Curing Autism Together

Anna uses the word "freedom" spontaneously & in a novel sentence, first time using and abstract noun

ANNA'S FIRST SIGNS OF UNDERSTANDING/ SPONTANEOUS USE OF AN ABSTRACT NOUN

The last few days of Chinese - and life too, actually - have been really challenging with Anna, where she struggles to learn basic things from language most people knew before school age, like what "this" or "that" are used for (ie, "this" is usually used for nearby stuff, "that is usually for stuff farther away), which was what happened yesterday.  She has trouble understanding what I'm saying and what we're learning at Chinese again because it's doing something she can't or doesn't do in English most of the time, now.  I get so frustrated having to explain to a 20 year old how to use "this" and "that" in a sentence, and there's difficulty even having her understand the teaching that we often have to so sideways into teaching other basics of language just for her to understand my current point - all stuff even a 5 or 6 year old would normally have no problem with.  It's so frustrating I wonder what I'm doing trying, like I am crazy to keep trying. 

 

But here are occasional signs that she's moving developmentally in language she's been using here and there, especially in the last several months since we've "hit a wall" on harder language in the chinese duolingo app.  We work on chinese every day and every day she learns something better about language in general, but we're so behind in terms of the parts of speech and clauses being underused or not used at all that it's easy to feel overwhelmed despite small signs of success creeping in lately.  It's not like when she was starting her recovery, where any improvement or change at all was huge, in part because we were imagining a change in the learning curve that could approach normal or even high functioning, whereas now at 20, little glimmers of progress after years of never spontaneously using prepositions, nor adverbs, nor adjectives, nor conjunctions, nor clauses that make sentences more complex.  It's so easy to feel hopeless or upset with myself for spending so much time trying.  

 

Anna shown here, helping me clean up.  I made a shape with her out of plastic packaging we were going to recycle/ toss, before-hand.  

 

But still, the occurrence of these changes need to be encouraged and focused on by me much like blowing on embers to ignite a flame, is how to speed and encouraged the "sticking" of the newly emerging skill.  There was at least one or a couple changes lately, but the one I just heard was exciting and hopeful a few minutes ago, so I had to write.  (I often write to create a timeline, what happens with her that is hopeful, without ever posting it publicly, because that takes more time than I have at the time when I was recording, but I thought I should post this because it's a big deal.)

 

Anyway, Anna said "I was organizing my christmas paper toys into a zip lock bag so they won't get wet and if I want to I could have the freedom to play with them".  Notice the abstract noun, "freedom", not something we talk about often, not something she has a reason to have rehearsed using.  She often talks about organizing, something I've included her in for many hours as I have cleaned and organized myself, including labeling, cleaning and boxes and folders, etc. but never using new language that I know of.  Since she "hit the wall" as a child learning all the nouns she could that she could see or draw, and unable to learn any "concepts", I've been wondering for years how and when she'd ever be able to learn a concept she couldn't point to in the physical world of nouns and verbs.  Well, how glorious and poetic that "freedom" was her first abstract, spontaneously used abstract noun!  I figured she's use these parts of speech more masterfully first, but getting abstract nouns is something I've been waiting for since she was failing to develop at a year old, worsening, so I've been waiting almost 2 decades for this.  I guess I'll take what I can get and glad this was one I didn't have to coach to directly, a severe rarity when working with autistic people.

Decoding Autistic Kids' Confusing Inner Emotional Conflict - ask questions

INNER EMOTIONAL CONFLICT IN AUTISTIC KIDS IS VERY CONFUSING & REQUIRES DECODING

Yesterday (TU 5/21/19):

I said I would make pasta and sauce.

my daughter said she couldn't eat with sauce because we were out of parmesan cheese and it was too late for us to get it before dinner (implying she didn't want it with sauce if there was no parmesan cheese on it, too).  

I said, maybe you can try another cheese (since we have several in the refrigerator) like feta or cheddar.  

This set off what was about an hour of severe upset and argument from my daughter that nothing I could say about the feta would quell.  

She likes to have it with butter (if there's no parmesan cheese / sauce).  Acknowledging this didn't stop her upset. 

She said she doesn't like feta on pasta. Acknowledging this didn't stop her upset.

