Last week I was training a small group of therapists who work with a cute and lively five-year-old named Marty in her family’s home. After two years in an intensive home-based treatment program, Marty will start senior kindergarten this fall and we all felt enthusiastic that her new teacher Ms. Kay had joined us to sit in and observe the training. The teacher’s openness to learning new ideas, to communicating with the parents, and to taking her own time to learn about my treatment strategies for Marty was refreshing and welcome.

At the end of the two-day training, Ms. Way shared her thoughts with the group. “I am really grateful to have the chance to sit in and see the high-level of discussion and feedback to help Marty. It’s incredible to see how detailed you get and taking the time to really talk about what strategies will work best for her. And what stands out the most to me is how much you include the parents. It’s just so important that parents are included in the discussion and get support.”

I smiled hearing Ms. Way identify what to me is also the most important piece of the training that I do with therapist teams; I include parents as much as possible. Other programs like the SCERTS model, the Son-Rise Program, Floortime, and project ImPACT also have a strong emphasis on including parents in training and program planning.

to empower parents…, we need to encourage them to take care of themselves.

I believe that to empower parents to best care for their children, we need to encourage them to take care of themselves. So often, parents caring for a child with special needs pour all of their heart and soul and time and resources toward their children until there is nothing left – they are exhausted and spent. Sleep deprived and unbalanced, it’s easy to start to resent daily chores and to lose patience. Parents should be supported to take care of themselves as much as they take care of their child with special needs.

Here are four skills that I include in family training specifically for parents:

1. Be Present

The Dalai Lama talks extensively about how energy draining it is to spend a lot of time thinking back and regretting the past or thinking ahead and worrying about the future. When we focus on the past and the future we aren’t being present to what is in front of us. We are only partly present to what we are doing in the moment while part of our thoughts are busy calculating about past and future ideas. The point is that being present takes less energy and is easier than being not present. It is tiring to juggle so much in your head while trying at the same time to take care of the present.

Of course parents need to think ahead and plan. I recommend that they do this at specific “planning” meetings that they set aside time for. Sunday evening after the kids are in bed is a good time for parents to sit together for fifteen minutes to discuss plans for the upcoming week, synchronize schedules, and to look ahead to any future events that need planning. (This is taking time to “be present” with future planning instead of worrying about the future at the same time as you need to be focused on something else in the present. Make sense?)

When parents practice being present, they feel less drained of energy and are less mentally tired. Being present often results in being more positively responsive to your child, hearing more of the words they say, and appreciating more of their efforts. When parents are present, they become more aware too of their own needs. They realize they are hungry and should stop to feed themselves or their thirsty for some water. It’s hard to take care of yourself if you aren’t first present.

2. Be accepting of yourself

Some of the most effective treatment programs for people with autism stress the importance of acceptance of autistic behaviours.  Some adults with Asperger’s Disorder like Stephen Shore and Temple Grandin emphasize in their lectures and books that changing judgments about autistic behaviour into acceptance is the key to building strong therapeutic relationships with children with autism.

Acceptance is misunderstood however. For many, “acceptance” means to stop caring, to “let go of wanting more”, and to “give up.” This is not the kind of acceptance that we are talking about. Simply put, to accept a person with autism means to stop judging their differences as bad and not okay. I teach therapists to help a child learn more socially adaptive behaviours without having to judge or feel uncomfortable about the child’s repetitious ritu

als for example.

“…parents need to be more gentle and accepting of themselves.”

What is often overlooked however, is reminding parents that they can also stop judging themselves. Many parents carry around guilt that they may have somehow caused their child’s autism. Many judge themselves for ‘not doing enough’ from their view. When they lose their patience or get angry at their child with special needs, like all parents do at some point, they might then feel angry toward themselves. In short, parents need to be more gentle and accepting of themselves. Parents can learn to transform self-judgment into self-acceptance. Does your treatment program include this skill in the curriculum?

3. Take care of yourself

Take care of yourself first! Click photo.

