Curing Autism Together

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.

Autistic kids learning number lines to grow more linear brain architecture, plus learning to brush hair

Autistic kids struggle with mental fragmentation, and this makes the concept of an unbroken linear, regularly spaced "number line" foreign and hard to absorb for them.  Imagine if someone asked you to count and you had 7 tape measures each measuring different parts of it - like 1-7 is on one tape measure, 9-10 on another, and 8 and 11-13 on another, etc.  It's confusing.  There is nowhere to see them as an unbroken line and no habit of trying to merge them.  This is what it's like for autistic kids, in my opinion.  This is also why kids with autism get so focused on and successful in science and math and music because it's the first place linear concepts are taught and we hold into that (yes I'm autistic too!) for dear life and see things built upon that, without which regular social interactions and "regular life" has no such anchoring and we feel confused by it.  I remember being so great at the Periodic Table and a brilliant science student because those things could explain everything and nothing was left out.  It's like the linear space for those kids gifted with math - there is nothing you cannot describe mathematically, or model, at least at some level and eventually.

 

Teaching Anna about number lines and brushing hair today 7/1/17

 

In this video I'm trying to teach my daughter in such a way that she has can create that continuous number line in her mind's eye - or the conceptualization of it - as the anchor on which to build all math comprehension.  (There is a big section on brushing hair that happened in passing at the beginning - I'll do another video about hair brushing and washing challenges at another time.) My recent computer science studies reminded me how computers in the end only do incrementing, decrementing and comparison (greater than / less than / equal) so, fundamentally I understand people as doing the same with numbers at the most fundamental level.  (For example, multiplication is just multiple incrementing, exponentials are just multiple multiplication, etc.)  All math then falls apart, makes no sense or has foundation to grow on if you have no mental construct of an unbroken and potentially endless number line.  I get so upset when all the people I have ever instructed to see things in fundamentals over the last 8 years don't see what I see but I think this may be a special gift I have since I'm autistic too - at least borderline so at this point.  If you don't understand regular movements of the same size - like stepping and counting for each step or counting up a number as you lift each finger one by one, you don't understand what those numbers "mean" (this is Anat's influence on me - seeing how movement underlies cognitive comprehension, and how knowing is impaired by disorderly movement).

I have worked with my daughter so many times on creating a regular number line on her fingers, as well as on a meterstick.  I realized I should start recording before she understands it all and people won't have the opportunity to see how to teach this themselves.  

In this video I'm catching the end of our session today where we're working on putting numbers on a number line in a context she cares about and is motivated to accomplish it. Son-Rise and Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement ("ABMN") both couch learning in a context that the child actually wants to develop the skills you want them to, too.  Anna ran out of digestive enzymes/probiotic (Enzymedica Digest Gold + Probiotics) that were part of the cure of her Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).  (This IBD cure which I designed succeeded - see past blogs on this - and I am writing a book with the protocol).  I have always wondered if these supplements were an essential element of the cure or not, since she used them at the time she was cured and never stopped. This was an opportunity to test whether they were key in maintaining her recovery.  I told her she needed to put the prices per capsule on Amazon - which I calculated - on a number line in order to determine the least expensive per capsule.  I did this because she couldn't tell me which of the 5 numbers was the least expensive - she flat out guessed at numbers in the middle of the range - and I thought she needed the number line to understand my question.  

She demonstrates she doesn't understand what least and most mean.  In fact, I decided to record this video when I asked her which was least expensive and she was flat out guessing the answers incorrectly, and when I asked her what it it would "mean" to buy something least expensive, or what "most expensive" meant, expecting she might say "you pay more money for it" or something else evidencing comprehension through rewording, she could only repeat back that least expensive meant it was least expensive.  She didn't understand the word or math concept of what I was asking.  The more fundamental, huge and "worse" the lack of comprehension, the more important to address and focus there and the more the return.  It means you've struck gold in understanding how to recover someone from autism.  Yeah!!  