Remembering that one time I tried to melt feta and it didn't melt well and now that I recalled that, agreeing with her, didn't stop her upset.

She started telling me this was like the youtube video of the "Paz" cartoon where the penguin, "Paz" and his friends were on an easter egg hunt and one of the "cheated" and how the other one was being a bully.  

I kept asking her how this related and what was going on in the story so I'd have any idea what she was saying.  She couldn't say -

• was I being a bully? was she?  
• Why is she acting out and referencing that cartoon right now?  
• If they're angry and upset, why are you bringing that into our house?  Why not just stop watching it and not acting like them?

t asked her to play the video and noone was being a bully:  

• the rabbit admitted to taking the penguin's easter eggs and apologized.  
• Paz said, "I knew it!" with angry furrowed brows for just a second, then accepted the apology and they were friends again.  

I couldn't see the relevance and why she seemed bent on referencing disagreement among cartoon characters when there was no conflict over her not eating feta.  Her upset kept going.  

• "Why weren't you listening to me when I said I didn't want feta on my pasta?"  but I had and I did and it was already understood.
• "Fine I won't watch cartoons ever again!".  I hadn't said that or asked that (I did say it would be better to watch shows about real stuff, thinking cartoons lack the richness of reality, thought)
• "You cheated.  We're breaking up"  What?  Anna, cheating and breaking up is when people are loving each other, having babies, etc and then decide to leave each other - we're just mom and daughter. we're just having a disagreement, I'm not going to leave you.
• She used words like "inappropriate" about what I had to say about pasta, about bread, etc. as she's confused by the mixture of dietary advice from everyone, often mutually conflicting and came up when I said we could eat this wheat pasta rather than going to whole foods where she was going to get pizza and whole wheat french bread. She was upset saying she couldn't eat it because it had gluten and carbs and sugars in it, and I pointed out that she eats this every day in the form of bread and there's not much difference.  (More on dietary conflict of advice in a future blog.)

My son and I both were trying to prepare dinner while this crazy, confusing conversation over something that should have taken 15 seconds turned into confusing statements relating to that cartoon, my behavior being "inappropriate", that I wasn't listening, restating over and over that she didn't want to eat feta cheese as if I was trying to force it on her and hadn't listened.  I even tried reverse psychology and said twice, I absolutely insist on you eating feta cheese on your pasta!  And it didn't make sense to her and not much came of it.  

She kept calling me a bully and I said, that's not being a bully.  She was confusing the word "bully" with other terms.  I acted out that being a bully in this case would be to grab her shirt and say "You HAVE to eat that feta! I'm forcing you!" and acted it out, then said, that's what bullying would be in this case, and she didn't stop her upset angry diatribe. 

Finally, my son remembered that in the past when Anna's been upset with something someone who works with her said or did, she doesn't tell what's really upsetting her so the conversation goes over and over the same lines and gestures.  I keep asking questions to unravel her pattern and help her and me understand what's going on.  I keep using my Option Process Mentor skills, asking questions like - 

• why are you saying this again, when we've already agreed on ___ (settled this)?  
• Why did you yell when you said that?
• Why are you telling me I'm not listening when I keep looking at you and responding to what you say?  etc.
• Why are you saying the penguin in the cartoon is being a bully when he just was upset and didn't force anyone to do anything?  

Sometimes hours after this circular argument tantrum loop starts - I remember an epic one of these when she was upset and in a circular argument with me for 3-6 hours - I'll as a question like "Is there something else that's bothering you?" "Is there something you're not saying that's upsetting you?" or "What's going on, Anna?" and suddenly will discover it has something else at its heart, about something someone has done, that she's afraid to say.  

My son paused and suggested we do this - ask more directively, like "Are you upset about what someone did in the playroom?" Usually there's just silence or "yes" and we ask more directive questions, like "is it something _[insert person's name]_ did?"  In this case we asked this and she said yes, and then I asked what.  She mentioned that person in the playroom, judging her, not being enthusiastic, not asking any questions, etc.    

I told her how proud I was of her figuring out what was bothering her and this set off multiple rounds of her feeling bad about her attacking me over the feta and apologizing. I kept telling her how it was a challenge but we succeeded and figure it out and to focus on the win in it ("Celebrate all wins!" is a favorite household quote), rather than the upsetting nature of the challenge part.  I explained the "cup half empty vs. cup half full" by physically filling a cup halfway and all, but nothing seemed to stop her negative loop about herself.

