I wanted to share a video about transitions and autism. This is a topic that comes up with almost every case, and often examples of transition techniques for children, adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or Asperger's Disorder. It's also a technique I discuss with parents and teachers dealing with ADHD, as difficulty with transitions is often a key moment in the day when problems occur. Here you will find a video on transitions that is provided by POPARD, the Provincial Outreach Program for Autism and Related Disorders. POPARD has a lot of materials, including excellent eLearning lessons for both teachers and parents. Here is the website to watch this video:
http://www.autismoutreach.ca/elearning/classroom-strategies/transitions
Now transitions are difficult for students because disorders such as autism, Aspergers, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) often effect the brains frontal lobes, an area that handles what we call "Executive Function." This is the part of the brain that allows us to switch mental sets, or transition from one activity to another. It's also the part of the brain that allows us to change thoughts, or our focus of attention, and finally, it's the part of the brain that tells us to wait! Oddly students with executive dysfunction, which includes most students and children with autism, Asperger's or ADHD can have difficulty with both switching from one activity to another (or moving from one place to another), difficulty stopping one activity and starting another, AND difficulty with impulsivity. They may also switch abruptly, at the wrong moments. This is often why children, adolescents and adults with autism, Asperger's and ADHD have difficulty sustaining attention during transition and need supports.
An excellent support is the use of visual transition strategies. These supports do several things which promote independence, they: increase appropriate behaviour during the transition; reduce the need for adult prompts (and reduce the chance that a child will become "prompt dependent"); increase predictability for the child, adolescent or adult (and thereby reduces anxiety) and finally they provide consistent or "non-transient" visual information. They provide prompts or cues that the person can count on being the same any time, any place.
For children visual prompts for transitions can be things such as a Time-Timer (a special clock that visually shows the remaining time in a large, red pie section), transition strips or countdown strips, simple single or multi-item transition cards, visual schedules such as PEC cards, to do and finish boxes, visual outlines on task papers, reading or other assignments. An important aspect of using visual cues and prompts to make transitions is that the cues are external, outside the brain, and therefore are clear. As adults most of us use these sorts of supports, using either a paper visual calendar or maybe an iphone or other electronic calendar. The point is that visual cues help us through these transitions, they prompt us to make changes and cue us when those changes are to happen. POPARD's web page has several other useful videos on using specific visual devices, and the one mentioned above has some demonstrations. One problem that I often see is that when a student or child becomes competent at a specific task that was supported by a visual transition cue of some sort, the cue is taken away. This is not the time to remove visual supports. Instead we should think: "Now that Tommy responds well to this visual transition prompt, where else can I use this tool?" and "How do I need to change this for next year, when he might need something more socially appropriate for secondary school?" We change the nature of the visual prompt to closer match the child's developmental level (which is ever changing) and we think about how we can now use this successful tool in new areas where the child, adolescent or adult with autism, Asperger's or ADHD might be having problems. What we don't do is remove a successful support because a specific skill is learned.
Some good resources for understanding the use of transition supports can be found on the POPARD web page. There are also numerous books on using visual supports ranging from PECS programs to using visual supports for organization and task completion (by Michelle Winner). Look for these tools to help you, and find a professional to help you with the implementation if you need it.
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More information on the services I provide for students, children, adolescents and adults with autism, Asperger's, ADHD, learning disabilities and related disorders can be found on my web page at www.relatedminds.com, www.adhdhelp.ca or at www.socialcognitivetherapy.com
My offices are located in Burnaby and Vancouver and service Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, Maple Ridge and North Vancouver.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Learning "styles," an idea whose time has come and gone
While a teacher in Brooklyn, actually East New York, I took several of my graduate courses at Brooklyn College through the teacher's union education program. One course focused on the "learning styles" of children. We were taught, for the entire semester, about different learning styles that our students had, and taught that if we didn't cater to these different and individual learning styles, our students would suffer. We were taught how to assess students, asking them questions and watching their facial, eye and hand movements in reaction to our questions. If a student looked up to the right...she was "accessing visual memory" and if the student looked down to the left she was "accessing auditory memory." Or it may have been the other way around, I don't remember. But the point is we assessed all of our children and then addressed their learning styles in their IEP's (Individual Education Plans).
Like so many interventions in education this one was simply based upon someone's idea they had at breakfast that morning, and was supported by little and poor research. Really poor research. (One thing we never were required to take in graduate school - in the education department - was a course in statistics ...or research design for that matter, so we were easy victims to the woo science of education). As the years went by I realized individual children might have specific learning disabilities, or actual physical disabilities that made learning certain information difficult, but individual learning styles? No, not really. And finally this theory of how to educate our students is falling by the wayside under the pressure of real science, real research and a basic understanding of what learning really is. Here is what one recent paper on "Learning Styles" concluded:
"Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.nWe conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number."
For more about this click here.
