Published on: July 25, 2019

Safety First: A Parents Guide on Planning for Your Child’s Safety Skills

Safety of your child is every parent’s first priority, and this is only truer when you have a child with a special need, like autism.  Why then are safety skills so frequently left out of your child’s daily learning routines?  Take a look below at our top five safety skills that you can start practicing with your child today!

1. Knowing Essential Personal Information

In an emergency situation you want to make sure that your child is able to tell other individuals the most important information about themselves – their name, address, and a parent name.  A simple way to start teaching this skill is by having all of this information written on a card and having them practice handing the card to you when you ask “what’s your name?”  Depending on your child’s skill level, and as they make progress, you can teach them to say, write, or point to specific information on the card. 

2. Avoiding Unsafe Household Items

No parent can keep their eyes on their child all day long and so teaching them what items in the household are unsafe for them is an important skill.  While your child is learning this skill it is recommended that all unsafe items (sharp objects, cleaning products, etc.) be kept secured and out of reach of your child.  You may start practicing this skill by finding a symbol that you will use in your house to help your child discriminate what is unsafe – a red circle with a line through it is a common symbol.  Your child should practice avoiding (or staying away from) items with this symbol on them.  Start by practicing together with just one item.

3. Staying with a Parent in the Community

Decreasing any wandering or darting behavior when you take your child to the store, park or baseball game is a great way to increase their overall safety.  Depending on your child you may start this by always holding their hand or being within an arm’s reach when you’re out.  Give your child verbal praise (“I love how you’re staying with me!”), possibly along with something preferred that your child really likes (an M&M, a tickle, etc.) for every minute that they stay with you. 

4. Water Safety

Every parent should be aware of the potential dangers of open water, however many kids with autism are particularly drawn to water and water play.   Children should always be monitoring when in/around water, no matter how deep or shallow.  Enrolling your child in swim lessons is a great way to establish water safety skills and help your child understand rules around water. 

5. Potty Training

Being independent with self-care routines like potty-training is one of the best ways that an individual can keep themselves safe throughout their lives.  Talk with your team about bathroom independence for your child and ways that you can practice at home and at school.

So, now that you have an idea of where to begin, go ahead and started!  Start where you can with the resources that you have, but also talk with team members and professional about how to include these skills in other areas of programming, like on your child’s IEP.  And always remember, you’re never too early or too late to begin working on these skills – they will serve your child throughout the rest of their life.

Published on: April 25, 2019

A smile. A laugh. A tear. A hit. A bite. A point. A hug. Despite no words being spoken, communication is being conveyed with each of those actions. We are always communicating through our actions, our gestures, our expressions, and in our touch. Think of how someone might say “I love you” with a hug, “great job” with a high five, “I’m so mad” by stomping his feet, or “that hurt” by crying. These are examples of nonverbal communication.

Nonverbal communication is an essential part of how each person communicates in their daily lives with their peers, their friends, and their loved ones. This is especially true for our kiddos with autism. We often focus on giving kids expressive vocabulary to convey their thoughts and emotions but we cannot forget the importance of the subtleties and nuances of nonverbal communication which can make social communication a success or make it a difficulty.

There are a variety of types of nonverbal communication that help support a person’s spoken message. Here are a few that can a play an important role in social communication and social awareness:

1. Facial Expressions: Consider the look on a person’s face; it’s one of the first things you notice before even speaking. You can detect the type of mood a person may be in based on their facial expression – happiness, frustration, anger, sadness. Many of these facial expressions are similar around the world so you can read a person’s emotion despite not being from the same country. We look not just at whether a person is smiling or frowning, but if their eyebrows are arched or furrowed, if they are sweaty or flushed, if they are grimacing or grinding their teeth. All of these can have different implications of emotions.
2. Gestures: Common gestures include waving, pointing, or head nod/shake and these are often taught in early intervention as a way of responding and indicating. But what about in more subtle situations such as a person glancing at his watch to suggest that they are running out of time or someone holding their palm up to indicate “stop”. These may be commonplace in society but hard to acclimate to for a person with autism because they may have hidden meanings.
3. Paralinguistics: We all know the parent tone of voice when we are in trouble. All a parent has to do is say our name in a certain tone of voice and we know to stop what we are doing “or else” (think Mom voice!). But for a person with autism that can be really hard to decipher. Varying the tone of voice, the loudness, the pitch, or the inflection can change the meaning of the message, even if that message is only one word. For example, if I am given the word “ball”, I can change my inflection to make if sound like I am asking a question about it, demanding it, or labeling it.
4. Body Movement and Posture: Our perceptions of others can often be influenced by a person’s gait, how they stand, or how they sit. Think of a student sitting in class with his head down on the desk – he’s communicating a message pretty clearly. Or think of a person walking briskly to the bathroom – his message is being conveyed clearly as well.
5. Proxemics: When a person decides how close or how far away to be from another, they are communicating their thoughts or feelings about that person. Maybe by getting closer to another person someone is trying to communicate feelings of interest. Or maybe by trying to standing further away a person is trying to avoid another’s bad breath.
6. Haptics: Touch can be used to communicate a multitude of emotions such as affection and sympathy but is easily misunderstood for those on the autism spectrum. Touch can sometimes not be tolerated due to sensory sensitivities. For example, a person may want to give a hug to show affection but a person on the autism spectrum who cannot tolerate that type of touch may interpret a hug as a type of punishment. This may lead to miscommunication of different types of touch.

