I was at the grocery store the other day walking past the dairy aisle, when a little boy, about eight years old, stopped me and asked me to help him reach something off of the top shelf. He tapped my arm twice with his index finger as I walked by. When I turned my head to look at him he looked up at me and said “Hey mister, could you help me?”. I told him of course I would, he held his gaze a moment longer while he pointed up to the top shelf and asked for the strawberry milk. His eyes shifted back and forth from the milk to me, my first guess was wrong, “This one I asked?” as I touched the one I thought he wanted and looked back at him. He looked at me and said “No, the strawberry one.” While redirecting my attention back to the shelf by reasserting his point. I guessed wrong a second time (there were several different drinks), his pointing became a little more urgent and he looked at me again and raised up on his tip toes to get closer saying “Noooo, the strawberry”. Finally I got the right milk he thanked me and went on his way.Read more...
Treating Autism is a parent-run charity in the UK providing invaluable support to parents of children with autism. Treating Autism exists to help people with autism and their families reach their potential and live life free of discomfort, anxiety and pain.
Published in the September 2010 edition of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders is another study from Connie Kasari's group looking at facilitating joint attention in children with autism. They define joint attention as, "the development of specific skills that involve sharing attention with others through pointing, showing, and coordinating looks between objects and people, as well as the development of attention states that involve mutually sustained joint attention with others".
It seems to be an American tradition to wage war on our domestic challenges, we have had a war on drugs since the Reagan administration. We are currently waging war on obesity, breast cancer, AIDS, illiteracy, hunger, poverty, and now you can add autism to that list.
The beliefs we hold about ourselves effect how we learn new information. Research has just been published that found women reminded of the cultural negative stereotype of women being less skilled at mathematics are less likely to learn a new mathematical skill than women not reminded of that stereotype. There's no actual difference in mathematical ability between these two groups of women, but those who were reminded of the negative stereotype felt under "threat" and so tried too hard to learn the new skill. This resulted in a lot of effort and little learning. The other group, who felt relaxed and weren't out to prove anything performed much better on the learning task (
So many of the not-so solid skills, the missed steps that our kids are challenged by, are things that they already do, perhaps infrequently, unintentionally and with a looong delay. Yet, whatever we focus our energies on becomes bigger. I've decided to be a detective for my son's hidden skills so I can celebrate them like crazy. If I don't believe they are there, I won't even see them when they show up. So I have a built in curiosity about what he does. Everything is examined for the value, the possibilities, the learnings. When I see something that I want to see more of, I celebrate it. When I haven't seen it yet, or not seen it in a long while, I ask for it. I explain why I'd like to see that thing. You know what? Sometimes he just does it!
If your child has already learned the importance of looking towards other people’s faces now we want to help her/him be able to read faces more specifically.