She struggles but eventually gets it.  Then we celebrated and ordered the supplements after the video.  A happy ending and she is finally, through visuals, coming to understand least and most and how that is expressed through a number line.  Thanks for reading, do try this at home, and let me know if it's useful for you!  Do like our video, too, if you want to encourage me to publish more!

Adding ABMN elements to a Son-Rise Program; Strengthening autistic short-term memory; Anna's first homework

Anna is "moving" developmentally in response to some new elements I've been adding to her Son-Rise® Program, some that I invented, some drawn from the Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® (ABMN) approach (I became an ABMN practitioner in May 2017). While actual ABMN requires someone who has been through the training to do physically with someone or directing them physically, lots of elements are about thinking and general awareness (what they call "being present" in the Son-Rise Program) can be incorporated into working with autistic kids or adults by anyone as play therapy goals that require no touch or special touch, which ABM does of course.  (See earlier posts where I mentioned teaching body position awareness, balance, and my teaching my child how to brush and wash her hair, for other examples.)

 

INCREASING SHORT-TERM MEMORY
In a past video I mentioned how I theorized from the data that autistic people have as a cause, result or co-occurring sub-normal short-term memory ability, and have been creating opportunities for my child to use her short term memory in a context where she would be motivated to do so.  BTW I've decide to coin a term for this formerly elusive but now to me obvious phenomenon that I've never heard anyone before describe or address, for now, "Autistic Short-Term Memory Deficit" or "ASTMD".

Today's session 06-29-17

For example, drawn from my insight around a year ago that curriculum can/ should come her learning to do everything I do for her, I started working on my child remembering phone numbers as I look for commercial real estate space for my office for ABMN and Option Process® Mentoring. I'm teaching her exactly what I do, which is to repeat the number I see on a sign as I drive past it until I can pull over to write it down or make the initial call (for example at the next light). I remember doing an exercise at the Option Institute's (home of the Son-Rise Program) week long adult programs that involved using our short term memories for an extended period and noticed an improvement in my short term memory that to this day is an asset I can use, an obvious demonstration of neuroplasticity of the adult brain, and that practicing using it would improve this ability. My child gets rewarded with buying whatever she wants with the money, usually toys but sometimes organizational containers, books, etc. for her toys, trading cards, etc. 

Also you can see her interrupt me several times while I'm in mid-sentence, which I believe is a combination of lack of awareness that I'm talking and inability to remember (or belief that she will not or cannot remember) long enough to share it after I finish.  I'm working on asking her to hold her thought, then say it later, but still refining the goal. I'm thinking now I can have her hold her thought, count to 2, then say it, then increase the counts over time.  I still celebrate the urge to share which is an interactive gesture, which is a Son-Rise core technique.

 

USING ADULT DOT-TO-DOT BOOKS TO TEACH THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MATH SKILLS

 My daughter is still struggling with the most fundamental math skills, and I have to in the end teach them to her because despite people best intentions, all the math she's done so far still doesn't stick or allow her to do most of the most basic things because people don't "get" what's going on autistically, but I do.  She never learned incrementing, decrementing and comparison, which is what's doing on in a computer CPU and what's beneath everything we learn mathematically.  It's too big a topic to cover here but counting this was is the product of regular and ordered movement done in a consistent way which my child never did, and requires a map of a continuous, regularly stepping number line in her mind's eye.  I have taught her regular stepwise counting on her hands involving regular "pumping" of her arm accompanied by lifting a single finger as she counts (using ABMN skills of observation), bought several meter sticks which I use whenever I need her to picture adding or subtracting as moving up or down the meter stick for a visual, and finally, using dot-to-dot books to teach her how to increment, and now how to decrement.  In this video you can see how effective these books are because they're fun and the skill is learned while the child is having fun. Making learning fun is a core Son-Rise goal, and I'm always mining what my child loves to do - such as doing dot-to-dots - for what can be learned from them, where in society any piece of any activity she likes can have value and she can make a living with it, and I develop activities with those "motivators" in that direction. 

