Preschool Kids Do Better When They Talk To Themselves, Research Shows
This article states: "Parents should not worry when their pre-schoolers talk to themselves; in fact, they should encourage it, says Adam Winsler, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. His recent study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly showed that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent."
Self-talk is a critical part of normal development, and in many situations we use self-talk (as in cognitive therapy) to help us navigate a difficult social world and take actions that often we might react to in an automatic manner and often inappropriate manner. Self-talk is at the heart of cognitive-behaviour therapy, and helps us react to an external prompt. Kids with ASD often do not use self-talk to self regulate their affect (emotions) or to switch mental sets and change from one activity to another. Most adults use self-talk and sometimes you can hear them using it. For instance, after a near accident someone might say, "Well, that was a close call..." in order to calm themselves down (change mental sets). With adults our self-talk has gone from external and audible to "that little voice in my head." It helps us use language to solve problems, rather, and many of our kids do, use language to get stuck in a problem and reinforce negative and ineffective thoughts. working with kids its often helpful to model and use audible self=talk when teaching social reciprocity or other skills. This helps parents and teachers model and then monitor what a child is thinking.
Finally, another key component to self-talk's usefulness is that it is an external prompt, something you can refer to outside of yourself. Matching appropriate self-talk to external visual prompts allows us to eventually teach the child to use self-talk more quietly, and finally talk to themselves in their heads. But to do this successfully we need to match the self-talk to external prompts and cues, teach it in several different settings to generalize the skill (something that is often left out of educational programs) and teach it with a method reflective of errorless learning.
When someone finds themselves in trouble often you will hear, "Well, he can't talk himself out of this." The truth is, appropriate self talk might have avoided the problem in the first place.
For more information on autism spectrum disorder you can check out the resourse page on my web site www.drjimroche.com
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Parent training key to improved treatment of behavior problems in children with autism
Parent training key to improved treatment of behavior problems in children with autism
Too often parents call me for an appointment and ask, "Do I need to stay at your office while Tommy's with you?" Well, the real question is, "Does Tommy need to be here?" Parents are the most important factor in changing a child's behaviour, teaching new skills, and doing the most important two things that lead to success: Modelling the correct social behaviour in the natural setting they would normally take place in, and reinforcing a child when he or she does what we want to see more of. Without these two components going on in the home most programs are unsuccessful.
Often when I work with children in the office I leave the door open for the parent to observe, or they may watch the session on video from the another room. There is a reason for this. While I'd like to think the 50 minute session with me was valuable and life changing, in reality it was only 50 minutes out of the child's week and without some followthrough in new settings to help generalize new skills, not much is going to happen. As a pediatric psychologist much of the time my job is to model appropriate parent based interventions. Yes, I do need to meet your child. Yes, I often meet with children weekly to model skills, teach problem solving and do ongoing assessment of progress, but your child's number one hope is you. Not only does the home provide the most important opportunities for teaching and reinforcing social communication skills, but also provides the most likely place for mistakes to be made. And if you want to be your kid's coach, you need to know the rule book of the game.
I think Super Nanny demonstrates this every week on her show (although I shutter when she uses the "naughty circle" and advise against this exact practice!). Super Nanny comes into your home and observes, she then consults with the parents, teaches new skills and gives immediate and sends parents off to try their new skills. A few days later she's back to help you with problems you've had (usually reviewing a video of your skills in action).
That's really a great way for parents to learn to be their child's coach. And it's a great way to do treatment.
Many of the skills we teach parents are counter intuitive, based upon research and tested again and again. As a parent of several children myself, including several foster and adopted children with special needs, I have often needed to consult with professionals to learns the ins and outs of working with a child who needs very specialized intervention and training. PArent training and education are like the training and education any coach has to undergo before he or she is let on to the field with a team. And being part of a team means theirs more than one brain figuring out a problem.
In addition to working with therapists, psychologists and teachers there are many really good videos and CD programs to help you. You can check some out on my amazon.ca page. Just go to my web page and look for a button directing you to books and DVD's I recommend at www.drjimroche.com
Too often parents call me for an appointment and ask, "Do I need to stay at your office while Tommy's with you?" Well, the real question is, "Does Tommy need to be here?" Parents are the most important factor in changing a child's behaviour, teaching new skills, and doing the most important two things that lead to success: Modelling the correct social behaviour in the natural setting they would normally take place in, and reinforcing a child when he or she does what we want to see more of. Without these two components going on in the home most programs are unsuccessful.
Often when I work with children in the office I leave the door open for the parent to observe, or they may watch the session on video from the another room. There is a reason for this. While I'd like to think the 50 minute session with me was valuable and life changing, in reality it was only 50 minutes out of the child's week and without some followthrough in new settings to help generalize new skills, not much is going to happen. As a pediatric psychologist much of the time my job is to model appropriate parent based interventions. Yes, I do need to meet your child. Yes, I often meet with children weekly to model skills, teach problem solving and do ongoing assessment of progress, but your child's number one hope is you. Not only does the home provide the most important opportunities for teaching and reinforcing social communication skills, but also provides the most likely place for mistakes to be made. And if you want to be your kid's coach, you need to know the rule book of the game.