For those on the autism spectrum who have difficulties with the nuances of communication, this can lead to many communication breakdowns and a real struggle with social relationships. This is why it is so important to emphasize teaching nonverbal communication but also to individualize the teaching in accordance to the needs of and tolerance of the child. Not every person will like hugs or high fives or want to be closer to another person but it is still important to teach awareness of these skills in order to provide our kiddos with opportunities to flourish in social situations.

Before we can start teaching nonverbal communication, there are a few foundational skills we must make sure that our kiddos have or have an emergence of in order to benefit from direct teaching. Those skills include:

• Joint attention: the shared focus of two individuals through eye-gaze, pointing, or other verbal or non-verbal indications. This is an important in developing perspective taking.
• Comprehension of factual information: understanding of the concrete information such as labels, actions, and colors which is necessary prior to diving into teaching more abstract information
• Theory of Mind: the ability to think about mental states including emotions, desires, and beliefs, both their own and others.

Once it’s determined that a child has developed these skills or has an appropriate emergence of these skills, the team should begin focusing on teaching nonverbal communication in a direct manner. A great place to start is with teaching items discretely and then moving into a more naturalistic environment. For example, we can teach a child to decipher a facial expression through picture cards in an isolated setting, then move to picture books and work on deciphering emotions of characters. Once the child shows mastery with those situations, the child can work on interpreting emotions of adults during contrived situations and then finally move on to his peers during less structured situations such as lunch or recess. This sequence can be applied for many of the nonverbal skills and can move at any pace in accordance with the child’s rate of acquisition.

There is no real hierarchy of skills that can or should be taught; it should be according to whatever is most meaningful to the child at that moment and according to what his or her present levels show. However, in younger years we often see emotions, gestures, and proxemics being taught while in older years haptics, body movements, and paralinguistics are taught. Again, these skills should be based on the needs of the individual and should be discussed with the child’s caregivers and team to determine what is most impactful and relevant to the child’s entire day.

It’s extremely important to practice generalization with these skills and move into a more naturalistic environment, when appropriate, so that the child is getting as much real-life practice and feedback as possible. This will only allow for more opportunities to develop more successful interactions in the school, in the home, and in the community where all of the natural opportunities are taking place.

Understanding and teaching nonverbal communication will increase the ability of children on the autism spectrum to understand the world around them in a more meaningful way. It will allow them, and you, to enjoy the benefits of a hug, a smile and a laugh.

For more information on The Shafer Center contact [email protected]m or call 410-517-1113.

Published on: March 20, 2019

Teaching a child to live and function independently in society – this is a common goal for parents and professionals in the field of special education. Although this is a common goal, most people have a different definition for independence. Is independence accomplished when someone lives by themselves? Does it mean maintaining a job? Can independence mean being able to tie your shoe or make yourself breakfast? In reality, independence is difficult to define because it is different for every individual.  

In the field of special education, parents hear a lot of different terms when professionals talk about independence (e.g. activities of daily living, independent living skills, adaptive living skills, functional life skills, etc.). All of these terms mean activities that everyone regularly engages in; some activities you engage in every day. In other words, they are skills that are important to teach to promote independence. A profession in the field of special education that has a large focus on independence is behavior analysis. Behavior analysts study behavior and environmental variables in order to decrease non-preferred behavior and teach appropriate alternative behavior. When identifying skills to teach, behavior analysts ask themselves, “how will teaching this skill benefit this child in the future?” or “will this help promote independence in the child’s life?” Behavior analysts ensure that the behaviors that are taught have social significance and are beneficial to the child. The question remains, how do we go about teaching these skills?