 

ABMN ELEMENTS   

Noticing Distinctions

Anat Baniel, creator of ABMN, always says that a noticing distinctions is THE stuff of learning, so whenever I can offer my child opportunities to notice and expand on observation of distinctions between things I do so.  If we're looking at two houses out of the window I start noticing and pointing out distinctions and ask her to notice and name differences too and celebrate as she does, in keeping with the Son-Rise goal to reward flexibility (the child doing what you ask for, mostly).  When my child recently started replacing her My Little Pony Ty Beanie Babies with the "sparkle hair" versions, I immediately saw an opportunity to compare then, and offer her $5 to list at least 10 differences between old and new ones.  She has to be present and use her "outer sensory loop" (see my prior post about autistic "inner memory loop" over "outer sensory loop") throughout the activity and sees finer distinctions within the whole, thus creating mental refinement as well, that can generalize to other activities such as math or more subtle language.

 

Anna has come such a long way! This was the child that used to run in the street to see me get upset, and here we were surrounded by something like 6 different roads including 4-lane highway feeder roads, on this little island, and I realized I was trusting her not to do something crazy like that - trusting her with her life!  She had found the world made sense and she wanted to be in it, and that I could laugh and she could get the reactions she wanted from me reliably doing other things, now.  Her brother, looking like a like secret service agent, is there too, as we walked back from downtown Milwaukee, taking our first ever spontaneous bus adventure trip, which was pretty impressive how cool she was too.  

 

First Homework

Anna's FIRST HOMEWORK EVER happened in the assignment of this activity, and by "homework" I mean assigned thinking work done when she was on her own. She will sometimes vacuum or clean things on her own, but NEVER done assigned "thinking" work on her own before.  She had this activity twice before with two other prior ponies she upgraded so I thought this was a pattern she could feel confident doing on her own.  I set up the activity in one of our life curriculum books and asked her to go ahead and do the contrast while I was out.  After suggesting this sort of "on-your own" activity before - again, that I have done almost every time I've ever left the house, so at this point hundreds or thousands of times - AMAZINGLY she did!! She didn't get all the way to 10 elements but had listed something like 3-5 additional elements, after my first 1-2 examples I had gone through with her before leaving.  She was eager to show me several times when I returned that night, which I celebrated with her (substantially inwardly as Anat recommends, which percolates through to positive attitude, which is what Son-Rise advocates, although with some outward praise in keeping with Son-Rise).  

 

Don't force - be easy with the child's timeline

Note that she did this first homework when she felt sufficiently comfortable with the pattern of activity expected and confidence in her ability that it demanded.  This is similar to Son-Rise and ABMN totally accepting the child's timeline and not forcing it; we offer opportunities but not punishment if they are not ready, without judging that timeline.  Anat always says the brain is a quantum system and that as long as there is any change, that's all that matters, no matter how small.  Every outward change in behavior reflects a change in the brain, and we never know whether the small change is the first, middle or last snowflake to a dramatic quantum shift.  So have faith that the step the child just took is necessary on their path to recovery from autism and don't believe you can force the speed to increase.  A core ABMN principle (see 9 essentials from any of Anat's books) is doing things "slow", which means the slowest speed that system can see the distinctions, and when the child feels they can go at their slowest necessary speed that's when greater learning happens. 

 

Don't strain newly acquired abilities or connections in the brain

In keeping with ABMN, I didn't ask her to "finish" the activity, although I would been tempted to - seeing that she is so close to her goal - prior to getting the ABMN training.  Forcing someone to keep going when they have had an initial success, Anat says, may destroy or limit the progress that day or in the future. Instead I celebrated my daughter's success and let her feel good about it and leave the next step until the next day, facilitating her to integrate it into long-term memory.

