Why autism education needs to change

Hi Longman

I think I can see why its hard for you to understand some of the concepts I'm writing about, but you've got it right when you say that in order to better socialise, you'd need 'good eye contact and facial reading skills'.  Its referencing for information rather than eye contact and yes you'd need to be able to read facial expression as well as prosody/intonation and gesture and body proximity.

You cant 'teach' people to develop these non-verbal comunication competencies, they need to develop it instinctively.  So what you do is you put all the right components around them to enable and facilitate them to reference.

We reference for information to enable us to make decisions about what to do next.  Take a look at this clip of social referencing in a baby who is not yet walking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyxMq11xWzM

The baby references (looks to the face of) his mother to decide what to do in the face of uncertainty.  The uncertainty is around whether or not its safe to venture across the visual cliff to the toy.  So this is how referencing develops naturally.  In RDI, we put kids and adults in situations where there is uncertainty and decrease verbal communication so that they have to reference for information about what to do.

Facial expression and other forms of non-verbal communication all transmit emotional information - that is what the baby is reading on the mother's face.  Its not an empty gesture to look at someone's face (which is my interpretation of 'eye contact').  Its a deliberate attempt to gain an understanding of what someone else is thinking.  Emotion shows what we are thinking - Mum's fearful face shows she is thinking 'fear' thoughts.  The happy face shows she is thinking 'happy' thoughts.  Emotion  = what we are thinking.

We also reference to 'check in' with our social partner during an interaction when we are in a co-regulated pattern (eg my turn, your turn).  Partner A (in the role of 'guide' in RDI) takes an action and waits for partner B (in the role of 'apprentice') to take their turn.  Partner B takes their action and then references partner A to make sure that the action they have just taken is within the mutual framework and will help to achieve the mutual goal.

If the guide has established trust with the apprentice, the apprentice will generally competently take their turn and 'check in' to make sure they are on track.  You can watch video footage of me putting everything around my son so that he can competently take his actions (towards our joint goal in our co-regulated interaction) on my blog http://notnigellanotjamie.blogspot.com.  The 'folding towels' one has got a fair bit of him referencing me to make sure he has folded the towels neatly.  Folding neatly is our joint goal - but I havent told him this verbally, he trusts me to facilitate his competence and enable him to be a genuine reciprocal partner in our social interactions.  (It has taken me 3 years to get us here - thousands of hours of activities where I am guiding my son in this way and starting off initially with total resistance).

If the apprentice resists taking the action, the guide either waits or uses limit-setting and boundaries to facilitate the apprentice back into the frame.  Or if there is too much uncertainty (ie the uncertainty is too big a challenge for the apprentice) it is the guide's job to make the task simpler and/or to help the apprentice become competent (scaffolding). It is the guide's job to make sure that challenges are just at the edge of the apprentice's competence.

This works with both children and adults and what I'm describing here is just the very start of the process to support the development of flexible, adaptive thinking and social understanding. There are  nearly 1,500 developmental steps to master in RDI.  It takes me about 6 months per objective.  Other parents are much faster (I am pulled in many different directions) and this was part of the rationale for setting up our school - so that we can immerse our child in these developmental opportunities.

Has that helped you to understand it better?

Zoe

Hi Longman

I think I can see why its hard for you to understand some of the concepts I'm writing about, but you've got it right when you say that in order to better socialise, you'd need 'good eye contact and facial reading skills'.  Its referencing for information rather than eye contact and yes you'd need to be able to read facial expression as well as prosody/intonation and gesture and body proximity.

You cant 'teach' people to develop these non-verbal comunication competencies, they need to develop it instinctively.  So what you do is you put all the right components around them to enable and facilitate them to reference.

We reference for information to enable us to make decisions about what to do next.  Take a look at this clip of social referencing in a baby who is not yet walking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyxMq11xWzM

The baby references (looks to the face of) his mother to decide what to do in the face of uncertainty.  The uncertainty is around whether or not its safe to venture across the visual cliff to the toy.  So this is how referencing develops naturally.  In RDI, we put kids and adults in situations where there is uncertainty and decrease verbal communication so that they have to reference for information about what to do.

Facial expression and other forms of non-verbal communication all transmit emotional information - that is what the baby is reading on the mother's face.  Its not an empty gesture to look at someone's face (which is my interpretation of 'eye contact').  Its a deliberate attempt to gain an understanding of what someone else is thinking.  Emotion shows what we are thinking - Mum's fearful face shows she is thinking 'fear' thoughts.  The happy face shows she is thinking 'happy' thoughts.  Emotion  = what we are thinking.

We also reference to 'check in' with our social partner during an interaction when we are in a co-regulated pattern (eg my turn, your turn).  Partner A (in the role of 'guide' in RDI) takes an action and waits for partner B (in the role of 'apprentice') to take their turn.  Partner B takes their action and then references partner A to make sure that the action they have just taken is within the mutual framework and will help to achieve the mutual goal.

If the guide has established trust with the apprentice, the apprentice will generally competently take their turn and 'check in' to make sure they are on track.  You can watch video footage of me putting everything around my son so that he can competently take his actions (towards our joint goal in our co-regulated interaction) on my blog http://notnigellanotjamie.blogspot.com.  The 'folding towels' one has got a fair bit of him referencing me to make sure he has folded the towels neatly.  Folding neatly is our joint goal - but I havent told him this verbally, he trusts me to facilitate his competence and enable him to be a genuine reciprocal partner in our social interactions.  (It has taken me 3 years to get us here - thousands of hours of activities where I am guiding my son in this way and starting off initially with total resistance).

If the apprentice resists taking the action, the guide either waits or uses limit-setting and boundaries to facilitate the apprentice back into the frame.  Or if there is too much uncertainty (ie the uncertainty is too big a challenge for the apprentice) it is the guide's job to make the task simpler and/or to help the apprentice become competent (scaffolding). It is the guide's job to make sure that challenges are just at the edge of the apprentice's competence.

This works with both children and adults and what I'm describing here is just the very start of the process to support the development of flexible, adaptive thinking and social understanding. There are  nearly 1,500 developmental steps to master in RDI.  It takes me about 6 months per objective.  Other parents are much faster (I am pulled in many different directions) and this was part of the rationale for setting up our school - so that we can immerse our child in these developmental opportunities.

Has that helped you to understand it better?

Zoe