Research

[Zemanski]

sorry Nemo

 

I don't think there's any irony Carole - our kids might need more play than other kids but that doesn't mean we didn't play with them, we played with Com constantly - he got loads more attention than Dot - but she had enough af the right stuff to be very, very social and he has AS so he needs even more just to feel happy being vaguely social

 

used to love working in kindergarten at the freeschool - that was pure play!

 

Zemanski

[something vague]

I guess that I am so used to playing with great hulking teenage boys who have severe learning difficulties that I see no problem with playing rough and tumble. Of course, because of thier age, I have to take care about the type of bodily contact and I have to work within vision of other adults. Otherwise, I'm totally comfortable with responding to our boys instinctively and a couple do still enjoy tickle games. However, I wouldn't work in a way that doesn't feel comfortable. Some of the people that I work with are not comfortable doing II. I they don't enjoy, there's no point in doing it because the child wont feel comfortable either and therefore not likely to benefit.

 

Z, I expect that you know more about this than me, you're v well read but if I remember rightly from Nursery nurse diploma, there are 3 milestones to the development of play: solitary, parallell and co operative play (interactive) I think that all forms are just as important but co operative is the most sophisticated and obviously the most important for social development. I guess that it is the most difficult to achieve for most autistic children.

 

 

SV

[Zemanski]

we focus very much on the cooperative play when we think about development, especially for ASD children.

 

but Com has always done solitary play (though it has been a bit idiosyncratic) and, although he is very much behind in cooperative play, he has always played with adults one to one; it was in fact the parallel play he didn't do.

 

is this significant?

 

Com does not connect with others except one to one, unless it is a small group of intimately known people (he has 4 good friends and he can handle them all at once and interact fairly effectively but in most circumstances he struggles with more than one to one).

 

The first thing I noticed about Com that ever worried me at all was his complete lack of interest in other children - they did not exist for him - this was at about 12 months, by 18 months I was fairly certain he needed help with this, by 2 I was taking him to toddler groups and other people's houses virtually every day, not forcing things (I wasn't that worried, just knew enough to realise it wasn't quite right) but making sure he had plenty of contact.

 

because he didn't make a connection he didn't notice what they were doing and therefore didn't follow their play or play alongside. He would sit at the paint table painting or play next to someone in the sand but not engaging with anyone else at all and doing something entirely different.

If an adult entered his space he would immediately start to talk about what he was doing and would do a running commentary but if they moved their attention to someone else he would often not even notice and carry on talking. (still does this - you only have to walk past the door of the room he's in to trigger it).

 

so what is missing for Com is not, in fact, interaction and cooperative play as such - he does quite a lot of this although very little of the tactile, physical side - but that sense of connection with others that triggers parallel play.

 

 

any ideas on how to fill in the gaps in parallel play? - is it important?

 

Zemanski

[something vague]

I suppose I was jumping to conclusions saying that co op play was most important for social development then. It is interesting that you identify that Com didn't engage in parallel play. I suppose that is the point at which we usually start an II session at - playing alongside the child, doing similar things but not invading their space or pushing our will onto them.

 

I suppose that during parallel play children are observing others, learning to trust others and I wonder if they are learning a little bit about non verbal communication. Maybe Com didn't engage in p play fully because he had difficulty noticing the little signs that others give off, or maybe he found them confusing. When we learn, we like to get a payoff. I suppose if Com didn't pick up on the friendly vibes that perspective play partners gave off during this stage of play, he wont have felt compelled to seek out other children and thus develop his social skills further.

 

Z. again please accept my apologies if I'm stating the obvious or making assumptions. I'm not an expert and would never claim to be so. I think that only parents can be experts about their own children. I am however very interested in play, how it develops and how it affects social interaction.

 

My son(NT) became social phobic at the age of 17. I know that he isn't autistic but I'm positive that he did not develop social skills in the same manner as other children. It wasn't that he didn't notice other children but he seemed to have no wish to have friends until he was about 7 and I used to find it heartbreaking to see him standing on his own at playtimes. When he was 3, he would not say hello when other children greeted him he would tell me that he didnt want to because he didn't like them. He also had all of the usual playgroup experiences but showed no interest in other children and I wonder now if he also skipped the parallel play stage because he tended to withdraw when other children approached.

 

I am not trying to compare my sons difficulties to those of people who are autistic, there is no comparison. You have made me think a little more deeply about the importance of parallel play and how some children seem to miss the boat by not being ready to play in this way at the age when social and communication skills normally develop.

 

I really do worry that some people may perceive me as someone who just has an interest in ASD. I have a massive respect for all you parents out there and I have learned a lot from you.