Finally I thought, maybe there's another of the same problem.  I asked, was it about someone else in her program?  Then I asked the names of each person.  Was it how _[fill in participant name]_ acted?  Was it _[other participant]_? etc.  I found out there was another person who was a problem as well, but again, needed to make assumptions and ask direct questions about people.  

We were so happy and got along great after that. I was pointing out new words like being "authentic" and "honest" and how it felt good to be that was vs. how crazy and upset it was making her to hold in what she really meant, and how it was hurting our relationship.  

She and perhaps other autistic kids may feel afraid to tell others what they want, feedback on how they're asking, and to ask for what they want from them as far as how whey want to be treated.  I was telling her she need to tell those people what she wants and ask helpful Option Process Dialogue questions such as, "Why aren't you enthusiastic when I say that?  You aren't having fun the way I like while I'm learning - how can we change that so I can enjoy my session more and learn more?" etc. 

We discovered in past instances of these crazy argument loops that there's no resolution until you figure out the problem, and then guide your child how to get to the point next time, pointing out how bad they felt and how bad things went when they suppressed their true experience, issue and feelings.  As much as I'm upset by the craziness of that experience, I'm so thankful for my son being a witness and help to reassure me of my sanity in the face of insanity, and actually help my daughter get to the point of learning positive mental health habits of not being manipulated by fear or taking out upset at one person on another, particularly your biggest cheerleader, coach, supporter and only unpaid best friend, in this case, your mom!  Like her I encourage you like I did myself to focus on the glass half full, not the hour or two spent intermittently distressed.

Finally, note that autistic people may be prone to being abused because of their fear to ask for what they want, fear or suppression to discuss bad experience with others, and dependency on someone else.  I'm aware as her mother that she needs me and often warn her that she needs to learn whatever it is I'm teaching as far as skills or how the world works, to take care of herself otherwise someone could bully her because she'll need their help.  I warn my son about the need for independence so as not to be bullied by anyone, either.  Poll your autistic child often about how people are acting - i've often found out after people leave, how badly they've acted behind my back knowing I wasn't looking.  

Ask your child to rate their performance on a scale of 10 where the people you now they love best are 10s and people they want to leave / worst 0 - you may be surprised how easily they grasp this and what you discover. Use the scale on other things like favorite foods or activities first so they can understand it regarding people, or just put people they didn't like much low on your scale and see if they get it watching you rate people's performance, too.

Best wishes!  Thanks for reading!!  and please share...

 

PS - I have been an Option Process Mentor and can do "Option Process Dialogues", but my certification has lapsed as of this date.  I can help support you as a parent with an autistic child that is going through confusing and upsetting experiences due to my experiences with my child, this training, and also my Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® Practitioner mindset.  Contact me at barb@powerofclarity.com or barb@autismcoaches.com for more info.  Thanks!

More signs of Anna's on-going recovery from autism to "normal" (if there is one)

 Anna's becoming more cognitively and socially sophisticated in little steps.  For example:

Fall 2017 (Sept/ Oct/ Nov) on-going:  Inner Conflict Expressed

Anna started having inner conflict expressed outwardly, like you're listening to the character Hamlet going back and forth whether or not to do something.   It started when she started copying the father in a youtube video telling his daughter she can't get a toy (and is pretty deprecating of her interest in it which I don't like).  After many retellings of this somewhat distasteful video, she starts quoting it when she's deciding not to buy something, like deciding not to buy fritos because she says they it made her sick once.  It's often there's discomfort around the issue, like she's saying it over and over rather than just walking by the thing, she'll bring up not buying something 20 times, asking what I think of it, what she thinks of it, etc. 

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Our 2017 Christmas tree is graced by four Beanie Babies Anna earned through my "Learn to Earn" program, that encourages the cycle of "want, work, get" that productive people have, while motivating her to learn things she otherwise doesn't feel interested in or value, like my "Say What you See" program, which has successfully shifted her mental patterns to be more attentive and mentally present.