Here is an excellent video about learning styles and current research. IT's pretty good at explaining this issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk&tracker=False
I write about this because many parents still consider schools to be failing them if they don't cater to their child's particular "learning style." This is especially true in the past few years as so much money and effort has been put into teaching children with autism disorder "visually" because people think that children with autism are "visual learners." That's not true, and what's worse is this "visual learner" idea has infiltrated the general education classroom.
We learn about art by looking at it, but we understand it by thinking about it. Same with reading, same with math. What we all need to understand is that learning is about thinking, and we might use different methods to understand something,to get information about it, to see or hear it, but these are not the same as different "learning styles" or different styles of thinking. We all think, pretty much, alike.
That goes for children with autism and Aspeger's as well. Sooner or later it comes down to a very similar process of thinking something out. And while some individuals may use visual tools or auditory tools to help with memorization and other specific cognitive processes, they are not really visual or auditory learners in the sense some educators want us to believe. When we ask a child to look at a photo and tell us what is going on, or alternatively to read or listen to a story and tell us what is going on, the cues and prompts may be different in each case, but the learning and thinking is not. So it's difficult to sit through a discussion at an IEP and hear how student X is a "visual learner." He isn't! People make some assumption that this student has superior visual abilities, well, his visual abilities and skills may be higher than auditory, true, but he is not a "visual thinker." Thinking is a complex cognitive process and for all of us it's pretty much the same. The video clip listed above gives a great example of this, and in spite of the fact that some proponents of "learning styles" have spammed the site with negative feedback, the science is strong and learning styles are not supported by most research.
Now does this mean that visual supports are not appropriate for children with autism or Asperger's disorder? NO! Visual supports are great, and honestly, just this past week I had to convince three parents to return to using visual supports with their children who they thought had grown out of them. Figuring out and using visual supports is a critical component to success with these children. I use visual supports all the time. I need a pencil and paper to figure out math problems, I take notes in meetings, I draw and write out plans and use pen and paper to try out different ideas when rebuilding my house. My daily calendar is a visual support. My to do list. I am surrounded by visual supports that provide an external way of planning, seeing and explaining my ideas. My learning and thinking, however, goes on in my head...supported by external visual and auditory (I listen to a lot of books on CD or MP3) input. The visual supports we provide are external devices, sometimes used to help with input, sometimes output. But when your child uses a PECS board to tell you they need to use the toilet, or wants to go outside, or likes something and wants more (maybe even you!) the learning and thinking didn't go on visual on the PECS board. The PECS board or other visual communication system was the input or output device that supported your child in communicating and ultimately understanding. We can't understand and think about things that can't be communicated. And visual supports are communication supports.
I decided to write this and provide the explainatory video because too often parents and school get into protracted arguments when every single learning situation isn't somehow reflective of the idea that their child is "a visual learning." I even have kids tell me this. Research shows that specific handicaps aside, learning is just learning. How you get the information into your child's mind is a different matter, but we shouldn't confuse the two.
Thank you for reading my blog, provided to you on your visual communication support system (computer, ipad, or maybe even printed out). You now can either agree or disagree ....but that happens in your head, not in the computer.
This web page is not meant as a medical aid, not meant to provide specific advice, treatment protocols or diagnosis. Please see your medical doctor or register psychologist for specific advice. You can also visit my web page at www.relatedminds.com.
Here is an excellent video on learning styles: click here.
For more information on this Click here.
Like so many interventions in education this one was simply based upon someone's idea they had at breakfast that morning, and was supported by little and poor research. Really poor research. (One thing we never were required to take in graduate school - in the education department - was a course in statistics ...or research design for that matter, so we were easy victims to the woo science of education). As the years went by I realized individual children might have specific learning disabilities, or actual physical disabilities that made learning certain information difficult, but individual learning styles? No, not really. And finally this theory of how to educate our students is falling by the wayside under the pressure of real science, real research and a basic understanding of what learning really is. Here is what one recent paper on "Learning Styles" concluded:
"Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.nWe conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number."
For more about this click here.
Here is an excellent video about learning styles and current research. IT's pretty good at explaining this issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk&tracker=False
I write about this because many parents still consider schools to be failing them if they don't cater to their child's particular "learning style." This is especially true in the past few years as so much money and effort has been put into teaching children with autism disorder "visually" because people think that children with autism are "visual learners." That's not true, and what's worse is this "visual learner" idea has infiltrated the general education classroom.
We learn about art by looking at it, but we understand it by thinking about it. Same with reading, same with math. What we all need to understand is that learning is about thinking, and we might use different methods to understand something,to get information about it, to see or hear it, but these are not the same as different "learning styles" or different styles of thinking. We all think, pretty much, alike.