Where do I start?

• Set realistic goals. Before you start teaching these independent skills, you want to think about what reasonable goals you have for the child. For instance, identifying the future goal as completing their morning routine by themselves but setting a short term goal as independently brushing their teeth.
• Teaching independence takes patience. Each skill will take a lot of practice. It is extremely challenging to be completely independent the first time you try something new. Be patient and enjoy even the smallest improvements in independence!
• Start small. Break down a task. For example, instead of targeting the whole task of brushing teeth, target each part. There are many skills that are associated with brushing teeth (e.g. turning on the water, opening the cap to the toothpaste, putting toothpaste on the toothbrush). You can more easily determine progress with independence if you view each step as a separate skill. Perhaps, you can take data on the amount of steps completed independently. Say there are 15 steps to brushing teeth and last week the child completed 2 steps independently and 5 steps independently this week, you can determine that the child is making progress towards independence in learning to brush their teeth.
• Give multiple opportunities to practice. The more opportunities to practice, the faster the child will acquire a skill.
• Set the child up for success. Have the child be successful with doing something on their own by starting with small steps that are already in their repertoire of skills. The child will have more success with acquiring a new skill if they start out successful. Think about doing really challenging math problems: if you start with difficult problems you are more likely to give up sooner. If you start with basic math problems first, the more difficult math problems will seem easier. Behavior analysts call this behavioral momentum.  
• Look at every situation as an opportunity to practice independence. Everything a child does in their day can be a time to teach independence. Opening the door, pouring milk in their cereal, and using utensils are all small steps to independence that can be easily incorporated and encouraged each day.
• Reinforce the behavior! Reinforcement can be many different things depending on the child’s preferences: praise, getting to play with their favorite toy following the activity, or even eating that sandwich after making it. Whichever way works for the child, let them know they are doing a great job!

When should I start?

• Start ASAP. It is never too early to teach independence. It may not be developmentally appropriate to teach your child to do their laundry at their current age but you can start by teaching them how to put their dirty clothes in the hamper.

How do I teach independence?

One of the most important things to think about, when promoting independence, is prompting and prompt fading.  A prompt is designed to help or cue another individual to perform a desired behavior. Prompts include, but are not limited to, physically assisting someone to perform the task (full-physical or partial physical prompts), using a visual cue (e.g. a written sequence of steps), verbal instructions, or using a gesture (e.g. pointing to the soap while washing hands).

• Before you prompt anything, you want to think about the following:
  • What can they already do by themselves? To answer this question, we take baseline data. Baseline data is a way to measure their current level of independence before we implement a teaching procedure. First, ask them to do a task and see what parts of the task they can already do themselves. We do not want to prompt or teach skills that they already do independently.
  • Pick prompts that can be easily faded. We want to make sure that we are actually teaching the skill and not just doing the desired behavior for the child. For example, if you are always vocally telling your child what the next steps are, they may start waiting for you to tell them the next steps. Instead have them focus on the things that will naturally cue them to do the next step. Behavior analysts like to use the phrase, “prompting to the relevant stimuli.” Let’s say, a child is in the process of washing their hands. The fact that their hands are wet and the sight of the paper towels should be their natural cue to dry their hands, instead of the verbal command, “dry your hands” or if you were to take a paper towel and wiping their hands for them.
• How to use prompting to teach:
  • Prompt fading. When initially teaching a skill, you may need to use a more intrusive prompt (e.g. full-physical prompting) to have the child successfully complete the skill. Eventually, you want to slowly and systematically fade out the prompts for the child to do the skill independently. For example, the first time the child made a sandwich, you had to use full-physical (“hand-over-hand”) prompting for the entire task to be completed. Next time, you can see if the child can complete opening the jelly jar by just gesturing to the jar. The less intrusive the prompt, the more independently they are completing the skill.
  • Utilizing wait time. Waiting for them to try to do something independently before you jump in and help can be the most effective, least intrusive way to promote independence. I know it is sometimes hard to wait – it could be their 5^th time trying to tie their shoe and they are already running late for school. Before you rush in to help and try to speed up the process, just know that you are providing them with an opportunity to practice independence.
  • Practice, practice, practice! As it was mentioned above, the more practice the better!