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Week of Dec 1-10, 2017:  Long look / Glad to Make Eye Contact

Anna, looks at Maya for a few seconds (a long time, for her). 

Maya: "What are you looking at?"

Anna: "I'm glad I'm making eye contact!"

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12/19/2017 Expressing sympathy/empathy:

S. "I'm not looking forward to visiting my father's house that much for the holidays, I usually get sick there"

A "Sorry."

S"What are you sorry about?"

A "I'm just sorry you have to go through [or deal with] that; it sounds difficult."

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All this last week - Super Flexible for Car-Shopping Marathon:

Super Flexible and reasonable about new environments, demands on her time, and activities: We've been looking at cars - new, used, etc. and dragging Anna and her brother along with me (they're not enthused!) to have them have some real experiences doing something that's hard and takes a while.  She's been going in and out of dealerships and new cars, one after the other, all half an hour from home and/or from each other, for 4-8 hours a day for several days, in temperatures averaging around 5 degrees F, largely in the dark, since it was dark at around 5 here this time of year.  She was flexible, walked at my request into the new dealerships, sat in cars I was looking at, buckled up for test drives, etc. like she was normal.  This is nearly unimaginable in our pre-Son-Rise period.  

(The one exception:  the one day we shopped for 8 hours straight (with about a 15 min dinner break), she got into one of those new "inner conflict, expressed" loops when I asked her if she wanted to eat a snack at a dealership, where they had apples and oranges, ships, juice, candy and granola bars, etc.  She was saying she didn't want to get "fat", something she says my sister had brought up, and she was in conflict because I think she was hungry but felt she shouldn't eat, and we heard many cycles of that before arriving home for dinner.  See above paragraph about how this stage represents progress, as well, despite it being really confusing and taking work for her to express why she keeps repeating it.) 

My "Say what you see" activity is paying off - she sees and says things now without prompting, like normal kids, more often:  As we were on our car-shopping marathon, and all last week, she would call out what she saw to my attention like normal kids, something the nearly never did prior to my introducing "say what you see" (in exchange for money payoff) to my Son-Rise Program. For example, she even initiated "say what you see" for money at the Nissan dealership - she was like, "Can I do 'Say what you see?'" and just started doing it, coming up with 20 things rapidly.  She also would call out things she saw as we were driving, like "I see Walmart!" and "There's a Target!" etc. 

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12/31/17 Uses the word "obsessed" properly - an abstract term compared with usual "like/love"

A: "I'm obsessed with bread on butter".  ["obsessed" is such a sophisticated concept and one I haven't used often or explained, or heard her use before, and moreover applied to her self-identity]

Barb (me): why / what do you mean? 

A: "I like it better than olive oil and coconut oil."

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1/1/18 Today my daughter can finally alphabetize on site, as ABM Neuromovement® awareness and techniques added to my daughter my daughter finally help her "get" cognitive tasks

During "school" where I was having her figure out the alphabetical order of 3 words, I realized she wasn't in an orderly algorithmic way eyeing each letter as she determined which came next, which resulted in mistakes, so I have her touch each word as she went through the alphabet which is how I think we all do it only we forget how because we're so fast and grooved at it.  (Note how here, my Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® comes in handy: realizing she can't alphabetize - a "cognitive" task - because she doesn't make orderly movement, so by doing the movement as an algorithm, she is able to suddenly do this cognitive task). By the end of the page she looked at a list of 3 words and instantly figured out which came first because the algorithm worked consistently!  She didn't have to do it slow and stepwise but the algorithm got her there and made it "automatic".  Every time she needs to alphabetize I have her do it the long, slow way to groove the letter order in as she moves over the letter list, encountering letters in the order as she moved across it, and it's now rapid like those of us who are older and fully capable of alphabetizing without reading each letter.

This is also huge because Anna is creating a linear representation of the alphabet in her mind, something I've identified as a key deficit in autistic people including myself.  We have fragmented minds much like the eyes of a fly - we have many pockets of interest, skill, etc. that don't coordinate and come together as easily as normal people do, into one self with one focus, at least in my opinion.  The extent to which we can grow a mental backbone, like the internet backbone - in our brains that is the way we track time lines in our life, alphabets, counting, etc. along a single linear stream - and which helps unify our minds and gives birth to our sense of who we are as a single powerful force, begins with linearizing anything which the brain can use as a mental construct to linearize other things.  I'm so excited this is paying off with my daughter's ability to linearize and index the alphabet in a myelinated (durable) mental module is exciting!  