That goes for children with autism and Aspeger's as well. Sooner or later it comes down to a very similar process of thinking something out. And while some individuals may use visual tools or auditory tools to help with memorization and other specific cognitive processes, they are not really visual or auditory learners in the sense some educators want us to believe. When we ask a child to look at a photo and tell us what is going on, or alternatively to read or listen to a story and tell us what is going on, the cues and prompts may be different in each case, but the learning and thinking is not. So it's difficult to sit through a discussion at an IEP and hear how student X is a "visual learner." He isn't! People make some assumption that this student has superior visual abilities, well, his visual abilities and skills may be higher than auditory, true, but he is not a "visual thinker." Thinking is a complex cognitive process and for all of us it's pretty much the same. The video clip listed above gives a great example of this, and in spite of the fact that some proponents of "learning styles" have spammed the site with negative feedback, the science is strong and learning styles are not supported by most research.
Now does this mean that visual supports are not appropriate for children with autism or Asperger's disorder? NO! Visual supports are great, and honestly, just this past week I had to convince three parents to return to using visual supports with their children who they thought had grown out of them. Figuring out and using visual supports is a critical component to success with these children. I use visual supports all the time. I need a pencil and paper to figure out math problems, I take notes in meetings, I draw and write out plans and use pen and paper to try out different ideas when rebuilding my house. My daily calendar is a visual support. My to do list. I am surrounded by visual supports that provide an external way of planning, seeing and explaining my ideas. My learning and thinking, however, goes on in my head...supported by external visual and auditory (I listen to a lot of books on CD or MP3) input. The visual supports we provide are external devices, sometimes used to help with input, sometimes output. But when your child uses a PECS board to tell you they need to use the toilet, or wants to go outside, or likes something and wants more (maybe even you!) the learning and thinking didn't go on visual on the PECS board. The PECS board or other visual communication system was the input or output device that supported your child in communicating and ultimately understanding. We can't understand and think about things that can't be communicated. And visual supports are communication supports.
I decided to write this and provide the explainatory video because too often parents and school get into protracted arguments when every single learning situation isn't somehow reflective of the idea that their child is "a visual learning." I even have kids tell me this. Research shows that specific handicaps aside, learning is just learning. How you get the information into your child's mind is a different matter, but we shouldn't confuse the two.
Thank you for reading my blog, provided to you on your visual communication support system (computer, ipad, or maybe even printed out). You now can either agree or disagree ....but that happens in your head, not in the computer.
This web page is not meant as a medical aid, not meant to provide specific advice, treatment protocols or diagnosis. Please see your medical doctor or register psychologist for specific advice. You can also visit my web page at www.relatedminds.com.
Here is an excellent video on learning styles: click here.
For more information on this Click here.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Detoxification Myth
Another parent came by today and told me she had spent several thousands of dollars having her child ...well, I'm not sure how to put it: "Detoxicated." This involved blood transfusions, taking what is referred to as medication to cleanse the body of toxins and a major change in diet. I never know what to say to this, the evidence is so clear, toxins and detoxification are unrelated to Autism, Aspergers, ADHD or any other problem patients see me for. But if you look on the web it's toxin, toxin and more toxins that you are told to worry about. One of the many ways parents are lead down this path is by tests that show their child is full of toxins. These are usually misleading tests that leach different chemicals from the body that the body, EVERYBODY, naturally has. You take a pill or drink a fluid and then your urine or blood is measured and amazingly and scary levels of these toxins appear. Well, first, most are normal to everyone...yes our body produces some strange things, naturally! Including acids and formaldehyde. Yes, we make it in our own bodies! And you can take a pill or drink a solution that leaches, literally drags it out of the body. Then, after this procedure, the urine sample is shown to have high levels of these substances. Smoke and mirrors.
Well, it's all very complicated, and some use this complicated nature of things to fool us. Here is a great podcast...a little "snarky" but it really gets the point across about these things.
The Detoxification Myth
another great source of basic information on detoxification can be found at www.quackwatch.com I recommending giving that a read.
finally, the Skeptic Society -Canadian - has a great article here on detoxification: click here.
This is a nice group of short reads, I'd print them out and read them carefully. It's a sorry world where we can be taken in by these myths at almost every corner where there is a drug store we should be able to trust. But knowledge is health they say, and asking the right questions is a good place to start.
Jim Roche
This blog is NOT meant to provide medical advice. Some people actually have toxins from exposure to chemicals in the workplace or home. But don't trust me, don't trust a sales pitch. Ask your medical doctor, your MD, for advice. You live in Canada, the advice from a trained professional is still free!
Well, it's all very complicated, and some use this complicated nature of things to fool us. Here is a great podcast...a little "snarky" but it really gets the point across about these things.
The Detoxification Myth
another great source of basic information on detoxification can be found at www.quackwatch.com I recommending giving that a read.
finally, the Skeptic Society -Canadian - has a great article here on detoxification: click here.
This is a nice group of short reads, I'd print them out and read them carefully. It's a sorry world where we can be taken in by these myths at almost every corner where there is a drug store we should be able to trust. But knowledge is health they say, and asking the right questions is a good place to start.
Jim Roche
This blog is NOT meant to provide medical advice. Some people actually have toxins from exposure to chemicals in the workplace or home. But don't trust me, don't trust a sales pitch. Ask your medical doctor, your MD, for advice. You live in Canada, the advice from a trained professional is still free!
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