Linking C2U and Research

The Importance of Curiosity to You (C2U), Your Child’s Guide

I attended the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in San Francisco in May. It was a fabulous event with researchers across the globe, 800 presenters and 2300 participants! I was dumbstruck by the sheer amount of research happening in the field of autism today.

At the meeting, there were 2 keynote speakers that particularly took my breath away: Ami Klin and Connie Kasari.

Ami Klin has studied autism for many years and is the head of the Marcus Autism Center, a National Institute of Health Center of Autism Excellence in Atlanta, Georgia. You can read more about him here: http://www.marcus.org/About-Us/Leadership/Get-to-Know-Dr-Klin

Connie Kasari has dedicated her life’s work to researching things near and dear to my heart: joint attention and symbolic play with children with autism. Her research projects can be found on her site: http://www.kasarilab.org/

Both researchers stress the importance of joint attention and it’s impact on development. Ami Klin shared that he was struck by his own research’s findings that lead him to have the existential realization that what we look at drives where we find meaning. More specifically, he found that Infants who later develop autism are fairly scattered in their eye gaze with a bit more falling on inanimate objects. Infants who later develop neuro-typically are clearly gazing at caregiver's’ eyes and mouths. The trajectory of these eye gaze patterns can later be observed to be more scattered visual attention to objects in the environment during social interactions rather than social information. If you then think about the implications of where attention is placed on later cognitive development, autism truly makes more sense, and so does our ability to guide someone to learn the value of gazing toward social reciprocity and engagement for learning and growth.

My drive for people to use C2U in their interactions with people with autism is stronger than ever. Where curiosity goes, attention goes. By simply and clearly allowing someone to shift their attention (which researchers are now calling “sticky attention”) to the more social interactive elements of any scene (you) before the inanimate objects, you are giving them a very powerful  and fundamental tool for learning. By guiding them to sustain their attention there, you are guiding them to learn from it. I call this C2U+Synchrony.

For more information and steps to gain C2U+Synchrony with your child, student, or friend, please see my blog on the subject: http://synergyautism.blogspot.com/2016/05/c2u-plus-synchrony.html

Partnering with your Child

Today I am talking about the importance of partnering with your child.  For some parents it may come naturally, for others it may feel challenging at first.  I encourage you to partner with your child at least ten times per day, every day.  It will get easier and you can start out small and always build on your successes in length of time you are partnering or ways in which you partner.

Developmentally, it is amazing how much children do in typical development that we do not talk about much.  WE seem to only talk about the end results of development.  We even call them milestones.  Think about a baby sitting up for the first time; did she do that without partnering with a guide holding her hands to pull her from lying down to sitting a dozen or more times before doing it on her own?  How about walking?  Did she just go from sitting up to walking without an occasional hand held for steadying?  Then there are those mini-moments as we grow that we learn through our parents’ physical guidance to stir, cut, move, swing, or turn.  We celebrate the achievements of the task, but what about the process of partnering that got us there?

For individuals with autism, independence can be strong and social engagement for learning and growing may be weaker.  If an infant seems to enjoy being alone we may allow him to swing alone in his swing.  The we marvel at the child’s manipulation of toys without needing assistance from us.  We are thrilled to see her watching videos and learning the alphabet without direct intervention and partnering for learning.  However, this teams that child is not getting practice with the exchange of information between two people.  She is not learning that physical touch can be helpful and meaningful.  SHe does not feel the guidance that can be modulated for her learning (not too much but allowing her to be as independent as possible.)  There may be occasions or areas of development that a child does use the physical partnering effectively, such as motor development.   But for toy exploration, imitation of parental actions that lead to imaginary play, and more, we often see very little partnering occurring for natural learning in autism.

Interestingly, most of my work is to help parents simply create opportunities for a skill to be generalized or become meaningful in a variety of contexts.  We often do not need to teach a specific skill but need to teach when to use it and why.  Partnering is one of those.  We do not need to teach your child to take a spoon you are offering and stir a bowl of cookie dough with you.  Our goal is to create opportunities for your child to use her ability to take action in partnerships with you to learn and grow to new heights of learning and engagement.

Definition of a partnership:

A partnership is one where both parties have authentic roles in a meaningful task, activity, or project.  A partnership can be a quick situation of opening a door together to a longer engagement of wiping down a table together or engaging in play.