 

ABMN's "Slow" concept helps us work on the Son-Rise Goal of sensing & articulating the desire for breaks

Incidentally, our Stage 3 Son-Rise Developmental Model goal "appropriately communicates when she wants to change or stop an activity" - probably not accidentally the only one from stage 3 we didn't complete.  I'm finding lots of opportunities to work on with her in implementing her desire to take breaks to integrate her new learnings.   Anat teaches us not to force someone to learn or do something they are just learning past where they naturally want to stop after initial success, anyway.  It's only after they have been successful, let it drop, and return when they're ready, that the ease and pleasure around mastery really takes root, and she suggests "drilling" is less effective than the "declare victory and leave the field" approach.  Forcing continuation of something when they feel done makes it feel unpleasant and a person's brain wants to avoid it, and this will make the person NOT keep that route, due to the unpleasant outcome, I'm guessing.  

One of our longer-term Son-Rise program participants, Brandi, at her yoga studio "Zen Gen" grand opening with Anna.   She had participated since 2014 while in business school to accomplish this goal and will only be an alternate now.  She's one of 3 yoga instructors we have had in our program, since many principles of yoga are well suited to Son-Rise.  I just offered her to write up a post on how yoga and Son-Rise mesh and I will post all or parts in a separate post, in exchange for publishing more links and info for her business, which would be a win-win.

 

ABOUT ME

Skills for sale!  

I continue to use both systems of thought to help myself now with my own high functioning autism.  I'm setting up a practice to do Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement Lessons and Option Process Dialogue sessions in person in Milwaukee WI, and am finalizing customizing an online scheduling web app that will allow me to do phone sessions as well as be at platform for other Option Process Mentors to be open to getting sessions through the Power of Clarity® LLC, which is my new company name under which I offer both services (ABMN and Option Process).  I will post about it once it's open for registration.  

 

Son-Rise + Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement: Invaluable, possibly necessary for full recovery from Autism

Option Institute / Son-Rise training, classes and "Option Process Dialogues" helped me choose and have more conscious control over my emotional reactions to things which used to overwhelm and stop me as an autistic person before, and have the "why not?" attitude toward going for what I wanted as well as determination to persist at it.  However ABMN training allowed me to see challenges, which used to always look like mountains, rapidly and effortlessly crumble into doable pieces that make momentum toward whatever I'm doing increase. Both were and are invaluable to my recovery from autism which is nearly complete.  I am just trying to share what I know before I decide to move forward, so email me at [email protected] for more information or call 800-800-0321 between 9:30am-9:30pm central time (US) to discuss; leave a message if I am unable to answer. 

 

CONCLUSION

Good luck using these techniques at home.  The Son-Rise® Program and the Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® are the best things I've found to help with people of any age with autism improve dramatically and lastingly, including myself!  

"Inner vs. Outer Sensory Loop" Theory Clarified + Today's session on Describing & Answering "why"

INNER VS OUTER LOOP - CLARIFICATION

I got a lot of responses to my "inner vs. outer sensory loop" theory of autism.  In this post I want to refine and clarify the theory, and wanted to update you on how my daughter is doing since starting exercises I created for her to strengthen the "outer" loop, based on implications of my theory.

I realized the "inner" vs. "outer" loop terms might be obscuring the fundamental distinction: whether a person is relatively disregarding (or involuntarily cut off from processing) data from their senses, vs. more continuously aware of their senses.  It appears as if people who are autistic drop into periods where they are less aware of the present, unable/less able to take in, store and process new information, and are preoccupied with either just doing very simple activities in a "safe idle" mode, or preoccupied with pulling data stored from the past in a compulsive and repetitive way.  This "mode" seems to reflect a shut off of a person's mental structures responsible for short-term sensory or cognitive data storage and manipulation, which is analogous to a computer not having any ram memory left.  (This state reminds me a lot of my grandmother when she had alzheimer's and how we'd have the same conversation several times within a 20 minute period as if she couldn't store any of it.)  and which inhibits ability to retain and create new mental content, which is what identifies them as autistic.  

Maybe we should call this "sensory/ short-term memory inhibited state" or something like that.   We'll see. 

