Tag Archives: #Neurodiversity

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION: When Feelings Are Too Big

Autism and Mental Health, ,

This series of blogs and the release dates are as follows:

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION
Part One: Using Words to Make Pictures (January 13, 2023)
Part Two: Using Words to Describe Pictures (February 10, 2023)
Part Three: When Feelings Are Too Big (March 10, 2023)
Part Four: Examples Using Paint Chip Visual Supports (April 7, 2023)
Part Five: Direct Instruction of Social Information (May 5, 2023)

Just like the sensory system information can come in too big for an autistic and then become difficult to manage, so to can emotional feelings get too big too fast, making them difficult to manage. Typically, in a therapy setting neuromajority individuals learn to identify and label their feelings. This knowledge then allows them a way to talk about their feelings and ultimately come to manage them over time.

When this approach is used with autistic clients it too often doesn’t go anywhere. Autistics tend to have difficulty when it comes to labeling feelings and are often left trying to guess the right answer. Additionally, while some autistics may find it helpful to talk about their feelings, it has been my experience that most talk about what another person said or did rather than their resulting feelings about the occurrence.

These concrete happenings are easy to know and repeat and are typically what carries the story line for autistics. Many times the feelings experienced by the autistic telling the literal and concrete aspects of the story are apparent to the listener by observing body language, but may not be apparent to the autistic.

Once the literal and concrete details of the story are in order, trying to understand the social ramifications of how another person acted is typically the next topic of conversation. Finally, once the story is sorted out logically and the understanding of the hidden social information is had, autistics might become aware of their own feelings and if so may want to talk about them. It has been my experience that autistics in therapy usually find it much easier to talk about their behavioral response to something another person said or did rather than their feelings around it.

There is no right or wrong way to talk about your own life stories. I merely outline this to show there are neurologically based differences in the way neuromajority and autistic people tell their stories.

Given all of this, I have learned that it is more helpful for most of my autistic clients, regardless of age, to learn about the size of their feelings rather than to struggle over labeling them. Since the purpose of labeling is to be able to talk about and manage feelings, we can cut to the chase of learning to manage feelings by teaching size of feelings.

The beauty of this is that It does not matter if the too big disregulating feeling is a positive feeling such as excitement over an upcoming event or a negative feeling such as sadness over cancellation of a favorite activity in that the too big feeling is managed in the same way regardless of the what the feeling might be.  Therefore, no assigning of feeling labels are necessary to learn how to manage feelings that are too big. Often, it is more important that a client learn to manage/regulate too-big feelings in a short time rather than spending months (often years) getting stuck on labeling the names of these too-big feelings!

Selection from: Autistically Thriving: Reading Comprehension,
ConversationalEngagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life
Based on Autistic Neurology, pg. 141-142.

(The next blog in this series, Examples Using Paint Chip Visual Supports, details clinical examples of a variety of uses of paint chips as visual supports for showing size of feelings.)

Note: The author is a mental health therapist and is also autistic. She intentionally uses identity-first language (rather than person-first language), and invites the reader, if interested, to do further research on the preference of most autistic adults to refer to themselves using identity-first language.

If you are a clinician and interested in learning more about therapy with the autistic client please join me along with two of my colleagues in an online course.
CLICK HERE for additional information about  Mental Health Therapy with the Autistic Client.

BY JUDY ENDOW

Endow, J. (2021). Executive Function Assessment. McFarland, WI: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2012). Learning the Hidden Curriculum: The Odyssey of One Autistic Adult. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2006).  Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism’s Helpers. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2013).  Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2009b).  Paper Words: Discovering and Living With My Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Myles, B. S., Endow, J., & Mayfield, M. (2013).  The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION: Using Words to Describe Pictures

autism, ,

This series of blogs and the release dates are as follows:

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION
Part One: Using Words to Make Pictures (January 13, 2023)
Part Two: Using Words to Describe Pictures (February 10, 2023)
Part Three: When Feelings Are Too Big (March 10, 2023)
Part Four: Examples Using Paint Chip Visual Supports (April 7, 2023)
Part Five: Direct Instruction of Social Information (May 5, 2023)

We continue where we left off in the previous blog, AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS: Using Words to Make Pictures. Many students, even after they have been directly instructed on how to create pictures from the words they read and hear as described in the previous blog in this series, have difficulty using words to describe that picture now in their head. Here is an example from my clinical practice.