If you are the leader of the pack, the guide at the front of the team hacking a path through the jungle, you need to be in shape. You have to be physically rested, fed, hydrated. You have to be emotionally fit, supported, nurtured. But most parents with a child with autism are so busy and overwhelmed with autism treatment programs and regimes that they put caring for themselves at the bottom of the list. One mother told me recently that since setting up a home-based treatment program for her child she has gone from washing her hair every other day to maybe once a week. She just doesn’t have the time she says. The most important thing she said was that she doesn’t feel good about not taking care of herself enough. She realizes she is last on her To Do list but doesn’t know how to change the situation. Most parents reading this will be able to relate to this mother and may even feel defensive toward me suggesting that you find more time to do things for yourself. It is hard, I know. And it seems impossible with daily schedules that already don’t give you enough time to sleep before 1am for just a few hours until 6am wake up.

The point is to first become aware of how far down the list you have put yourself. It’s already a good step forward to just recognize that you want to care for yourself more. You’ll be giving yourself the message that you are paying attention to yourself. The next step is to begin to do small little actions that don’t take more than a minute through out the day that are just for you and that feel good to you. For example, stop to drink a small glass of water to keep yourself hydrated. Take the 20 seconds extra to put on a favourite song while you work in the kitchen or drive to pick up the kids at school. Give yourself permission to make one five-minute phone call to a supportive friend once a week. These are all doable and combined will start to shift the balance from only caring for your children and others to taking care of yourself too.

4. Trust your intuition

This might sound a bit ‘out there.’ But I haven’t yet met a parent, especially mothers, who don’t relate to ‘intuition.’ Time and time again, parents say that they ‘just knew’ something was wrong, or that they ‘sensed’ that a particular therapist wasn’t right for their child, or that their intuition told them they should read a certain book on autism. At the same time, far too often, professionals are so focused on teaching their own message that parents aren’t given a voice. Parents’ intuition is diminished because isn’t backed by graduate degrees.

Trusting your intuition doesn’t mean to also stop trusting professionals. It doesn’t mean to stop following sound expert advice and it doesn’t mean to act on everything you feel or think. Intuition is a much stronger feeling than a passing thought and fleeting emotion. Intuition is the kind of feeling that won’t go away until you listen to it. It lingers with you like an ache in your stomach or a nagging dialogue in your mind all day long. Often, the more you fight it, the stronger you feel it.

In my own work with parents through the Intensive Multi-Treatment Intervention program, I often stop throughout the lessons and take time to ask parents what they are thinking, how they are feeling, and to honestly assess if they feel this is the right direction for us to take for their child. Intuition grows stronger- it develops- the more you listen to it. Intuition isn’t what we base treatment programs decisions on, but it is given a voice in the conversation.

Each of these four strategies are skills that can be learned, practiced, and improved. Choose one this week and read about it. Then plan to practice it one step at a time. You will see it help you and you’ll get better at it. Most importantly, make a decision today to prioritize focusing on yourself, the parent, as one of the most important strategies you can do to help better your child with special needs.

You’re invited to click and play this Beatles video to enjoy music while you read the article on love and autism below.

Love, Love, Love…Love is all you need”, John Lennon famously sang these words to the world in the ‘60s. The message is as relevant today as then, but for some reason we have separated education and teaching from loving kids.

The field of ABA for autism treatment programs is changing to be more playful and fun, but the serious, down-to-business forced drill style of many therapy programs still lingers after several decades of the “autism therapy has to be intensive to work” mentality.

Being too serious

There’s no doubt that many children with autism only benefit from instruction when they have enough program hours.  Some children I’ve worked with get the most benefit from 40+ hours per week, for example. But these hours don’t have to be devoid of caring and affection from the adults that they spend their therapy hours with. Making therapy drills focused doesn’t mean they have to be serious. Being careful to not give cues and prompts to your student does not mean you have to keep a straight-serious face. Keeping up a fast pace of drills is not mutually exclusive from showing love.