[Malika]

Hi Primine,

 

Well I have follow the thread (more or less) frankly I found the whole thing quite frightening and the training for autistic quite absurd as every autistic child is different and has various area of strengh and difficulties.

 

I am old enough to remember when most of autistic children where just undiagnosed and ignored except for the non verbal one because it was such an obvious handicap. I think that ASD children can learn they need more time and more dedication that's all.

 

I have never before given too much attention to ABA as I always felt it is a kind of circus training for ASD kids to learn to conform in an increased intolerant and (may be) civilised and sophisticated society based on communication, so people with communication problem cannot fit the bill. This as far as I can see an absurd way of seeing the society you cannot ever trained a child to be a certain way while is brain is functionning differently without running into a predictable disaster like depression or mental illness, you have to allow enough flexibility in the society to absorb people who are different.

 

Sorry Primine to join the chorus but personnaly I find most of your comment quite chilling I know that when you make a research you have to study objectivly but training an humain been cannot be like studying the absortion of some medication the humain brain is very complex even in ASD children.

Then we may as well start an argument about genetic modification very dangerous indeed should we remember some fascist experiments the absurdity is to imagine that you can have a perfect society with perfect people who do not cost too much money but are helping to fill the pocket of the few greedy one. The fact is that the way ASD children can be active adult is to help them develope their strengh and reach enough social understanding through interaction as something they can enjoyed not something forceful to make them conform to a certain society as a kind of brain washing regardless of their feelings, and of course to educate the society.

Yes it is a political stand so is the idea to train our "disable" children in order to avoid more money to be spend the problem is that how can we really know the impact of such training on ASD children and how can we be so sure that it is not going to have long term consequences that we are too short sighted to predict.

 

As far as I am concern it is all quite frightening and very short sighted as evry children training should be done according to their abilities, not according to what is good for a super performant society which is an uthopy anyway.

 

I have probably been a bit too harsh but you see I am a mother.....Sorry.

 

All the best anyway.

 

Malika.

[Zemanski]

SV, you are right about cooperative play being the most complex and earlier I said something about it being the glue that binds the threads of a child's development together - that's pretty important.

 

I had a couple of new ideas (to me anyway) earlier

 

Parallel play requires making a one way connection with another child - ie Com has to be interested in someone else - whereas cooperative play is always a two way thing so another child can instigate it, and for small children adults often instigate cooperative play.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if what is important is that very early connection with someone else that enables children to enter parallel play, usually at about 12-18 months I think.

Is this the gap that really needs to be filled?

if so how?

Is the connection made through early adult-initiated cooperative play?

Most child development theory is fairly linear and we usually think of parallel play coming before cooperative play, but does it?

or does cooperative play divide into 2 distinct phases; the adult-initiated cooperative play which triggers the connection necessary for parallel play which in turn opens the door to child-initiated cooperative play?

 

by the way, stop being embarassed, your ideas are good and sparking off my imagination - I like this thread partly because it is both parents with personal experience and professionals with theories and ideas, it works really well

 

hi Malika - scary isn't it, but Primine really does care about the children she works with and is open-minded enough to consider ideas outside her immediate experience.

Also it's sometimes important for someone with different views to come in and make us start thinking about what we really do think and believe is best for our children - thanks Primine

 

Zemanski

[LizK]

Coming very late to this thread, lots of interesting sub-topics have arisen but the discussion about play interests me.

 

My nearly 4 yr old son has a strong desire to play with children he feels comfortable with but doesn't know how. At nursery for a long time he'd either play alongside them or on his own but if you watched him carefully enough he actually would want to join in but just didn't have a clue how. I never thought about coop play divided into adult and child-led before but I think doing adult-led play has helped his play develop into child-led play. I don't know whether this is a mini-developmental step or whether he simply felt more at east with the adults doing coop play (me or H), willing to experiment with us or whether adults give more explicit instructions than his peers so easier to follow. He seems to hang around with girls at nursery more which besides being a bit of a flirt at times also wonder if it's because they generally have better language and communication skills and are more likely to organise him. Play with boys invariably involves rough and tumble and if that's not on the cards then he tends to ignore them.

 

I have a niece who is 9mths younger than him who has really good language and a fantastic imagination. They were playing together in the summer pretending to go on picnics and having pretend birthday parties. We had a party here a fortnight agao and they disappeared upstairs. We found them in our bedroom pretending it was the beach and building an 'boat' together (out of various things they'd found lying around) to sail in the sea. I could have cried seeing my son happily playing along with her and having fun. Yes, she was organising him and no, he'd enver come up with a game like that in a zillion years but it's a moment I never thought I'd see .

 

Liz x

[Malika]

Hi Zemanski, Liz and to all.