Pertinent Background: Franco, a fifth grader, often got frustrated because I did not understand what he was trying to tell me. I had to frequently remind him that I didn’t have the same picture in my head that he did. Therefore, I asked him to use words to recreate his picture for me. Even after explaining this several times Franco still did not understanding what I was asking him to do.

During this time Franco’s class was reading a mystery. He often commented favorably about mystery stories. Capitalizing on this, I told Franco about the mystery of Flat Stanley. This is a true story that happened at my house and it took several days to figure out. I challenged Franco to solve the mystery.

Strategy Implemented During Therapy Sessions: We began reading the book Flat Stanley (Brown, 2009). Stanley was a boy who became flat after a huge bulletin board fell on him. Each chapter of the book tells another of Stanley’s adventures such as being mailed in an envelope to visit a friend across the country and being tied to a kite string and having his brother fly him as a kite. The mystery involved my once upon a time kindergarten son bringing home his cut out shapes and declaring, “These shapes belong to Flat Stanley. Where are MY shapes?” Back then, it took me a long time to figure out what my son wanted and in the process I learned a lot about supporting his communication!

During each session  Franco and I read another chapter of Flat Stanley, after which he would try to solve the mystery of what shapes belonged to my son. At the conclusion of the Flat Stanley book I brought in models of geometric solids such as a sphere, cube, cone, etc. i.e., shapes that were not flat! I showed Franco the answer to the mystery and invited him to make up words my little boy could have used to explain what the geometric solids looked like. Franco was readily able to use words to accurately describe each item.

We discussed how my son only saying a few words and then repeating them over and over didn’t give enough clues for someone to solve the mystery of what he wanted. Franco agreed to try to give more clues rather than to simply repeat his same few words when others didn’t understand what he was trying to tell them.

Follow Up: A few weeks later Franco asked me if I liked power wheels. I told him I didn’t know what power wheels were. He repeated his question and I repeated my response. Then I said, “This is like the Flat Stanley mystery. Please give me more clues.” Franco began by telling me exactly where in Walmart™ I would find the power wheels. I asked for another clue and he described what they looked like and said little kids drive them on the grass. Then, I knew what he meant as I had seen kids in miniature look alike cars driving around in their yards. Franco was happy I had figured it out, but I told him he was the one who make it possible by giving me clues until I could guess what power cars were.

Selection from: Autistically Thriving: Reading Comprehension,
ConversationalEngagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life
Based on Autistic Neurology, pg. 140-141.

(The next blog in this series, When Feelings Are Too Big, will discuss the idea of teaching the size of a feeling rather than the name of the feeling.)

Note: The author is a mental health therapist and is also autistic. She intentionally uses identity-first language (rather than person-first language), and invites the reader, if interested, to do further research on the preference of most autistic adults to refer to themselves using identity-first language.

If you are a clinician and interested in learning more about therapy with the autistic client please join me along with two of my colleagues in an online course.
CLICK HERE for additional information about  Mental Health Therapy with the Autistic Client.

BY JUDY ENDOW

Endow, J. (2021). Executive Function Assessment. McFarland, WI: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2012). Learning the Hidden Curriculum: The Odyssey of One Autistic Adult. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2006).  Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism’s Helpers. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2013).  Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2009b).  Paper Words: Discovering and Living With My Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Myles, B. S., Endow, J., & Mayfield, M. (2013).  The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

REFERENCE
Brown, J. (2009 – present). Flat Stanley. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania: Scholastic Publishing Corporation.

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION: Using Words to Make Pictures

Autistic Neurology,

The  next series of blogs and the release dates are as follows:

AUTISTIC SOLUTIONS RELATED TO TAKING IN INFORMATION
Part One: Using Words to Make Pictures (January 13, 2023)
Part Two: Using Words to Describe Pictures (February 10, 2023)
Part Three: When Feelings Are Too Big (March 10, 2023)
Part Four: Examples Using Paint Chip Visual Supports (April 7, 2023)
Part Five: Direct Instruction of Social Information (May 5, 2023)

Many autistic readers do well in terms of comprehension when they are younger. I think this is because when a child is read picture books the words he hears match the picture he can see on each page. Furthermore, the picture serves to highlight the words salient to the story. Then, pictures start falling away as the child grows older and starts reading more difficult books. In the United States this happens in third and fourth grades. You can go to any elementary school and look at the textbooks used in second, third, and fourth grades and observe this phenomenon of lots of pictures to support text at the second grade level, significantly fewer pictures to support texts at the third grade level and almost no pictures at all at the fourth grade level.