When they have a skill, what should I do next?

• Check for generalization. Can your child demonstrate the skill with different people and in different environments? For example, after teaching washing hands in the child’s home bathroom, can your child wash their hands in a public bathroom as well? If the skill does not generalize to other people, environments or stimuli, you may need to teach the skill in those settings.
• Using the skill to learn other skills. Building upon generalization, many skills can be used in different situations. Using similar, previously taught skills can help teach new skills. For example, if the child learns to zip their jacket, check to see if they have generalized this skill to the zipper on their lunchbox or backpack.
• Continue to practice the skill. The child may have demonstrated this skill independently a couple of times, but that does not determine if the child will maintain that skill over time. Learned skills should be probed for maintenance following the child demonstrating the skill independently. This means, the child should continue to practice the skill. Luckily, opportunities to practice these independent skills frequently and naturally occur in the child’s daily life.

What if problem behavior occurs? 

• Trying new, difficult tasks can sometimes be related to an increase in problem behavior that functions as a way to escape (get away from) the demand. This is a great opportunity to teach advocating for themselves by practicing asking for help or using appropriate language to say something is difficult. We encourage our kids to be independent but we also want to reinforce appropriate communication. If a child engages in problem behavior, the activity/demand should remain in place until the activity is completed or until the child asks to finish the activity without engaging in problem behavior. We want to make sure that escape from the demand is not granted by engaging in problem behavior. If the demand is removed because they are engaging in problem behavior, they will most likely engage in problem behavior in the future to escape a demand.

To summarize, every activity a child does throughout their day can be a time to teach independence. The earlier a child starts on practicing independent skills, the more opportunities they will receive to practice the skill. Even if the task may not be developmentally appropriate for the child at their current age, we can still work on parts of the task. Start by setting realistic goals and breaking down big tasks into steps. An effective way to teach these skills is by using prompting and systematically fading the prompts to less intrusive prompts. It is important to remember that everyone makes mistakes – that is how we learn. Lastly, patience in essential; be supportive and always reinforce their appropriate behavior!  

References:

Taurozzi, S. (2015, July 22). Promoting Independence in a Child with Autism. Retrieved from https://nspt4kids.com/parenting/promoting-independence-in-a-child-with-autism/

Cooper, John O., Heron, Timothy E.Heward, William L. (2007) Applied behavior analysis /Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Pearson/Merrill-Prentice Hall

Published on: February 22, 2019

Diploma or Certificate?

This question seems to be a hot button issue and bring up a lot of feelings. Is your child getting a diploma or are they on a certificate track? It is not a question that many parents of neuro-typical kids have to ask themselves. But it is absolutely a question that parents, with kids on the autism spectrum, are asked.

The question gets right into a quagmire of emotions because there are so many stereotypes around it. A diploma means smart and accomplished. It has a higher status. If my child who is on the autism spectrum receives a diploma then they are doing better then those kids who don’t receive one. A certificate is subpar and means not intelligent or capable. If my child gets a certificate they will not be as successful. All of these stereotypes are complete bullshit.

Let me tell you about my experience. And this is my experience and I am sure that other parents may feel differently and that’s ok. My son, Hayden, is 16 years old and is autistic. When Hayden was younger it was never a question in my mind that he wouldn’t or couldn’t get a diploma. In elementary school, Hayden was included in a mainstream environment for most of the day and he did well. He excelled at math and, while language arts was a more challenging class, we worked with our school to modify that work. In middle school, we decided that Hayden needed a more self contained special education classroom. That worked well because it kept him in smaller classes and Hayden still did well with his grades even making honor roll a few times.

It is important to note that even though Hayden did ok in school he really didn’t enjoy it. School has always been challenging because there is so much to process; directions from the teachers, information in class, what the other students are doing. It has always been hard for him to try and keep everything together in school. As he went into high school, my husband and I knew that things were going to get more challenging. His grades counted as did state testing scores. It was when Hayden started high school that we started asking whether he should move to a certificate track. My husband was more in favor of making the change because he wanted Hayden to do more things that would prepare him for when he did graduate. I felt that we had worked so hard to get Hayden to this point that I didn’t want to give up on it. I also felt that having a diploma would give Hayden more options when it came to employment. We were divided and just kept things the same.