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1/1/18 (today) uses the word "obsessed" again, appropriately, in a new sentence

"Hey, Mom, I keep being obsessed with My Little Pony...How do you feel that I'm obsessed with My Little Pony."  

Other recent developments

Water aerobics classes pay off big

All fall/winter Anna and I go to water aerobics at once a week and more if our morning person is out, which has been a lot lately.  Anna is excited to meet and remember people from class to class, who have nearly all been really friendly and welcoming to us both.   She's getting better at introducing herself and looks forward to it as part of our Son-Rise® / Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® ("ABMN") program.  

I do ABMN lessons with her, effectively, in the nearly weightless environment of the pool, as she attempts to but often inaccurately attempts the movements of the class.  I help her move more efficiently and correct movements that instructors do that create unnecessary and non-typical distortions of the body, like not trying to move our arms around underwater with "weights" that we have to tense up to keep underwater, which isn't conducive to subtle movements.

I have also done mini-ABMN lessons on several people in the pool, and one of them reported going all week without falls, compared to her more typical history of falling multiple times each week, so it's been a fun way to introduce people to my ABMN practice here in Milwaukee.  I'm thinking of doing a swim class for autistic or otherwise developmentally kids in the pool. Message me if you're interested in participating.

 

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Our basic logo I created in Adobe Illustrator.  Ah, the power of understanding how to use software to publish your vision.  So glad I did that workbook on Illustrator!  

 

I'm most of the way through to getting my autism recovery reality show "Autism Commandos(™)" ready to go and through the trademark process so I can openly use the name (a big relief).  I'm going to be visiting people's homes with my crew and providing autism therapy and parental/ family/ friend/ care-giver /teacher coaching for free to families who are willing to allow us to use the footage in our show which will be for web and TV.  Unfortunately the TV station I was working with ran out of funds and went out of business, so I now need to buy or rent the professional video camera, which is delaying the start another few weeks while I save up (after holiday expenditures) to buy a great camera and rig for the person holding it.  We'll be able to do sessions within a few hours driving distance of Milwaukee, WI (includes Chicago IL) and further locations more sporadically, such as San Rafael / San Francisco CA area in March, Cleveland OH quarterly, and other locations as long as we have interest in that area.  

Contact us at casting@autismcommandos.com with your story and situation with your autistic child, situation you most want addressed, in a brief single paragraph, half a page long.  Call Autism Power Coaches LLC (the company that owns the show) at 866-MY-COACH (866-692-6224) for more info. 

 

You can book time directly at our booking site at Power of Clarity | Autism Power Coaches & Autism Commandos booking site

 

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I'm upset I'm not further through other projects I'm working on, including creating a booking platform that has 2-way syncing with google calendar for myself and other Option Process® Mentor-Counselors ("Dialogue Mentor").  I wanted to develop the site myself but am making myself use third party software first to know my competition.

Anyone who is a Dialogue Mentor, contact me to be added to the booking site if you'd like.  I'm including a link to book directly for dialogues here, while I'm still working on the actual mentor site.  You can offer hours any time of day and people have to pay to book sessions.  You'd be working as independent contractors for Power of Clarity® LLC, my mentor / movement lesson company, where you'd be doing the mentor part (unless you're here in Milwaukee WI area and want to book movement lessons, too, as an Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® practitioner, which we also offer.  

Book Power of Clarity | Autism Power Coaches & Autism Commandos booking site

Gotto go - best wishes to my readers!  Message me if there are any questions you want me to answer in the blog and good luck to those on their own journeys out of autism and to those helping them. : )

Autism 101: Celebrating Autistic People for Interacting - Overview - the Why & How

In the attempt to get my Son-Rise home therapy program participant training automated - at least in part - I am recording and uploading training videos so i don't need to repeat myself with new trainees, who are mostly coming from UWM (Univ of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) and Marquette.  As you recall, I have a "Training Pyramid" of I train people, and am constructing a website with an organized training library which I can put on for them to watch based on what I have that's available, with the intention of putting all my training online.  For now I'll just post them how I find or record them but subscribe to my youtube channel and/or to this blog (see the "feed burner" box at left to do so), and you'll at least be able to see them as they come and decide if they have value for training people who are around your autistic child.  Let me know if there are any topics you especially want dealt with and I'll do a post on it.