A very insightful autism therapist is Howard Buten, Ph.D. from the U.S. now directing an institute in France. In his book Through the Glass Wall, he explains that his autistic students learn the most and he sees the best development happen once a therapist has taken time to establish a positive trust-based relationship with the student. In his program, as in my Intensive MultiTreatment Intervention program, Buten builds student-therapist relationship / rapport right into the curriculum. Therapists are required to first and foremost spend time showing love and building trust before they try to teach the child any kind of new skills or academics. Buten writes:

Learning and Love

“Though I would never go as far as to say that once these relationships are established anything is possible, I say that without them very little will be.” (p165)

Working with therapist in schools, and other programs I observe that many feel uncomfortable about or are not certain how to “love” a student.

• First, I suggest that they are already half-way there by just understanding how important showing caring to students is for real learning to occur and by making it a priority.

• The second thing I suggest is for the directing and senior therapists to discuss a list of how therapists in their particular program could be affectionate and show more love to students. Schools, hospitals, and treatment centers all have regulations and codes of staff conduct but there is always a way to show caring even in the most conservative environment. Then, I suggest they build these teaching strategies (love can be a teaching strategy) right into  therapist training programs.

• Third, I boldly suggest that therapists be accountable for loving students as much as they are accountable for the academic drills and for completing data charts and reports. “Do your therapists have to check off a box to ensure they were “loving” the student for each trial, drill, lesson alongside the student’s performance measures?”, I ask.

Like Howard Buten, while I don’t believe that Lennon’s “Love is all you need” mantra is the only ingredient for autism treatment, I do believe that without it, teaching is less effective and students’ learning is less robust.

A commonly believed and repeated myth is that people with autism lack imagination.

By Kevin Schwoyer, Autisitc, 5 yrs old

Autistic children don’t play with toys or people like their neurotypical peers do. There’s no argument about this fact. Due in large part to their communication challenges, most children with autism are unable to show or talk about their imagination. It is not as obvious or evident as with most kids.

However, just because they don’t play like others do and just because they may not be able to verbally communicate does not mean they don’t have imaginations.

As I discuss in my book Challenging the Myths of Autism, I believe that the myth that autistic children don’t have an imagination likely began in 1979 when a well respected and important autism researcher Lorna Wing and her colleague Judith Gould popularized the idea that lack of imagination should be one of three main criteria for diagnosing the disorder. Their ideas were quickly adopted by the medical community and most professionals. People added their own spin on what exactly they believed lacking imagination meant. Soon enough it was used to explain a whole range of behaviours including repetitious rituals and unusual pretend play.

The negative impact this has had is that we often limit opportunities for these children to be creative (since they don’t have imagination anyways) and we may fail to recognize their unique imaginations (since they don’t have one in the first place, so the myth goes).

No imagination required

Instead of opportunities like most children have to practice, explore, and express their growing imaginations through play, autistic students are most often subjected to rote learning drills.

In pretend play children can imagine being different characters, flying in a rocket ship, or having super powers. But curriculum for children with autism rarely includes open-ended pretend play. Instead they are taught the ‘correct way’ to roll a toy car across the floor. Using Play-Do, building blocks, or colouring crayons most children have the chance to explore creating new kinds of creatures like

Time for imagining

elephants with 6 legs, or houses with swimming pools in the bedroom, or ice cream in the shape of spaghetti. Kids can think of almost anything! This kind of play is unstructured and we praise innovation and silly creations. In contrast, many autistic students are taught or even only allowed to make elephants with 4 legs, houses with

swimming pools in the backyard, and ice cream in a cone. When they create new or unusual drawings or patterns with blocks that we don’t immediately recognize, instead of praising their innovation or allowing some silliness, we work even harder to ensure they learn how to draw the picture ‘appropriately’ and build the block tower ‘correctly.’ Ironically, the children that might benefit the most from open-ended imaginary play are the ones we impose the most structure on.