As Hayden started his junior year of high school, we needed to reevaluate. Here are the questions we asked ourselves as we tried to evaluate what was right for Hayden and for us:

1. Does Hayden want to go to college? Is that an option for him? Knowing whether higher education was something he wanted was important as part of this process. We needed to understand if there was some area of study that he wanted to further that would give him a purpose or an employment path.
2. What does Hayden’s life look like after school? This is a very difficult question to answer because so much is unknown. But spending some time to think about what his day looks like and what he would be doing helped us in making this decision.
3. Is what he’s learning in school valuable to his future? There are many parts of the educational process that are important. Learning is also important. What we looked at was what parts of Hayden’s learning and educational setting mattered to him and us. We looked at this through the lens of what we think his life will be like after school.
4. Is a diploma important? It was this question that was the most difficult emotionally. We want the best for our kids and if we said no, was that a defeat?

Hayden was the one who helped us decide what was right for him. He told us that he didn’t want to go to college. It wasn’t a proactive conversation on his part at all. It just came up naturally because his sister is applying to colleges now and I was able to ask Hayden if he wanted to go. He said no. I have to respect that. Hayden has also expressed a lot of anxiety about school; the volume of work, the pace, and being able to process it all. He kept asking for us to make things easier.

How could I not listen to him? This is all about him. So we have started the process of moving from a diploma track to a certificate. And none of stereotypes matter anymore. I know that a diploma doesn’t make someone smart. Hayden is smart and bright and will have many opportunities in his future; doing it in a way that makes him feel good about himself and giving him a purpose. And in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Published on: November 30, 2017

It is hard to find extracurricular activities that our kids are interested in, and that understand our kids. With Autism awareness growing so are the opportunities for inclusion in extracurricular activities! If your kids are interested in sports, inclusive sports teams in the area include:

• Adapted Karate at Baltimore Martial Arts Academy in Catonsville. Adapted Karate at Baltimore Martial Arts Academy provides a program for children with special physical, intellectual and emotional needs.
• Allied Sports offers inclusive sports programs such as soccer, bowling and softball to high school students.
• Baltimore Adapted Recreation and Sports provides recreation and sports programs for individuals with physical and developmental disabilities. Includes bowling, skiing, cycling, kayaking and more.
• Baltimore Area Special Hockey, an ice hockey league designed for children and adults with traumatic brain injury, Autism and Down Syndrome.

If sports aren’t in hour child’s interest, there are also program for Arts, Theater and exploring nature. These programs include:

• Access-Ability Sailing, Downtown Sailing Center offers opportunities for individuals with disabilities the opportunity to sail on Saturdays from April-August.
• Ann Street Players at The Fells Point Corner Theater is a community program that welcomes individuals with disabilities get involved in theater.
• Augmenting Ability in Harford County offers group and individual Music Therapy and adapted music lessons.
• Exploration Art School offers programs to students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and ASD.

There are also programs out there to serve the entire family. Such programs include:

• Lighthouse in Catonsville provides Sociabilities social skills groups and family counseling for children and their parents.
• AMC Sensory-Friendly Films- AMC partnered with the Autism Society to provide a sensory friendly atmosphere for the whole family on the second and fourth Saturday of every month. Participating theaters include: AMC Columbia 14, White Marsh 16, Owings Mills 17, Georgetown 14 and MJ Capital Center 12.
• The National Aquarium in Baltimore offers special visit times on select dates, early and express entry options, listening devices and other special accommodations for individuals in need.

But the fun doesn’t have to be limited to after school and weekend activities, there are now vacation options that include sensory friendly activities that are inclusive for all families! Surfer’s Healing is a program that has spread to multiple beaches across the country, teaching kids to surf! Surfer’s Healing originated in Southern California, but has spread to beaches all over the country including Ocean City, MD, Mexico and Puerto Rico! For more information on registering and locations check out, https://www.surfershealing.org/. Another great vacation opportunity is Autism on the Sea. Autism on the Sea is a national organization that has teamed up with Royal Cruises to create a sensory friendly atmosphere, as well as experienced staff and great activities to accommodate adults, kids and families with special needs. For more information on Autism on the Sea their website is, https://autismontheseas.com/.

Opportunities for inclusive activities are available for all children, families and interests! For more information on the activities listed above, and for other opportunities visit http://baltimoreschild.com/special-needs-recreation/.

By Michelle Fox

For more information on The Shafer Center contact 410-517-1113 or [email protected]