 

Today we're focusing on CELEBRATING INTERACTIONS, or what I often call CELEBRATING INTERACTIVE GESTURES, which can be any form of interaction, such as looking at you, helping you, talking with you, looking at your eyes, asking a great question (to you), etc.  This video is after a first session  - AFTER the INITIAL TRAINING (see that video here on my channel), where the trainee did little if any celebrating but did the other elements - (1) "The" attitude (loving, accepting, nonjudgmental, happy, and playful), and (2) joining in the "isms" (the child's autistic behaviors, those they do when withdrawing into their own world) - well.  There are around 25-30 things I teach people about celebrating, but this is a typical first overview of the topic of celebrating interactive gestures - that are so hard for autistic people - in order to encourage them do do more of them.  As you know there are pep rallies and cheerleader in sports for the reason that people observe that those encourage more efforts and enthusiasm of the participants.  Your autistic child who is working hard to communicate and interact with you, would benefit from cheering and encouragement, too!

 

First Son-Rise Training Session for an "ABA" (Applied Behavioral Analysis) Person in our Program

I have contrasted ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) and Son-Rise Program® before but never posted a training video for someone coming from that perspective, so here you go!  I recorded this at the spur of the moment - I didn't even take time to fix my hair before recording because a person was there for their training session and I felt like it was a bit over the top to do that! 

BTW, I always have in Informational Meeting before asking people to come back for training, and some of the Son-Rise perspective has already been set in that person's mind.  Then they come for their first session, like this one, which begins with me asking what they remember and about the program and their experiences (if any) with autistic people.  Then I base the training to build on what they already know.  In this case it's ABA, but that's just one of many possible approaches to teaching this material.  (If the person knows nothing about autism coming in, I have a basic training that I've already posted that is about the "5 things" - 1) The Attitude, 2) Joining, 3) Celebrating (interactions and flexibility), 4) Adding Variety 5) Positioning (for mutual peripheral vision.)

 

 

 

This is my spontaneous rendition of the "ABA person" training at a first session in ourSon-Rise program. I hope its useful for new people to Son-Rise to see.

 

Anyway, the points that came up for me were as follows:

• Son-Rise amps up quality, varied social rewards (such as varied cheering, really fun, novel and improvisational games and behaviors), for social goals, while ABA misses the point by rewarding social goals that aren't genuinely felt to engage in with non-social rewards, leading to "robotic" behaviors (which are never the case in Son-Rise).
  • Behavioral Therapy (ABA) is based on animal training, like Pavlov's Dog:  you ring a bell and give the dog a steak.  Later you ring the bell and the dog drools, because it's anticipated the sound with the steak coming after it before.  In ABA they reward the child with a positive reward - something they want - when they do a behavior that is desired, such as saying "Hello" to someone or looking at their eyes, primarily ABA gives autistic kids non-social/non-people rewards such as jelly beans to eat or electronic toys to play with, but is particularly stingy with and opposed to cheering and positive support and a flexible approach to maximally motivate the child.  They are not ushered into the joys of actual interaction being fun which limits their ultimate feeling of ease and social success, which is what we want from the Son-Rise perspective.
  • The Son-Rise rewards social elements (such as eye contact, communication and flexibility) with a amped-up social rewards, such as a friendly happy person cheering them for talking/ looking and/or more of an interactive activity they want and love, such as pulling them around the room again on a blanket as a pretend sleigh ride, or playing a game they love because the child has asked for it.  As a result "Son-Rised" children look at your eyes or talk to you because they come to enjoy your smile, enjoy seeing you understanding them, or want to hear what you want to add, while ABA children learn to speak so you will give their stuff back and leave them alone (ABA therapy includes primarily interrupting, taking stuff away the child is playing with, to get them to ask for it back), or to get food like jelly beans or something else. 
• ABA believes there are "good" and "bad" behaviors that they are the arbiters of, and rewards good and ignore (or in the old days, punish) the "bad", while Son-Rise believes that these children are doing the best they can in their situation, and loving and accepting them as a whole including the autistic behaviors they love, paves a way to bring their mind together in an organized way and to motivate them to be more social with people they feel great interacting and sharing with.  
  • ABA comes from the perspective that there are good and bad behaviors and those that the child most wants to do - their autistic behaviors such as hand flapping, rocking and spinning, which we'll call "autistic behaviors" or "isms" - are bad, and what the behavioral therapist thinks are good behaviors are, well, good.  They start with judgment and wage war on the child's autistic behaviors by taking things away and telling them to stop 24/7.  The child responds by hiding their autistic behavior from people around them and internalize there is something bad or wrong about them, or shameful, which destroys the relationship and splinters the child mentally into two spheres - the true self and the one they have to show you to not get punished by scowls or other negative treatment such as losing their preferred toys - as well as teaches them that fake, inauthentic behavior is what gets rewarded while their true passions that have the power to draw them out of their world and into ours languish.
  • Son-Rise in contrast is nonjudgmental and accepts the child's autistic behaviors as the child is doing the best they can based on their beliefs, experiences and biology, and recognizes that they serve a useful purpose to the child or they wouldn't be doing them.  That respect leads them to be like your best nonjudgmental friends or family, where you can just be yourself, work on your challenges and grow in a safe environment.  The child's connection with you gives them increasing calm and safety, and is the place social ambitions and practice take root.  We don't want to hinder that by telling them they're being bad to be what they are, autistic!

