at mothers’ face and creative toy play.
Geraldine Dawson and Alexandra Adams - University of North Carolina -1984
Imitative play with autistic children who had a low level of imitative ability were more socially responsive, showed more eye contact and played with toys in a less perseverative manner when the experimenter imitated the child instead of modeling a familiar or an unfamiliar action.
Tiffany Field (et al) University of Miami – 2001
Two groups of autistic children, one group were imitated, in the other group adults tried to play with them – three sessions. By second session those in imitation group spent a greater proportion of time than other group of children looking towards adult, vocalizing to adult, smiling at adult and engaging in reciprocal play. In the third session children in the imitation group spend more time sitting closer to the adult and touching the adult that the other children did.
|
Back to top
