Demystifying Autism: Friend 2 Friend Social Learning

I've been interested in the work of Heather McCracken for a while now. If you've not heard of her, she is the founder of the Friend 2 Friend Social Learning Society in Vancouver, British Columbia. She's speaking at the Autism Social Connections conference in San Francisco today.

Heather has three kids, one of which, Ian, has autism. When Ian was small, she read one of Pamela Wolfberg's books and was captivated by the idea of developing a program to demystify autism and help children with autism learn social skills from their typically developing peers (and, as it turns out, vice versa).

Today the Friend 2 Friend society has done over 1,700 autism demystification programs. 

The model seeks to enhance reciprocal social interaction. Says Heather,"the key to these friendship between children on the autism spectrum and their peers is to foster understanding, acceptance and empathy in an age-appropriate and sensitive manner." 

Here are a few tenets of the model.

Demystication is a process that supports a general understanding of autism. A big part of demystification is "normalizing" behaviors such as hand-flapping or toe-walking by explaining it in a personal context.

Here's an example: Heather likes twirl her hair. She does this when she's stuck in traffic. When she's late, she does it faster.  It doesn't get her where she's going, but it makes her feel better. We all have things that we do: toe tap, hair twirl, chew a pencil eraser--whatever--when we want to calm our bodies and our minds.

So the process of normalization is to model (demonstrate the behavior), label it, explain it and, in this way, dissolve the boundaries that divide people with disability or difference from those without.  

Another tenet is that, just because children with autism may have language processing difficulties, it doesn't mean they're not understanding what you say when you talk about them. So Heather's rule is this: if they can't be part of the conversation, they shouldn't be hearing the conversation: it's a question of respect.

Not about me, without me.

So many of us grew up not knowing kids with special needs, and the idea of opening up the conversation--of asking about difference--seems almost painfully wrong. "It's not polite to stare," I was told as a child, and I'm sure you were too. But Heather's belief is that asking is important, because it opens up the conversation, which leads to understanding, accepting, and ultimately, friendship.

For more on the Friend 2 Friend Social Learning Society, check out the website here.

Comments

[Niksmom]

Sounds like it was very interesting! And, um, sorry for trying to blackball you in the 'net. Oops...maybe I need remedial Twitter lessons?

[Hetha]

I would have really enjoyed learning about this program when I was teaching elementary school! That seems like the logical place for this type (and general tolerance) of training, yet the practicality of what you mentioned here would be really useful for adults as well. I am really struck by "not about me, without me". Serious food for thought.

I agree with Heather, asking is important. My son wears cochlear implants and since that requires electronic devices literally attached to the sides of his head via a magnet, we get a lot of stares. I'd love the chance to talk about it, but people are afraid to seem rude.

[Heather McCracken]

HI Susan
Thank you for your kind comments and your wonderful blog.
Heather