I spent the day yesterday at the Jumpstart Learning to Learn conference. The program was founded by Dr. Bryna Siegel, director of the Children's Center at Langley Porter/UCSF Autism Clinic, "as a national model to provide needed training to the community of parents, teachers, and clinicians who interact personally and professionally with young children with autism."
From what I could tell, the professionals in the audience outnumbered the parents by about three to one, which I found both empowering (good--we'll be on the same page) and a little scary (uh, you mean you guys don't know this already?) But okay, this is moving so quickly. Let's all learn at the same time.
Dr. Siegel gave the first keynote and Dr. Lynn Koegel gave the second. (If you recall, she was the expert called in for last year's Supernanny episode with an autistic child, which she recounted--amazing story). Then there were two tracks of three presentations each. Based on our most pressing issues at the moment, I opted for Dr. Pamela Wolfberg's presentation on integrated play groups, followed by Dr. Siegel's talk on how to match interventions to a child's unique challenges and learning styles. (For a complete agenda, click here).
As much as I generally avoid these things (death by Powerpoint), I got a lot out of it. Here are a few broad themes:
1. Moving away from diagnostic labels, and toward specificity: understanding each child's strengths, challenges and learning styles, and--praise be--matching the interventions to his or her actual needs. Thank you, Dr. Siegel.
2. Engaging the child is far more important than the type of therapy you are doing. There are dozens of therapies, and none is a magic bullet. But engagement trumps everything. It was quite poignant to hear Dr. Koegel, a behaviorist, talk about how in the early days she saw her patients progressing, but the kids (and their therapists) never smiled. Then, when they made the sessions more fun, the children began to make faster progress! It was also quite charming to see how funny and self-effacing she was about admitting this in public.
3. Using everything your child does--echolalia, stimming, whatever--as information to help you better understand what he is trying to communicate, and what he may need. This theme pervades Dr. Siegel's work (and, of course, Dr. Stanley Greenspan's) and there's also a wonderful blog called MOM - Not Otherwise Specified that has a brilliant post on the topic: "Dr. Strangetalk or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Echolalia." And let's apply that philosophy to stimming too, shall we? (BTW I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to help our kids move past these things...just that we shouldn't obsess about them too much. And yes, my dear husband, I will remember I said that.)
4. Play is core to the treatment of autism, because play engages every aspect of a child's physical, communicative and social skills. Dr. Wolfberg is the founder of the Autism Institute on Peer Relations and Play. The work she is doing with integrated (typical and ASD) playgroups is not to be missed. The highlight for me: a video showing how, over the course of a few months, they were able to draw a child with apparent Asperger's into the imaginative play of some typically-developing peers--absolutely thrilling to watch.
5. Don't think of insistence on routine as evidence of a disability if a child has difficulty decoding language. In other words, put yourself in his shoes. Dr. Siegel gave this example: you are in China, and have been invited to give a speech. You get to your hotel, and no one speaks English, and you don't speak Chinese. They give you your key, lead you to your room, and you go to sleep. The next morning, someone knocks on the door at 8:00 and takes you to the dining room for breakfast. So, what will you be doing the next morning at 7:55? Waiting for that knock, of course! Now imagine that when they come to get you, they lead you to the elevator, but it doesn't stop at the dining room--it goes directly to the lobby. How do you feel? Hungry? Confused? Powerless to communicate? Like throwing a tantrum until you get your coffee?
I only have one suggestion for next time: interactive breakout sessions. It would be great to get more dialogue going, especially among parents and professionals (and give us the opportunity to network in a more relaxed environment--we have so few opportunities for that in daily life).
What came through most strongly at the end of the day: a healthy respect for the mysteries of autism, tempered with the confidence that we're moving in a promising direction. Works for me.
Thanks for the overview; have been following the Koegels' work and Greenspan's for some time and appreciate hearing your views.
Posted by: Kristina Chew | March 11, 2007 at 10:04 PM