Simple ways to partner with your child:

1. Take laundry out of the washer together and put it into the dryer
2. Stir something together
3. Make the bed together
4. Play a game
5. Read a book by taking turns or by having your child turn the pages
6. Push, pull, manipulate play dough together
7. Sweep a patio, deck, kitchen floor together (both hands on broom or one has the dust pan)
8. Sing together (both singing at the same time or one and then the other)
9. Play pat a cake type games
10. Move, dance, walk together in usion or taking turns
11. Explore and find objects to gather into one container

Make it manageable for learning to happen

Remember that our goal is for your child to learn new things from you, her guide.  If you create an opportunity for partnering and it becomes boring you are not going to be teaching anything new.  If it is too overly exciting or stimulating or difficult you also will not be teaching anything new, except maybe that she does not way to partner with you.  So make sure your partnership remains manageable.  Offer changes to keep it light, fun, yet challenging.  It is always okay to offer light teasing if it is meaningful for your child.  It can even be therapeutic for your child to see when things are not as they seem.  Challenges that are right on the child’s edge of competency are going to keep her engagement and interest.

Too boring = disengagement

Too difficult or overstimulating = disengagement

Make it physical

Be sure to have your child’s active participation in your partnership with her body involved.  Require her to use her hands to carry something or push something or manipulate something.  When your child’s body is engaged in a partnership with you her mind will be, too.

Be authentic

Think about your partnership and it’s authenticity.  If you are setting things up so that your child can reach everything need then she does not need you.  She won’t partner with you through the small challenges you provide.  If you decide to hand your child something to put in something else be sure to position yourself authentically so that your child needs to partner with you for success.

Be mindful

When you partner with your child, be sure to check in with yourself first.  Partnering with anyone takes mindfulness.  If your head is not in the game neither will your child’s.  Take a moment just prior to inviting your child into a partnership to take a deep breath and choose to be in the moment with her.  This will enable you to think during your interactive versus being triggered by behaviors and distractions.

Turn frustration into fascination

If your child or you become agitated during partnering ask yourself “why?”  Are you in the right frame of mind to be partnering with your child?  Is your child hungry>?  Tired?  Needing more direction?  Needing more independence?  These are all great questions that if you are asking them and willing to ponder them, you will know the answer of how to change or alter course.

Document the opportunities you provide

In some way that is meaningful for you, document the partnering opportunities you are offering to your child.  If you are able to video the partnering this is a great way to not only document for progress monitoring but it also will help you review what worked and did not work.  If you would like to partner more frequently, consider a simple tally mark on your family calendar or a note on the fridge.  But do take the time to document.  You will be so proud of yourself and your child when you see the progress can be seen in black and white.

Happy mindful parenting!

Barb

(revised and reposted from blog posted in 2015)

The power of moms

In celebration of Mother's Day, I thought I would take a moment to celebrate the power of moms of children with autism. I am in frequent admiration for mothers with whom I work. The determination, love, and confidence they so often bring to their children is downright inspiring. Here are just some of the wonderful things I see and hear from moms everyday:

They organize and schedule. Everything.
They comfort when their children and family members are sick.
They stay home or are the ones to be called home when a child is sick or so overwhelmed at school that they are hurting themselves or others.
They figure out how to respond when a child is upset, overwhelmed, or simply being obstinate... and they learn to truly know the difference.
They ensure healthy meals and take their children to appointments.
They research and provide the next dietary restrictions and modifications with often severely limited options (no dairy, no wheat, no oranges, no cinnamon, no, no, no, no).
They read to their children every night.
They bath, cloth, and cook meals... not to mention the clean up from each.
They yell, scream, lose it, and then apologize, regroup, and try again. and again. and again.
They drive and drive and drive to this appointment and that appointment.
They phone, email, schedule, coordinate, and videotape. all while ensuring everything above.
They connect with their children emotionally in the middle of chaotic moments even when they are feeling chaotic themselves.
...and they quietly, patiently, and beautifully celebrate others contributions to make everything work out in the end.

The Loving Push by Temple Grandin and Debra A Moore

How on earth did I miss this book when it first came out? One of my wonderful savvy parents brought it to one of our sessions and told me I just had to read it. She thought it would really speak my language. Boy, does it. I salute the authors' ability to discuss and guide parents to be validated in the importance of continual challenges in ways that are manageable AND in the individual's best interest.  Frequently, I will have one parent who pushes their teen or young adult over the edge of competency, assuming they're lazy, assuming manipulation or simply that they need a severe kick in the pants. Then I have the other parent, who worries about over-stressing their child and therefore over-compensates, making life easy and comfortable.

This book is a beautiful mix of how important it is to gain connection through empathy while then deliberately challenging with high and continual expectations. This combination can guide your teen or young adult to venture out of their comfort zone and into the rest of their lives.