I think Super Nanny demonstrates this every week on her show (although I shutter when she uses the "naughty circle" and advise against this exact practice!). Super Nanny comes into your home and observes, she then consults with the parents, teaches new skills and gives immediate and sends parents off to try their new skills. A few days later she's back to help you with problems you've had (usually reviewing a video of your skills in action).
That's really a great way for parents to learn to be their child's coach. And it's a great way to do treatment.
Many of the skills we teach parents are counter intuitive, based upon research and tested again and again. As a parent of several children myself, including several foster and adopted children with special needs, I have often needed to consult with professionals to learns the ins and outs of working with a child who needs very specialized intervention and training. PArent training and education are like the training and education any coach has to undergo before he or she is let on to the field with a team. And being part of a team means theirs more than one brain figuring out a problem.
In addition to working with therapists, psychologists and teachers there are many really good videos and CD programs to help you. You can check some out on my amazon.ca page. Just go to my web page and look for a button directing you to books and DVD's I recommend at www.drjimroche.com
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Chelation based on faulty premise -- latimes.com
Chelation based on faulty premise -- latimes.com
Posted using ShareThis
This is an important article about an "alternative therapy" which I hope parent's consider before becoming involved in anything as dangerous and unsubstantiated as Chelation therapy. The most effect treatments for ASD remain Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and related social communications therapies. If your here in BC and you search the web for treatment options for your child surprisingly what comes up first on many Google or Bing searches are alternative therapies for which there is very little scientific evidence. These include Chiropractic therapy, naturopaths, homeopathic interventions and DAN doctors who make diet advise that is not supported by mains team medicine. Again, I urge you to check out mainstream resources, including the ACT website in BC, information from the US National Institute of Mental Health, at your local school ask for a consult with the POPARD consultant (Provincial Outreach Program for Autism and Related Disorders) or, even better, talk to your medical doctor. My favorite resource is Science Based Medicine, edited by Dr. Steven Novella. Quack Watch is another good resource for science / researched based information.
More recently the Lancet, which originally published the article falsely linking autism to vaccines withdrew the article by Andrew Wakefiled, the doctor who proposed the "link" many of these theories and interventions are based upon. There were several other authors of the article, and all of them had withdrawn their names, except Dr. Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield has been found guilty of fixing the data, and creating the link between autism and vaccines to support his own plan to provide an alternative. In spite of the overwhelming evidence, legal cases won and disciplinary action taken against the doctors who started this line of false thinking, some practitioners still make claims that are contradictory of the weight of scientific evidence, and offer to take your money to provide treatments based upon those false claims. Beware. Check with your own medical provider, check with your POPARD consultant at your child's school. What you shouldn't do is obtain information from newspapers who often mis=report data, and not accept information from the internet (including me!)
Look for professional advice, and don't think your getting professional advice from anyone in the field of "alternative" treatments. Usually alternative means unproven or unaccepted by the scientific community.
Posted using ShareThis
This is an important article about an "alternative therapy" which I hope parent's consider before becoming involved in anything as dangerous and unsubstantiated as Chelation therapy. The most effect treatments for ASD remain Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and related social communications therapies. If your here in BC and you search the web for treatment options for your child surprisingly what comes up first on many Google or Bing searches are alternative therapies for which there is very little scientific evidence. These include Chiropractic therapy, naturopaths, homeopathic interventions and DAN doctors who make diet advise that is not supported by mains team medicine. Again, I urge you to check out mainstream resources, including the ACT website in BC, information from the US National Institute of Mental Health, at your local school ask for a consult with the POPARD consultant (Provincial Outreach Program for Autism and Related Disorders) or, even better, talk to your medical doctor. My favorite resource is Science Based Medicine, edited by Dr. Steven Novella. Quack Watch is another good resource for science / researched based information.
More recently the Lancet, which originally published the article falsely linking autism to vaccines withdrew the article by Andrew Wakefiled, the doctor who proposed the "link" many of these theories and interventions are based upon. There were several other authors of the article, and all of them had withdrawn their names, except Dr. Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield has been found guilty of fixing the data, and creating the link between autism and vaccines to support his own plan to provide an alternative. In spite of the overwhelming evidence, legal cases won and disciplinary action taken against the doctors who started this line of false thinking, some practitioners still make claims that are contradictory of the weight of scientific evidence, and offer to take your money to provide treatments based upon those false claims. Beware. Check with your own medical provider, check with your POPARD consultant at your child's school. What you shouldn't do is obtain information from newspapers who often mis=report data, and not accept information from the internet (including me!)
Look for professional advice, and don't think your getting professional advice from anyone in the field of "alternative" treatments. Usually alternative means unproven or unaccepted by the scientific community.
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