It turns out that Lorna Wing had meant something more specific than lack of

imagination. She should have written “social imagination”. In an interview with Adam Feinstein she clarified that “Autistic children do have imagination, but it is not social.” To be even clearer, she is referring to the concept that autistic people have a hard time taking (imagining) other people’s perspective and showing empathy (imagining how other people might be feeling). Despite social challenges, we need to talk about the autistic imagination. Unfortunately, by the time the interview was published in 2010, the myth had already become well rooted in the field of autism treatment and in the general public.

• You can help push the myth into extinction by providing lots of imaginary and pretend-play opportunities for a child with autism.
• Keep your eyes open for their own unique expressions of creativity.

• Make sure to praise new forms, innovations, and unusual designs as much as you would for any child.
• Don’t be afraid to reinforce imagination and creativity.

If you have your own story of imagination in a child with autism, you are invited to join the conversation on the myths of autism at www.mythsofautism.com.

If you want to be an active and empowered force of change to debunk other myths of autism, please visit www.TheAutismManifesto.com where like-minded parents and professionals are leading an international movement promoting a new empowered understanding of autism.

Current research supports the idea that the factors contributing to the behaviour, communication and learning challenges of people on the autism spectrum are multifaceted; Therefore, I believe, treatment should be multi-faceted as well. Treatments such as Applied Behavioural Analysis and special diets are important and can contribute to positive development but they are simply not comprehensive enough to address all of the needs of all children with autism. How can any one single approach take into account the entire spectrum? They can’t.

Even though most parents figure this out pretty quickly, unfortunately, most current treatment models which they have to choose from are exclusive of other ideas and are uni-focused. In other words, parents figure out they need to draw from various different ideas but, unfortunately, most professionals don’t exactly show parents ways to fit their unique program strategies with other, sometimes opposite-style, programs.

Inevitably, I see parents trying to patch and cobble together as many different parts of the treatment puzzle as they can on their own without much direction on how to do so effectively, and end up having to play program coordinator juggling the different objectives, expectations, schedules, and regimes that each individual program recommends.

Over 20 years of working with families trying different models of treatment, I’ve discovered that without question the most effective programs combine a range of different strategies i.e., they aren’t limited by any one program model or theory. For example, in my own practice with the Intensive Multi-Treatment Intervention program (IMTI), I begin with a focus on 3 broad domains and then select the right-fit strategies for each individual child:

1) Biological Treatment

2) Behavioral training and cognitive education

3) Family and therapist “Attitudinal Fitness” training and support

The strength of what I call the “multi-treatment effect” comes from the interaction between the often diverse variety of strategies. “One plus one equals more than two” when one strategy acts as a catalyst to speed up or enhance another one, for example.

But there’s a very powerful and not ye twell understood consideration: order and timing.

Which Order

You may know for example that you want to use some play-therapy and some peer-group experiences for socialization, and some behavioural training for life-skills but what order should you do them in? Which one is first and which is second or can they be done at the same time? If not at the same time, when (i.e., timing) should you end one and start the next? These are the secretes of order and timing that I’ve been studying to unlock for years.

Order and Timing of Treatment are Critical:

Last week, I sat on the edge of a fenced-in kindergarten playground area observing four-year old Curtis. He had responded extremely well to the home-based IMTI Program and was beginning an advanced phase in which we introduce peer play-dates, social groups, and generalization to public environments. I watched with delight as Curtis ran toward a small group of kids playing with a basketball. He stopped a foot away, watched them for a few seconds, smiled, and then ran away from them to a different part of the playground. For this young little bundle of energy, approaching and observing a group of kids without being prompted was a major milestone. Of course our next step was to teach him to actually introduce himself and ask to join the play. But for now, we were cheering him on.