Most third and fourth graders adjust to this falling away of pictures. Some have become language-based thinkers so their brains do fine without picture support. Others remain visual thinkers, but their brains automatically create pictures from the words they read. Autistics have brains that work differently in that they do not always automatically create pictures from the words they read. They often need to be directly taught to do this.

Direct teaching can be as simple or as involved as need be to match the needs of the student. Simply stopping at the end of a paragraph to draw out the picture of the words is helpful to some students. I use a dry erase board as it allows us to easily make changes to the story picture as the story progresses. After a time of seeing how drawing out the story works students can be encouraged to draw and change the picture in their head. Additionally, the previously discussed strategy of layered thinking has been helpful to many.

The Lindamood-Bell program called Visualizing and Verbalizing teaches students to visualize images when they read and when they hear language. This works well for students who are visual thinkers and need a more formal instructional program. “People with autism are relatively better at visual-spatial processing, and this intervention facilitates the use of such strengths to ultimately improve language comprehension” (Lindamood & Lindamood, 1975).

Selection from: Autistically Thriving: Reading Comprehension,
 ConversationalEngagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life
 Based on Autistic Neurology, pg. 139-140.

(The next blog in this series, Using Words to Describe Pictures, details a clinical example of how supporting one autistic student to get the picture in his head into words to tell me.)

Note: The author is a mental health therapist and is also autistic. She intentionally uses identity-first language (rather than person-first language), and invites the reader, if interested, to do further research on the preference of most autistic adults to refer to themselves using identity-first language.

If you are a clinician and interested in learning more about therapy with the autistic client please join me along with two of my colleagues in an online course.
CLICK HERE for additional information about  Mental Health Therapy with the Autistic Client.

BY JUDY ENDOW

Endow, J. (2021). Executive Function Assessment. McFarland, WI: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2012). Learning the Hidden Curriculum: The Odyssey of One Autistic Adult. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2006).  Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism’s Helpers. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2013).  Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2009b).  Paper Words: Discovering and Living With My Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Myles, B. S., Endow, J., & Mayfield, M. (2013).  The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

REFERENCE
Lindamood, C. H. & Lindamood, P. C. 1975. Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Autistic Sensory Overwhelm

Sensory Solutions, , ,

Because autistics take in information from the world around them differently than the rest of the people in the world it is important to understand the way information comes in for an autistic individual. Though there are similarities amongst autistic people such as noise and light sensitivity, there also can be some individuality when it comes to how a particular autistic individual’s brain takes in information. Most times individuals cannot tell you how their brain functions. Again, this functioning happens automatically. There is no conscious decision when it comes to how a brain takes in information.

When information comes in too big it can be quite overwhelming. This happens frequently to many autistic people. Usually when a person has reached capacity in their ability to handle this ongoing sensory assault they react in a way that doesn’t fit into the neuromajority expectation. For example, one person may groan loudly, another may flap his hands and a still another may have either a meltdown or a shutdown. When any unexpected behavior occurs, it is most often assumed that the immediately preceding event or sensory assault caused it rather than understanding it is the continual sensory assault over time causing the “too much” to eventually spill over.

Example

For example, when the bell rang at the end of the class period Rita screamed and cleared her desk quickly swiping books and papers to the floor. Staff went to great lengths to get Rita to put on her noise canceling headphones 5 minutes before the bell rang everyday. Some days Rita took the offered headphones and other days she pushed them away.

Think of sensory information coming in too big as a glass of water filling up over time. Each little assault throughout the day adds to the water level in the glass. When the glass is full to the top the next assault that adds more water will cause the glass to overflow. This is what happened for Rita. Thus, it wasn’t the ringing bell that caused the behavior, but instead it was that the glass had overflowed. Her capacity to withstand another sensory assault had been maxed out.