One of our longest-term Son-Rise Participants ends - Alexis leaves to be a baker!  A very talented artist and missed already.  

My definitions are:

• "awareness" for my purposes here means able to have a thought about about something whether it's expressed outwardly or not (which sounds like a statement you could objectively say to someone), which is sensory such as "I like how that feels", or mental, like "I recognize this face".  Even our pets have this awareness in a nearly unbroken way.  It's autistic people who drop in and out of this state which is largely the reason they have the diagnosis.  (Its disturbing to be in an elevator with someone else's pet and be thinking how much better their eye contact is compared with your child, but I have had that experience!  This is also why we feel like we "know" our dog is loving us, trusting us and enjoying being pet.)  

 

• the "outer loop":  person is nearly continuously monitoring sensory data of all kinds, whether the senses are focused outward or inwardly, which is the "normal" human state.  "Outer" means allowing sensory data to filter in from the "outside" of one's central mental processes. Senses the person if monitoring include:
  • outwardly focused senses, such as: vision, hearing, temperature/ touch, equilibrium sensors in your ears, or
  • inwardly focused senses (which are as yet unnamed)!  They are whatever process or structure is responsible for making the core process of your brain that you identify as "you" aware that you are "upset" or that you "have an idea".   your meeds and feelings and feeling sensing and thought sensing structures or processes which I am not sure yet have a name.  

 Anna & Alexis clowning around earlier this year.

 

• the "inner loop":  person is disconnected from their sensory processes whether internal or external which just causes them to act without being "aware" of it, or as aware of it, as they are when they are not "isming" (in their autistic withdrawal).  This causes them tojust take in and retrieving information (the "inner" loop) in a more compulsive (hard to consciously stop) way.   It's as if our autistic kids are in a sensory deprivation tank, which causes normal people to start digging into their memories and fantasies to give their brain content without which it will go crazy.  the content for my daughter anyway, are certain events and rehearsed, highly memorized videos and songs from the past. 

 

This is important distinction because helping a child check in with their activities whether mental or physical are equally important.  I realized my daughter is "remembering", an action, and point that out.  When my daughter stops interacting mid-conversation, and looks away, and just starts reciting lines from a movie she's seen (inner loop), it's NOT the same as if she thinks to herself or says "I'm remembering a movie" (outer loop), which then leaves her free to decide whether or not to say the words out loud. I don't believe my daughter has the choice, much as we have a "song stuck in our head" but it overtakes her whole self until she "comes out if it". It's as if her either normal cognitive processes stop or her long-term memory storage comes aggressively out to overtake her.  At that time you can't raise her awareness and grow her short-term memory, it's only when she's out of that "ism" period, interacting again.  Mining your memory can happen in a context of being very outward-loop aware, such as when you told a story to a friend in a very interactive way, or can be done in an  inner-loop way that causes the child to just repeat that phrase or scene without perceiving much besides it (as if you're not there).  I'm making you aware to see how there is a distinction so you can point out to your child that they were "remembering" and celebrate when they say they are, which starts making them more aware when they actually are next time. 

 

 

Documenting the struggle! Starting to work on describing and answering "why" questions in a context of getting the date from a phone calendar app

 

THE GOOD NEW IS THIS IS WORKING!

The good new is the focus on "say what you see", now expanded it "say what you hear, feel, do, and think" is having the desired effects!  Friday (May 5, 2017) she suddenly said "Did you hear that?" I hadn't heard anything and asked, "what?" to which she said, "the church bells", with a kind of excitement I see in normal kids but not often in my daughter.  I could just barely hear them and celebrated her noticing and pointing that out. She's been talking about more recent events more frequently and I'm excited to hear her talking about things that just happened minutes before, which hardly ever used to happen.  I'm just creating activities and rewards (especially celebrating, which is from Son-Rise) to invite her to focus on the present sensory ("outer") loop. It seems to be growing her long-term memory and propensity to focus there.