I highly recommend this book to any parent of a teen or adult with autism. I'm only half way through and will continue to update this page with favorite quotes and words of wisdom from within it's pages.

https://www.amazon.com/Loving-Push-Professionals-Spectrum-Successful/dp/1941765203

"If you want a road to lead you somewhere different you have to change too. If you don't change where you are going, you will continue going where you are headed." -pg 7

"Remember that children or adults with high levels of hopefulness have been through adversity. Hope does not spring from contentment or security. They house of hope is built brick by brick - calamity upon hardship upon mishap upon mistake. With each trial, our children have the opportunity to develop their resilience, skills, flexibility, and adaptability. These trials provide necessary occasions to struggle and grow. And in doing that, they learn how to believe in themselves." pg. 48

C2U plus Synchrony

 

C2U^® Plus SYNCHRONY

developed by Barbara Avila, M.S. RDI^®

Consider  C2U^® plus Synchrony as a stand alone intervention that must happen for all children with autism to adequately receive and integrate any of the traditional interventions we have today (e.g., ABA, DIR, RDI, Social Thinking, and more). C2U + Synchrony ensures a child's true joint attention with his or her guide to keep her safe as she experiences her world around her. Developmentally, she must feel that security to then explore both independently and with others. With Synchrony, she learns the beauty of back and forth engagement and connection with others to learn and love. The earlier the better but this can happen starting at any age at any time with any trusted guide.

In autism, children have significant regulation and sensory issues that make this early connection, learning, and joint attention challenging. Therefore, they resort to their own devices for regulation (e.g., repetitive actions or verbalizations). A child with autism will seek familiar and repetitive patterns to attempt to soothe him/herself. It is our goal with children with autism, to ensure connection and repetitive engagement from a developmental standpoint to then redirect them to more meaningful soothing, while learning and engaging with others.

C2U^® with a child with autism takes significant, purposeful, and artful engagement from the guide. The purpose of this blog is to guide you to guide a child (or person of any age) with autism to connect with you and your guidance.

Step 1: Provide the environment for connection

In order to truly be curious and receive curiosity from a child (C2U^®), a child must trust his guides to provide manageable environments for him/her to connect and be guided. The first environment for connection should be quiet and relaxed with as little additional stimuli as possible. OR when a child is struggling with overstimulation, confusion, or otherwise seeming to be feeling “chaotic,” this quiet, calm scenario can be provided by the guide (e.g., in a busy environment, taking the child to a quiet part of the room or outside or simply well away from the offending environment).

•Quiet space

•Decrease clutter, including your own voice and visual stimulation

•Define the space visually where you are staying together (e.g., a couch or a room)

Step 2: Be calm while sharing the same space

Children with autism can vary moment to moment probably due to neurological or biological reasons. This requires us to truly be in a place that we are calm, collected, and settled in our own bodies. This may mean sitting beside the person or child with autism and listening to your own heartbeat, your own breathing. Allow yourself to breath deeply. Not only will this help you, it will help the child by your modeling breathing and not making immediate demands on him/her. This allows the child's attention to shift, his body to calm, and his availability more possible.

•Breathe

•Slow your own body down

•Say nothing

•Sit down

Step 3: Offer engagement “bids”

Children with autism are often used to people telling them what to do and/or trying to get them to respond a particular way that is either right or wrong. The performance anxiety in both scenarios can be high which can decrease interest and motivation to engage with others. Here is your chance to offer “bids” for engagement that are non-threatening, not performance based, simply bids to connect.

•Offer your hand out near the child

•Touch

•Lean in toward the child (or away)

•Say the echoed statement back (if being requested to do so) but in an ever so slightly different way... slowed down or with a lower or higher pitched voice than you typically might.

Step 4: Allow time for and recognize engagement (C2U)

Here is the most beautiful moment of all. This is where the child responds to your bid for engagement. Sometimes you have to wait a significant amount of time (offering your hand out and simply being in the moment for up to a full minute while you offer). That moment that the child gazes or shifts or reaches out to you is the most rewarding moment of all.*THIS is C2U®.

Step 5: Establish Synchrony

You know that moment when you are in a conversation with a friend and it is just flowing well? You feel truly connected to the person and the conversation topic. As mentioned in the beginning of this article, connection with a repetitive pattern is our goal, just like in a fluid conversation but here we are meaning nonverbal back and forth shared engagement. I like to call this “synchrony.” Synchrony implies that all are parts are working equally and efficiently to engage in a rhythmic pattern. This is also called co-regulation in developmental literature. An example of a co-regulated pattern with synchrony is the game of peek-a-boo. 

So following your first bid, your second bid should be to establish this synchrony. If you offer something now that is very incongruous with the first bid, you are out of synch with the last action (and the child). If you offer something very closely related, you can connect and establish synchrony, a rhythm of engagement that repeats while changing and evolving into completely different interactions and learning.