My statement and concerns are about ABA not about Primine who certainly cares for the children in the first place to accept to make this research, as far as I know most Parents understand the necessity of some form of (I rather like to say) social learning but the way I see it is that it has to be individualised for every children according to their srength and capability (which is not necessarly connected to their physical age) and with the aim to include them for their own good not just because they may become too expensive for the society, the fact is that many ASD children have difficulties transfering skills to one setting to another and we cannot be sure something is learned for the rest of their life as there are often sets back or new problems arrising, so giving them a training for few years thinking "that is it we have finish with those one they will be able to function in the society" is worring as even if they seems to function they should be monitored (if they so wish) and they should have the possibility to access various level of care for support if something goes wrong.

 

About children play: what I have seen with my son is, that he had no problems with parallel play as he would pick-up idea from other kids (and as far as other kids would not interfere with is play and inside his space {to bear in mind that some ASD children cannot cope with somebody else near them}) but he was doing this at around age 2, 3, his cooperative play from age 4 to 7 was not too bad if he had somebody usualy a younger or older child directing him and giving him idea has his imagination is deffinitly impaired however problems would arised often because of his own misunderstanding or because other children would change the rules of the game without warning, then he would throw everything in the air and isolate himself saying that he rather like to play alone.

Somehow now he is not playing as such just trying to interact talking about computer games and dvd but the way he interacts is always "gauche" and odd and this is the main reason why he is isolated, he seems that now he has acquired some theory of mind as he would ask other what their favorite hero or games and leave them some space to talk but it seems that is answer does not always take into account what his peers have just said.

I am not sure if parallel play is essential for developing cooperative play but it may be that seeing other children playing alongside you help developping imagination and understanding that others have different idea than your own which help aquire the theory of mind essential in cooperative play and all sorts of social interactions.

I think ASD children aquire theory of mind ( leading to social interaction skills) not only later than other children but mainly through their intellectual reasoning and because of the lack of innate intuition, social interactions are always a challenge especialy if new. It is like they build up a data base of various social situations and search through it but if the situation is new or very different then they get unsecure and may find it difficult to cope . Often as I have seen it in my son there are as well pragmatic language difficulties which increased their misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the social situation they may find themself in.

Sometimes I have the feeling that the main problem for my son is his complete lack of imagination which may be is the key for all the rest any idea about this???

 

Sorry for going on for so long hoping I did not bored all of you too much.

 

Primine all the best nothing personnal I can assure you.

 

Malika.

[something vague]

I wonder about much earlier development. Do autistic children appear to develop normally during the first few months. As babies are they attracted to faces as NT children are. I am fascinated by very young babies at present. It seems that they are a magnet to other people. For me this is especially noticable on bus journeys. As soon as a baby sees someone looking in his direction, he seems to lock onto them and establishes eye contact. They seem to be 'people seeking' all of the time. I have read that many autistic children appear to develop normally and then seem to regress at about 2 years old but don't know if this is always the case.

 

The reason I ask is in response to Zemanski's last post, wondering about the gap in play. Doesn't it all stem from even earlier gaps in development.

 

I think that there is certainly a difference in adult innitiated cooperative play and child/child interaction. An adult will play in a way that ensures that the child gains pleasure and continues playing. In a child/child situation I would guess that there are more selfish reasons. Each child attempting to satisfy there own goal, therefore either each child needs to have a similar goal or the dominant child leads the less assertive. i'm sure that lots of adult/child interaction in play is very good but I dont think that it is essential because I think that it is our instinct that makes us want to be social. Perhaps this instinct is very strong in most people but less in others and very weak in autistic children.

 

Having said that I know many ausistic children who desperately want to make friends but seem to get it wrong, dont know if they did at 2 years old though.

 

I guess children can bypass parallel play but in that case perhaps co op play would develop at a later age than say 3yrs because it will be a learned behaviour rather than an instictive one. I'm really not sure. I think there's one of these hopping about in my head at the moment!

 

I think I'll go and do some research

[Primine]

Hey all...

 

Sorry I haven't been able to keep this discussion alive. It is simply too time consuming. Thank you all for the valuable lessons.

 

There is an online conference being offered for free that I'd recommend everyone check out. You need to register, but it is entirely free. It appears to be a wealth of knowledge and has forums itself to discuss issues with the authors of the papers. Maybe you can even gain a little tolerance for us behaviorists.

 

http://www.awares.org/conferences/

 

I'd ask everyone to post comments from the conference in this thread so that I can easily follow up on them. (even though I will likely not reply) Thank you all again for everything, and I wish you and yours all the best.

 

Don't put it off too long! THE CONFERENCE IS ONLY BEING RUN FROM 17th to 21st October 2005.