Just two years earlier, Curtis had been diagnosed with PDD. He had a very limited vocabulary of just a few words and was ‘disconnected’ from his peers and family alike. He was unsettled, restless, and resisted interaction and learning. Since he didn’t display the more acute stereotypical behaviours of classic autism, the local autism services recommended he be placed into peer groups like school so he could socialize. His mother followed their advice but was disappointed after several months that he hadn’t improved a bit – it was wasting his precious early learning time. When Curtis’ parents discussed the situation with me, I explained that school and peer groups were definitely an important piece in his “treatment map” but that it was too early – it was in the wrong order and not the right timing.  Thinking about what the first steps to help him would be (i.e. what order do we present new challenges to him) it was clear that he was not ready for structured learning yet. He was simply too defensive and reactive. We would otherwise have to really force and control him to get him to ‘comply’ with table work and with sitting in circle time at school. This didn’t seem like the best choice. For some children the first step is ABA-style adult-directed structured learning, but for Curtis’s development needs a more playful and less stressful relationship-based approach made sense. He thrived with our facilitated fun and play as a first step. More structured learning followed as a second step and peer-groups and school were steps three and four.

Once we had mapped out step one and steps two and three, the next most important  decision was to determine the timing of each strategy or step. In other words, we knew step two would come after step one but when should we start two and end one? Too often, parents, even guided by professionals, try to get as many services and programs combined all at once, thinking “the more the better.”  It’s critical to consider that some programs and approaches are counter-productive to each other; They cancel each other out. They may place opposing and confusing demands on the child (and sometimes on the parents too.)

———————–

Before starting a new program, approach, strategy, or approach stop and ask two key questions:

1) Order: Where does this strategy fit in order with all of the others we are currently challenging our child with and that we plan to introduce in the near future? Are there any contra-indications for us to not begin it now?

2) Timing: When should we start a new strategy? You may have determined that it is the next best strategy to introduce to your child, but are you introducing it now simply because you just learned about it this month or more strategically because it is the right time in their development?

Multi-treatment programs designed with order and timing in mind can provide the most highly customized and comprehensive support for children with autism. If you have your own examples to share or advice on order and timing, please be in touch.

Fact: You act differently when you feel differently.

If you’re like most people, you’ll drive a car differently when you’re upset than when you’re happy. You’re tone of voice will sound less friendly when you’re impatient than when you’re grateful. Bottom line, your attitude impacts your behavior. How you feel changes how you act.

So what? Well, if you’re a parent or therapist trying to ‘behave’ or act in certain ways to help facilitate your autistic child’s learning, then it’s critical to pay attention to your attitude (what you are thinking and feeling when you are with the child)…because it will, in part, determine how effective the strategies you use will be.

The most effective special needs educators are the ones who connect with children through a positive and caring attitude. First, start with acceptance. This means, before you try to teach and help a child to change, it is to your advantage and to theirs for you to establish a good foundation of caring, respect, trust, and fun. When you accept a child’s differences and challenges – let go of your judgments, then you are more available to enjoy the teaching process. It will be more enjoyable for both of you.

For example, if you are trying to gain some attention and eye contact from the child, you might “position for eye contact” low down and in front of them. You might hold toys up by your eyes and you likely will ask directly for them to “look” at your eyes.  Each of these strategies are commonly used by many therapists, but some have more success than others. Why?

In many cases the success of a strategy is determined by one simple thing: The most effective therapist are paying attention to how they are FEELING and what they are thinking as they do each strategy.

Imagine that as a therapist holds a pencil up by her eyes she is also thinking that it’s taking the child too long to look up… as a result of this thought, she starts to feel impatient and the knock on effect is her voice tone is slightly more impatient when she says “look a me.” Her eyes are a bit more tense. The child of course notices the less friendly voice tone and the tense expression of her eyes and instead turns away from her. Now imagine a different therapist who uses the exact same technique of holding a pencil up by his eyes to attract an autistic child’s attention but what is different is that he deliberately focuses on thinking only positive thoughts like “I value any little eye contact I get”, and “this child is doing the best he can right now, being patient is the best thing I can do back.” Holding these positive thoughts over and over in his mind, the therapist’s voice is relaxed and inviting when he says “look at me” and his face is caring. When the child does look up, he sees the therapist’s welcoming face and smiling eyes. The child is bound to keep looking and to look again soon.