After that I went over the basics again with him - 

1) the attitude

2) joining

3) celebrating interactions

4) adding variety

5) positioning

and sent him in the room with my daughter.  Good luck and feel free to have a trainee from the "ABA perspective" watch this while you get something else done to help yourself and your child!  Best wishes and respond or contact me if you want to discuss further. Thanks for watching! 

The Work-Your-Way-out-of-Autism Method! Big Learning Opportunities in Basic Work 2017-07-11

Anna has autism and I often create curriculum for her out of what I might have or used to do FOR her which I help her do herself; often really mundane work reveals core autistic deficits precisely because they are so unadorned and basic. I find helping my child do the basic elements of work I might do for her, done with my skilled and supportive help and instruction, makes it an interactive, in-context and compelling activity for her since she gets something she wants out of it when she succeeds finally. She earns money learning cognitive skills like counting "backwards" (down) and wants to add money I paid her to a spreadsheet to make sure she has enough, which is handy way to start using graphs, negative numbers, buying on credit (with a loan from me!), budgeting, addition/ subtraction, and spreadsheet skills. She doesn't NEED to do this to get the toy, but I'm making it a condition of getting the toy that she engage in all this learning to get it, since I'm making her know what she has to spend, has left, etc.

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Youtube video:  Mundane, ordinary work algorithms reveal autistic mental architecture and movement-based cognitive challenges, and provide a clean opportunity to work on them. 

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Even in this simple activity of transferring written entries to an income vs expenses spreadsheet - the lowly task of data entry - we reveal one of the autism core challenges again: the inability to have a smooth linear representation of the flow of anything, it's all chopped up and erratic / uneven. She doesn't seem to be able to represent a number line and make incremental adjustments to it. In the same way I identified her counting one number plus another on disparate hands and in sometimes opposite directions which reflects no innate concept of a single number line to which things can be reduced, here she cannot read a list without jumping down a few and losing track of where she was, which for those functioning normally we know to not leave gaps in any number line and skipping spaces throws it alll off.

She keeps jumping several levels down because she doesn't hold her place with her finger so she keeps losing her place over and over. This is another example of how movement is underrated in it's involvement in cognitive problems and how ABMN (Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement) techniques. It reminds me of how I taught her to count with the unfolding of a single finger for each number she incremented up.

I also threw in a few impromptu ABMN directions partway through - moving slowly, asking her to do different movements she's not used to doing, in this case with her elbows because she put her elbow out toward me - an atypical movement - and I jumped on it. Leading your child in intentional, slow, atypical movements that require thought and body awareness throughout are at the heart of the ABM Neuromovement toolbox, and can help boost your child's neuroplasticity, which can speed their recovery from autism, as if making them younger again when recovery was easier.