[Primine]

I would recommend starting with:

 

"What is there about Asperger syndrome that is curable?" - by Dr. Digby Tantam,

University of Sheffield.

 

to spark your interests and then going through abstracts to find another topic of interest.

[Lucas]

The title of that alone is enough to put me off. Haven't I been swamped with enough information telling me how horrid I am?

[Zemanski]

I think it's a badly chosen title, Lucas, the article mentions cure but it's mainly about curing society - says that if we could get rid of the bullying and the emotional demand - apparently we all spoil our AS kids rotten and make excuses for them and then expect them to be grateful (this is the emotional demand bit) so they never learn to conform to the social rules and this makes it even harder for them as adults.

 

I'm pretty tough on Com, taking responsibility for his actions and how they affect others may be harder for him but he still needs to learn it, in fact, the harder you find something the harder you need to work at it to succeed - I don't think I spoil my kids this way, I spend hours giving extra explanations and talking through strategies that might help him cope, sorting out misunderstandings and ensuring that he does take responsibility as far as he is able to.

 

Digby Tantum runs a diagnostic and counselling service in Sheffield and works with adults coming late to diagnosis, people who have never had support or understanding to help them learn how to deal with the world around them more effectively. Many of the people he works with have severe problems with aggression and temper (I think he specialises in AS adults with behaviour problems), like many of our kids, the difference is that they have never had the right help to learn to manage their anxieties and sensitivities so that they can move on past this.

 

I think he is over-generalising and applying his observations of AS people in one category to AS people across the board - I think we are supporting our kids and they will learn to overcome these problems in time, they are not children who have been left to fend for themselves in an alien world and never learned any better and they are not spoiled any more than any other kids. I hope that when Com reaches adulthood (maybe a little later than his peers but he will get there) he will be a well-adjusted AS adult.

 

Zemanski

 

Zemanski

[Malika]

Hi Lucas and all

 

I read yesterday night most of the articles and I am sorry to say that the one from Mr Tantam would be the one I would raccommend the least specialy because of his claim that part of what stop asperger people progressing and behave appropriatly is due to too much indulgence toward them.

I rather like Tony Atwood approach or other articles from Rita Jordan about SEN Olga Bogadishina about Sensory issue and of course Donna williams.

 

Definitly the behaviourist approach does not agree with me.

 

Have a look if you get the chance some of them are good.

 

Malika.

[Malika]

Hi Zemanski

 

Agree with you on most the fact is that it is the lack of recognition of their difficulties during childhood which has lead to behaviour pbs not too much indulgence ( can't get over this word) I am quite strict with my son about important issue but try to be more relax on other things less important, one thing from this article is that it points out that the intolerance of the society is part of the problem. Overall as all ASD children are different they have to be treated accordingly and I found Indulgence should definitly be on the agenda.

 

The main thing is to be clear with apropriate expectations and consistant when ever possible.

 

Malika.

[oracle]

I rather liked what I read by Tony Attwood but so far there has been no posts at all from him - to be honest there are very few of the Big Names that signed up for this who have contributed. However there has been a good response from the adults on the spectrum and let's be honest we can probably learn more from them anyway.

 

At the moment I am a lone voice in the Education Forum - then again who wants to be up against someone like Rita Jordan I think I like it better the way it is

 

Carole

[Lucas]

I have to strongly disagree with what I have so far heard of Tantum; my mother has been ignoring anything Autism-related since my diagnosis and I have never recieved any kind of special treatment(or even entitled services) at all and I am hardly different from many other Aspies/Autistics my age. I've had to learn the hard way that saying "I'm Autistic" or "I have Aspergers" will always be met with a thoroughly ignorant "So?".

 

I'll have to read for myself anyway just to make sure I haven't taken it the wrong way. I have always liked Rita Jordan though, she criticises ABA, then the behaviourists criticise her in response(personal attacks, they can't criticise her actual work because it's correct and behaviourists do not study Autism) just out of malice.

[Lucas]

I quick browse of that list makes me quesy. I don't think I'll have the stamina to read much of it before the 21st; the content of some of it is too much for me to bare and already I've seen comments and claims that contradict what is already known about Autism. It seems to be nothing more than a means for unscrupulous ###### to sell one treatment/cure or the other.

[oracle]

I have already locked horns with a few people It is interesting to see how it is in other Countries. So far I feel that Australis is much like the US and Canada cure crazy. Not only that some of them are totally brainwashed

 

Still if we all agreed it would not be half as much fun no would it

 

Carole

[Zemanski]

loved your paper, Carole

 

posted!

 

AB

[Malika]

Like the funny side Carole!!