Step 6: Keep the Synchrony as you Redirect

Yet another moment of serious enjoyment... with the child responds to you and you respond to him in ever evolving ways and you feel truly connected. This is where so much of the art of engagement comes in. Your job is to expand and evolve the engagement while keeping the synchrony AND provide new experiences for learning and growing. If you have an activity in the other room that you would like to teach your student or child, this is the time to share the schedule or visual of the next activity and start moving physically toward the door with a rhythmic or synchronized pattern. This may be VERY subtle and your student may not find it meaningful for you to be too overt in the process. Some like it (e.g, chanting as you walk)! Many need to have an active and physical role to remain in synch with you (e.g., a heavy laundry basket to carry from one room to the other) or holding your hand).

Step 7: Either re-establish C2U^® or start allowing moments of disconnection and reconnection

Depending on the child and level of engagement you have achieved on a given day, you can have more moments of allowing the child to have more moments of independence (using you as a base). Allow these moments of freedom to explore and engage with materials you are providing, as you are able to join in momentarily to guide, teach, expand the child's thinking. If you are NOT able to join, teach, or expand, it is time to re-establish C2U^®. Go to step 1 or 2 and repeat.

Example activities with C2U+Synchrony

1. You sit down, relax, breathe, and then hand your child something for him to shift his attention to you (C2U) and the item, and do whatever he wants with it. You then keep handing him items for him to do whatever he wants with the items (the goal is synchrony).

2. You bring your child to the kitchen telling him you need his help with the dishwasher. You take both of his hands in yours and allow shift of his attention (C2U) then say "hi," then hand him a plate from the dishwasher to put away. You repeat the pattern with dishes to him, periodically checking with bids, gaining moments of C2U just to share how much you like his help, while achieving synchrony in your work together with multiple plates. 

3.  You go for a walk with your child, stopping just before you walk out the door for a moment of C2U before you walk together in a synchronized manner to be silly, smooth, or simply keeping in step with one another. Periodically, you stop, pause, or slow down to check in (allow the shift of attention to be to you - C2U) and share something you see, hear, touch.

*If the child is used to simply responding and/or requesting as their only means for communicating, s/he may respond “robotically,” in this moment. This is NOT engagement. We are specifically seeking moments of engagement vs passive responding or compliance.

Shouldn't we be linking early childhood objectives with long term quality of life and employment!?

I truly believe that our targets for early intervention, early childhood special education, and school age education for children with autism are all wrong.

Today, I am creating a rating scale for some of my wonderful adult clients, for what it takes to be an excellent employee. We all know this stuff....ambitious, hard working, humble, a good communicator, a good team player.

I work with a fabulous program looking to integrate these key attributes into their daily curriculum with and for their young adults who have gotten themselves to adulthood with serious deficits in these departments. I look back on their Individual Education Plans (IEPs here in the United States) and see goals about turn taking in conversation at least 2-3 times. I see goals about following 2-3 step directions verbally and/or visually. I see goals about them greeting peers. And I know that they have been prompted and scripted each step of the way. They are doing these things because someone told them to, not out of personal conviction.

We are seriously underestimating the ability of these little ones to engage, learn dynamically, share their creative minds with others even before they have chance. We assume they need rigorous practice on what... matching shapes? being compliant for the sake of being compliant? following a script for engaging with someone? Seriously?

I sit here imagining these "Great Employee" attributes in  Individual Family Service Plans and Individual Education Plans. There would be goals such as "...will take action above and beyond what is expected of him/her for a classmate (e.g., pick something up that a classmate has dropped, brings someone else a cup of water when getting one for himself)" or "....takes pride in his/her own work towards a goal/project/activity versus just the end result," or "....adjusts to new situations and reasonable demands (appropriate to age and sensory needs) with curiosity and drive to learn."

Yes, these seemingly lofty goals are also harder to measure but seriously, folks, I think know we can figure that part out. These goals put more on the adults surrounding the child to figure out how to arrange the environment for opportunities. But just imagine those classrooms with more children with these types of goals! Wow. We might just have a workplace of tomorrow with people who value being great team players and great employees instead of simply compliant beings. And what? Happier children who feel helpful, valued, supported. What a concept for all children. Not. Just. Autism.

Video Tutorials by Barbara Avila of Synergy Autism Center

I have released 5 videos to the public for FREE! I have learned too much over the last 29 years in the field of autism to keep inside my own thinking. Please find them at www.synergyautismcenter.com

These are the most common topics of support to parents I see. My goal is to educate you to educate parents to feel confident and knowledgeable about autism, development, and strategies that work. Enjoy and if you want more? I am available for individual consultation, trainings, and workshops. Call us at 503-432-8760 or email us at synergyautismcenter@gmail.com.

Barb Avila