When I work with educators and therapists, I respectfully suggest that they add “Positive Attitude” to their lesson planning and teaching strategy notes. Practicing and implementing a positive attitude is not just a one-time side discussion, it has to become an integrated piece of program planning – a piece that therapists and teachers are accountable for as much as teaching math or spelling. The more I can think and feel positively as I teach, the more effective my teaching will be. Before I can effectively help a child to change, I must consciously decide to design a positive attitude. One of the first principles of the Intensive Multi-Treatment Program is “Attitude First, Change Second”

Have fun with this idea, experiment, and grow into it. Let me know how it goes.

This morning during a training session with therapists, I led a discussion about the nuances of teaching “eye contact” to our autistic student. We came to three important conclusions:

1) Eye contact should not be so narrowly defined as only eye-to-eye contact.

Instead, children with autism should be encouraged to look at and to watch a person’s entire face including their mouth, eye brows, nose and other facial features.

In many therapies, students are expected to look directly into therapists’ eyes on command: “Look at me. Look.” A child who looks up at their face but not exactly into the therapist’s eyes will not be praised and will often be physically guided to do so. The problem with this narrow perspective is that it is not necessarily natural, even for typically developing toddlers. Especially for children 0-3 years old, while they most definitely seek and track other’s eyes, and especially those of his parents, they also spend a good amount of time studying other facial features Importantly, toddlers and infants learn about communication and language production by watching mouths, eye brows and hand gestures all of which provide information about the nuances of the dialogue. Speech and language pathologists will confirm that a good portion of language is learned by watching and imitating mouth movements. By limiting or forcing a child with autism to look only directly at eyes, we are limiting/ inhibiting/ slowing down their communication learning and language acquisition.

2) Eye contact should not be forced or physically manipulated

Instead, you should make a positive association between eye contact and having autonomy/ control along with a positive relational experience.

When a therapist holds a child’s chin turning his head to make the child look at her, the child loses his autonomy. He is controlled rather than being in (his own) control. He may have a negative experience, having his chin moved against his will, that becomes associated with making eye contact. The next time eye contact is requested, the negative associations of losing control and being physically forced may be triggered. This is behavioural science 101. Avoidance is sure to follow.

When a therapist withholds an item that a student wants, perhaps up by his eyes, to force the student to look then eye contact has been ‘manipulated.” Getting what is wanted is made conditional on looking at the therapist. The child learns that giving what is wanted to someone else can be used as leverage to get something you yourself want. (Giving freely as a kindness and courtesy is not a part of this system unfortunately.) Since making eye contact and observing others is a behaviour / a habit that can be extremely beneficial for a student to learn by, it is in the therapists’ and students best interest to encourage children with autism to enjoy looking at others simply out of curiosity and interest – observing just to watch, to see what is happening, to understand…not only when an adult is forcing or manipulating them to do so.

3) Eye contact should not only be associated with demands and reprimands.

Instead, a child should experience as many occasions as possible of looking at another person’s eyes and face and feeling loved, accepted and praised.

Like a teeneager walking into the house after school who avoids contact with his parents’ eyes knowing if he looks at them they’ll ask him about the chores he hasn’t done, children with autism learn early on that eye contact with an adult is associated with a demand. “Look at me so I can ask you to do something.” I have observed dozens of therapy sessions where eye contact between the child and therapist is only ever associated with either a demand or with the child being reprimanded and judged. “Look at me when I’m talking to you! Don’t do that again!” Given this association, it is easy to understand why the students don’t generalize looking more often at others outside of therapy sessions.

