Destination Life Regional Transition Fair

For those of you in the Austin area, here is an upcoming event:

Destination … Life
Regional Transition Fair

Presented by Round Rock ISD,
in conjunction with Elgin, Georgetown Leander and Pflugerville ISDs.

Saturday, October 24, 2009
10:00am – 1:00 pm
Round Rock High School
StudentCenter
300 N. Lake Creek DriveBldg. 700

Hear speakers and receive answers to your questions in break out sessions from MHMR, DARS,
SSI, and guardianship experts
@ 10:30 and 11:45

Representatives from trade and technical colleges, ACC, and adult service agencies in Williamson, Travis, and Bastrop counties will be available to aid students with special needs plan their future!

"Decade for Autism"

Over at Autism Speaks there is an article up on their new campaign developed at the Global Autism Crisis forum.

$100 Million Challenge Kicks Off Global "Decade for Autism”

The campaign is not only to raise the money for research but really focuses on getting expert from all the aspects of autism to work together to address assessment, science, epidemiology, and therapies.

However, there is lots of controversy on how Autism Speaks is marketing. While good intentions are evident is the focus too much on the monetary contributions?

Watch their new "I am Autism" video here

Social Thinking Institute: Day 1: Thinking with your Eyes

Michelle Garcia Winner does not believe in teaching individuals to look at someone. Instead she wants to them to be able to think with their eyes. As another part of her assessment she looks at something in the room and asks the students both what is she looking at and what is she thinking about. The ADOS assessment definitely looks for the joint attention, for being able to follow someone's eye gaze and to use eye gaze to modulate, but it stops there. One of the bigger lessons Garcia Winner tries to teach is that people are more often than not thinking about what they are looking at. Therefore if you want to let someone know you are thinking about them, you should look in your direction.

This summer, during the Social Skills camp I taught, we placed a eye contact hide and seek game. The idea came from an RDI game one of my clients has taught me. One student would hide an object then come stand in the middle of the room. The "finder" would ask where the object was and the "hider" would have to look in the direction of the object. As the "finder" moved, the "hider" could follow and continue to look at the object. This activity was surprising difficult for both players. The "hiders" wanted to talk or point to help the finder, and the finder often needed some help finding the object and seemed to rely more on the hiders body language than eye gaze.

What have you found to increase eye modulation abilities?

Social Thinking Institute: Day 1: Asessment

Today I attended Michelle Garcia Winner's Think Social Institute. First of all, she is a great speaker, and I have used some of her work with success. I am quite excited for the rest of the conference.

Once of the topics covered today was assessment. She discussed how most assessments are interview based and with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's (AS) they may know how to answer the questions sufficiency. So Garcia Winner developed the double interview. The first part looks similar to some of the interview parts of the ADOS. Garcia Winner asks them about various aspects of their life. Next, she presents three pictures from her life and together they talked about who the people might be and why she might have those pictures. Then she tells the individual it's their turn to interview her. She provides as much prompts as needed (i.e. writing down the WH words.) I think this is a strategies I may begin to incorporate into my own assessments.

One of the key points she brought up was how much adults tend to compensate during assessment. While the individual may be perfectly capable having a conversation that is lead by an assessment topic on a preferred topic, that may be their only area of expertise in the wide world of conversation. When training for the ADOS this point is often brought up as well: Compare to neurotypical peers... not to other individuals on the Autism spectrum.

The Inclusion Debate

In the field of education there is much discussion regarding inclusion. Approximately 10% of public school students are eligible for Special Education. Within that category there are varying levels of abilities and behaviors. Some students receive occasional modifications, or just pull-out speech services 30 minutes a week. Others need to be taught in a one on one setting for more of the day. Traditionally, school has been a place for student to learn academic skills to prepare them for the job force later in life. Over the last few years, there has been a strong push to look beyond traditional academics and examine the social lessons learned at school as well.

As rates of autism continue to rise, more students are having social difficulties than previously noted. Speech therapists are now spending almost as much time working on pragmatic language with students as articulation. As the deficits of special needs students expand, the education system has had to adapt.

With one parent who is a teacher and another who is a neurologist, the topic of inclusion of those with developmental and neurological differences has been around most of my life. Now working directly with the autism population in the public school system, I experience the challenges and rewards of inclusion almost daily. My goal as a behavior and autism specialist is to provide the student with the greatest growth opportunities possible. How to come about such growth is highly debated and a “best practices” is still undecided. This is where individualization comes into play.

One of the toughest aspects to my job is talking with parents about how their child fits in. More than once, I’ve seen a parent start to cry when they tell me their child did not get invited to a birthday party all year. Friends are an incredibly important part of school; studies have shown that peer tend to have more influence than teachers. If a student is unable to access their peers, would that not be damaging?

On the other hand, a student placed in full inclusion may be continuously surrounded by peers, but whether or not interactions or learning is taking place should be examined. At times, a student’s behavior may be so disruptive, it takes away from the learning environment of the other students. Is the mere presence of peers enough? If a student is better able to learn in a smaller setting should they be removed in order to be taught the state required academics?

Perhaps there is a grey area. Students are often included during parts of the day and have time to receive more direct instruction as well. Most commonly, students are included for P.E., art, electives, and the lesson portion of the academic subjects. Then they go to a smaller setting to work on the assignments, tests, etc. This too requires a high level of individualization. For some students, they may need lessons explicitly taught, but are able to do independent group work. For them, it may be best to receive the lesson in pull-out and be in the classroom for work time.

Inclusion is a hot topic in the field of education. While there are strong voices on each side, I believe the end results will match one of the mantras of special education: Individualization is key.