 

TODAY'S SESSION - DOCUMENTING INABILITY TO DESCRIBE, EXPLAIN YOURSELF

I've now included work on describing things which has the side effect of directing focus to the present outer sensory loop, too.  I was so frustrated to discover today that my daughter couldn't describe anything. We ended up googling what "describe" means and doing examples just before this video was starting to be recorded.  We will continue working on describing. 

The reason I want to document some of the messy sessions rather than spectacular ones is because most of them are of the messy variety and take lots of work to yield small rewards.  I get frustrated sometimes, really frustrated!  Some of that is in this video and I wanted you to see everyone does at times.  People get frustrated with "normal" kids too.  You're not alone getting frustrated.  Anat Baniel says that a small change in a large, complex system can be more significant than you may realize and have unexpectedly large effects in the future, like infants learn a series of skills that suddenly allow them to roll over or stand up.  There's hope as long as there's any change, no matter how small, and you keep looking for it and amplifying it with your focus and celebration!

New Theory on Autism: "Inner" vs. "Outer Sensory Loop" Dominance in Autism

ABM + SON-RISE YIELDS A NEW INSIGHT

I recently had a major insight about what characterizes an autistic vs. a "normal" person's mental functioning, which I have for the time "inner" vs. "outer" "sensory loop dominance",  which has significant implications for autism recovery therapy.  This insight grew from my attempts to integrate both the Anat Baniel Method (ABM) and Option Process/ Son-Rise Program perspectives on the same behavior in my child.  

 

ABM HELPS A PERSON FOCUS ON SENSING IN THE PRESENT THROUGH SENSING VARIATIONS THEIR BODY IN THE PRESENT

Several months into my Anat Baniel Method® (ABM) professional training I started noticing that ABM addressed the "outer sensory loop" (I invented this term / phrase) awareness, such as that a person is seeing something and feeling something new as we move their limbs very slowly and gently around in their zone of comfort, which is what happens in an ABM lesson.  ABM is all centered around a person better sensing their body movement and positioning relative to the world around them better and more accurately, and growing awareness and focus on the present in the process.  This "outer loop" awareness spurs brain organization and neuroplasticity, and is generalizable to other abilities in the brain, so ease with focusing on how a person's arm is moving and feeling in the present for long periods make it easier for that person to focus on what they are seeing or hearing for long periods, too. 

 

Anna and I do session in the car on the way home from dropping my son at school - I'm trying to figure out where to put the camera to be able to start recording and posting those.

 

OPTION PROCESS / SON-RISE PROGRAM HELPS A PERSON SENSE THE PRESENT BETTER VIA A PARTICULAR MENTAL MODEL 

I put this side by side with my Option Process® training, on which the Son-Rise® Program is based (I'm a Certified Option Process Mentor-Counselor but don't have any formal certification in Son-Rise, only my 10+ years experience using it at the time of writing this), in which a person learns how to be more aware of their "inner sensory loop" (again, a term/ phrase I invented), This means focusing on the present like ABM, only instead of just asking, "what am I seeing? what am I feeling (with my body)", Son-Rise/Option includes the questions "What am I focusing on?" which we call the "stimulus", then either "what am I believing about that?" or "how am I responding to that?" (which breaks into two forms - "how do I feel about that?" and "what and I doing / what did I do in response"?).  This is the "stimulus --> belief --> response" ("SBR") model:

SBR model:      stimulus  --> belief --> response 

The "stimulus" can be present or recent events, like seeing that it's raining outside or hearing you say "hi" to me, or remembering that I broke a glass that morning so I might remind my children to watch that area of the kitchen, or realizing my leg is falling asleep so I might reposition it.  That would be pulling from my mental "ram", which is our version of short-term memories or immediate response to sounds I hear in the present of just after it, such as hearing you say "hi", then immediately deciding to respond and say "Hi" back. It might also be pulling out info from the mental hard drive (to use a tech analogy) I have storing TV shows and replaying them to myself and everyone around me - that's the inner loop because it's not happening right now and is recreated from my long-term memory.  Our short term memories get at least partially integrated into our long term memories during sleep.  