Of course we want a child’s attention when we are talking about important and serious stuff. But we should equally engage eye contact and observation behaviour when we are communicating affection, praise, positive affirmations, and love. Ask you child or student with autism to look at you and immediately smile. Don’t make a request or demand of them to smile back or to answer a question. Just let them see you smiling. Invite them to look a little bit longer than usual. Allow them time to become interested in your smile, your lips, teeth, and eyes. If they do look for longer than usual, praise them for their interest. Again, don’t make a demand, simply celebrate and acknowledge the eye contact that you received. Do this over and over many times a day. This will establish many positive associations between eye contact and other people’s faces.

SHARE AFFECTION

If you’re going to teach a child social skills like how to make friends then you need to think about how you yourself make and keep friends. Really, think about it.

When I start working with a family with an autistic child, we first have a discussion about what it means to be social: “How do you make friends?”, I ask parents and therapist alike. “What do you do that makes your friendships work? And what things do you do that don’t work so well?” I invite them to “be honest with yourself” and to write down the skills they use to form close healthy bonds with others.

From this list, we begin to prioritize the top several skills we will focus on and that make most sense for each individual student. I always propose that the number one aspect of a healthy relationship is to be loving (in the forms of acceptance, gratitude, interest, and being present.) In other words, consciously doing these things with a child is a way to show them love and caring. And, at the same time as building rapport with them you’ll be modeling the very skills you want them to learn to do with others.

Why is it important to prioritize focusing on good relationships before trying to teach other kinds of things to our kids and students? Forming a bond, rapport, trust, and mutual interest are the foundations of good friendships. By being more affectionate, showing more gratitude, and taking even more interest in a child’s interests (as odd as the behaviours  may be) they will begin to pay more attention back toward you. In effect, you will build social interest. The child will begin to watch you more, follow your lead, and to take a greater interest in the activities you are doing. Don’t be surprised if you see the child’s behaviour becoming more social with others because of your lead.

MAKE IT FUN!

A typical list of basic social skills might include:

• make more eye contact

• allow more appropriate physical contact

• follow another person’s lead

• share toys including space and turns

The most important strategies I teach, once the list is made are:

1) Just focus on building good rapport for the first few weeks (or even months) until better social rapport is established. Don’t try to teach any other curriculum. “Let go of other agendas- like teaching language, or math, or self-help skills for now”, I recommend.

2) DO make each of the social skills super fun! DON’T make them part of a ‘To Do’ list of chores: “Look at me! Look at me! Look at Me!” This is no fun at all – not for the child and not for the therapist. Find ten different, silly, and fun ways to attract a child’s attention to your eyes and face that will make looking at you an enjoyable and fun experience (Don’t force it – keep it easy and give your child control). If holding hands (i.e. physical contact) is the goal, then maybe you will put a favourite sticker on the child’s palm and the same one in yours and invite the child to press them together…which means you’re holding hands of course. MAKE BEING SOCIAL FUN, NOT WORK.

3) Remember ever day that you are a social model for your child both in therapy and out. Does your child see you having a nice conversation with others much? Do they see you give a hug or say thank you in an overt way that they notice? Does your child often get the chance to hear an interesting conversation between you and another child that might pique their interest? Unfortunately, many children who spend 20-40 hours each week in 1:1 therapy with strongly teaching adults may not get enough social modeling. Even if they are spending part-time in a play-group, there is no guarantee that they are paying attention, unless they’ve built rapport with others- which is unlikely on their own. Take the opportunity when you are spending time or out 1 on 1 with a child with autism to be as social as you can to really be a good model. This can be hard of course when you are already exhausted or if you are tense just trying to manage the child’s behaviour in public. But try your best, plan ahead for success – like meeting just one other friend in a park when you could model saying hello, shaking hands, and asking how they are today.

Bottom line: Make socialization, beginning with your relationship with a child, the priority over teaching other kinds of curriculum when you first start therapy/treatment. Over many years of trying different strategies, I’ve found that PRIORITIZING BEING SOCIAL FIRST is a key to better studentship and ultimately to better social learning. Have Fun!

Jonathan was recently named one of the Top 25 Transformational Canadians by the Globe and Mail.  Read here for the full story.