 

SOLVING THE PUZZLE OF REALITY VS. REHEARSED

Both ABM and Son-Rise agree that self-awareness of movement and adding the opportunity of variations are the magic to recovery from autism, and both agree on the equivalence of  physical and mental changes as movement.  The word "emotion" has the word "motion" in it, it's a thing we do just like walking, and similarly stimulus we react to can be from our memories as easily as the thing in front of our faces right now.  What's different between autistic people appears to be the dominance of the inner stimulus over the outer one, at least in those who are lucky enough to get as verbal as my daughter and me.  I remember when I started getting trained in Son-Rise I became more aware of how people were reacting to what I said, so I started being more aware of seeing if I was talking too long on a topic, whereas when I was more autistic I would try to avoid seeing their reaction, only focused on what I was saying and my fear of what they might be thinking, both my inner mental loop.  My daughter similarly is focused on stories and commentary about them that are highly rehearsed and she's learning her experience - we all seem happy to be interacting that way so she's done because she's getting what she wants from us.  Yet this is not going to server her later and not what we really want.  

It appears that my child is nearly totally focused on the process of loading data from her longer term memory (which is like a hard drive) rather than her shorter term memories of what just happened, which is from her short-term memory (analogous to "ram", which is the temporary memory on a computer that is forgotten if not saved to long-term memory, which is the "hard drive" in a computer).  In fact she just about never brings up something that happens in real life.  I suddenly realized this is because real life has no repeat, no rehearsal either for how to describe the stimulus nor her responses to it.  Moreover I don't usually repeat or practice commenting about recent events with her to help her practice on fresher and more novel material.  She wants us to be happy with her and love and interact with her, and if she can watch shows and practice sentences about it over and over, why wouldn't she, since we do Son-Rise and we are celebrating her interaction?  I also create variations on my responses so I create just enough novelty to make that seem interesting to her, so why not keep doing that (at least from her perspective)?  

I suddenly realized I was asking for what I wanted (understandable, because I this is not part of the Son-Rise Developmental model), nor to look for, set up opportunities to exercise this mental muscle, or celebrate more current as opposed to old and rehearsed memories and conversations.  I realized she may need me to repeat or dwell a bit on newer content to make it seem more memorable or practice something to say about that.  I also realized asking her NOT to talk about cartoons may be key to stopping the pattern, since she knows I love and accept her and can help her do the other kinds of sentences, so there's little or no loss in empathy or desire to connect between us when I ask for the change.  She's come to prefer the ease of practiced sentences over the messy and different process of making up new ones and needs time and opportunities to try this new approach.  I cannot emphasize enough that that is a different process - invention in the moment vs. rehearsal and repetition.  From ABM I know that people learn their experience and that learning anything is a very random and disorderly process with lots of "mistakes" that give the brain information it needs to do things in a better, more refined and complex way, and her rehearsed sentences she rattles off and my cheerful responses are restricting her growth.  So I decided to just be honest and blunt with her, that I didn't want to talk about cartoons, which is something I often say now.

From my Son-Rise training I learned that what we focus on grows, and if we wanted to increase my child's ability and propensity to invent new sentences about new things, we need to focus on it, both asking for it, celebrating when we get it, and devising ways - developmental goals - to enhance it. The video included here is about how to do this, including how to enhance focus on present by having a child:

• tell the difference between two things e.g. 10 things,
• describe one thing with at least 5 descriptors, which causes focus on the thing and differentiation in thinking about it, to its qualities,
• writing stories about recent things, which grows focus on recording and speaking about recent events to start rivaling cartoons she's seen hundreds of time, since she has to slow down to write about them and create those sentences with help from me, and then can read proudly to others about these new stories rather than about the Simpsons and My Little Pony shows.
• saying what he sees / hears/ feels/does in the present, such as naming everything her eyes land on,
• listing what happened "today" or "yesterday". 
• asking her to "freeze" and then describe what she's doing with various parts of her body, such as "I'm sitting on the chair.  My left leg it crossed over my right.  My elbows are both on the armrests of the chair.  My right foot is on the floor on a blanket.  I am holding my fork and eating spaghetti."  All this creates body awareness a la ABM as well as being present to an outer loop, albeit still in our bodies, at least it's not a memory.
• Bring your child's attention back to immediate or recent events that might be interesting and help her formulate things she wants to say about it. 

 

 

Video about how autistic people focus on their memories (inner sensory loop) at the expense of their current senses (outer sensory loop) and how to gently shift the balance - it's working!
 

IT'S WORKING

Yesterday Seraphina almost tripped as she got up from the kitchen table and Anna just went on to talk about ponies like nothing had happened, and I saw the opportunity to focus on the present as kids are always interested in keystone cop type falls - why cartoons have so much physical humor - and was likely to consider focusing on the near fall for that reason has she not nearly forgotten it or ignore it a moment later.  I either interrupted her or right after she stopped talking, reminder her about Seraphina nearly falling and asked Seraphina to show and tell us why she almost fell.  The conversation shifted but then about 5 min later, my daughter actually said something about Seraphina almost falling, something she just about NEVER does - a very recent event.  

This happened this morning again.  I was working this morning on "say what you see (and hear)" in our notebook which she was doing to earn money to buy another pony, refusing to talk about cartoons, and helping her talk about other non-cartoon (non inner-loop) things all morning.  Then Shelby arrived, and I was telling Shelby Seraphina could not come Mondays to team meetings so we had to leave them on Tues or Thurs, to which Shelby reiterated that she could not do those days.  A few minutes later, Anna again said something like, "Did Shelby say she couldn't come Tuesdays?" Which blew me away since nearly everything she says until recently is "Did Homer hit Smithers?" (from the Simpsons) or "Did Rarity sing the Manhattan song?" (from My Little Pony), or some other "canned" question about a cartoon where she's expecting a certain response from me.  This was so normal I was inspired to start posting about this.  

 

MISSING FROM THE SON-RISE DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL 

This entirely new focus is something that should be but isn't in the Son-Rise Developmental Model bus it MAJOR, so we're adding it. Son-Rise avoids this quagmire by asking people to avoid all media for their child - no iPods, TV, videos, internet, etc. which is just not working for us and most of those I know.  We need that safe activity to keep our children busy when we are in a safe way, rather than hurting themselves.  

This element is in addition to a number of other things I've added to it for my child, bringing things I've added to the model to:

• Focusing on the outer loop and more current events - at least those that aren't as rehearsed (discussed here);
• Delegating roles and giving good directions for that person, including algorithmic thinking;
• Organizing / categorizing / organizing which is REALLY hard for many with autism especially those with Aspergers;
• Interacting with 2 or more other people at a high level including moderating activities so people are included and brought up to speed with what others know;
• Self-care at all levels (safety, being able to make phone calls for basic needs, being able to do math at the grocery store, cooking for herself, identifying goals and going for them, etc.);
• (I can't remember the others just now so I'll come back and fill them in later! I'm on a different computer that doesn't have my notes on this).

I'll keep you up to date as this develops. 

 

CONTACT ME IF YOU WANT A CONSULT

I figured it would be a good idea to offer what I know to those just starting out or who are interested in adding ABM to their Son-RIse Program as I did.  I'm open for phone consults and home visits starting now on that.  Contact me at 866-my-coach(692-6224) or at autismcoaches.com or autismpowercoaches.com (still deciding on name) at [email protected] or [email protected]

BTW I'm planning to get certified in the Anat Baniel Method in May 2017 (next month) and work mainly if not exclusively with autistic kids and see how this goes.  I have to start with autistic adults in May 2017 but starting in July 2017 when ABM Children's Mastery classes start I can work with kids.