Solutions

Trying to solve for the ringing of the bell will likely lead to nowhere, but solving

      • to prevent sensory overload,
      • to increase awareness of overload building and
      • to teach self-advocacy options to be utilized when sensory overload starts to build

would all be great preventative options helpful in addressing this situation. Rita, just like most autistics, does not have a neurology that automatically regulates incoming information.

Conclusion

It is important to learn how an autistic individual takes in information. This allows us to fine tune and personalize the supports they might choose from to enable them to be who they want in this world, to function as they wish and to come to live a self-determined life.


Note: The author is a mental health therapist and is also autistic. She iintentionally uses identity-first language (rather than person-first language), and invites the reader, if interested, to do further research on the preference of most autistic adults to refer to themselves using identity-first language.

Selection from Autistically Thriving: Reading Comprehension, Conversational Engagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life Based on Autistic Neurology, pg. 135-136.

If you are a clinician and interested in learning more about therapy with the autistic client please join me along with two of my colleagues in an online course.
CLICK HERE for additional information about  Mental Health Therapy with the Autistic Client.

BY JUDY ENDOW

Endow, J. (2021). Executive Function Assessment. McFarland, WI: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2012). Learning the Hidden Curriculum: The Odyssey of One Autistic Adult. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2006).  Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism’s Helpers. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2013).  Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2009b).  Paper Words: Discovering and Living With My Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Myles, B. S., Endow, J., & Mayfield, M. (2013).  The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Creating, Changing and Replacing Pictures Conclusion

autism, Autistic Neurology, ,

This is the third part of a blog series with this outline

Part One: Creating Pictures in Layers With Two Take and Make Visual Examples 
Part Two: Changing or Replacing a Layered Picture With One Take and Make Visual Example
Part Three: Creating, Changing and Replacing Pictures Conclusion

In Part One of this blog series the reader was introduced to the autistic friendly method of creating pictures in layers.  Visual examples were given. Each layer of the story is created on see through overhead projector sheets. This allows the elements of the story to be stacked up to make one picture. The story elements looked like this:

Stacked together the elements of THE STORY create one picture that looks like this:

In Part Two of this blog series our story continued.  It rained and going to the beach was no longer possible, continuing with layered overheads stacked on top of this original story, the UNEXPECTED EVENT story looked like this: 

Notice in the third overhead of the above picture of our layered transition story the swimmers left the beach. This is one great reason for the layered pictures! It allows one element of a picture to change without needing to destroy the entire picture. That feeling of “everything changed” is prevented. This often prevents meltdowns.

Next, a TRANSITION STORY was created that allowed the “putting away” of the original story, thus making room for the alternative – the change in plans. There were no new elements added to our existing UNEXPECTED EVENT story. Instead of adding new events the TRANSITION STORY simply solidifies that the ORIGINAL STORY will no longer happen. This allows the autistic neurology to process that there is a change. Notice the picture of the TRANSITION STORY is the same as the ending of the UNEXPECTED EVENT story.

          1. Nobody is at the beach. 
            The beach is closed.

          2. We won’t go to the beach today. 
            The beach is closed. 

          3. We won’t go swimming.

          4. The beach is close

The transition story will need to be repeated until the child is tired of the it and ready to transition to something different. Only then is the child ready for the new activity able to be introduced. Talking about the new activity too soon will hit the neurology as a surprise and may precipitate a meltdown.

And then, when the neurology is ready, the new plans can be introduced such as the story from Part One of this blog series called Playing Indoors.

Creating, Changing and Replacing Pictures Conclusion

Please see Part One and Part Two of this blog series for further discussion of everything mentioned in this blog so far. AND know that any event can be mapped out is similar story fashion than the stories presented. Here is the protocol in words rather than in pictures for those readers who would like them!  The protocol  is  in  the  top  two  horizontal  rows  of  this  chart. The  third  horizontal  row  gives  examples/hints  for  implementation.  The  last  horizontal  row  tracks  the  story  examples  used  in  this  blog  series. Often times when people see this protocol they feel it will take too long. For those who have used it they are surprised that even though it does take some time, it is often considerably less time than the time the child spends in a meltdown and then recovering from the meltdown. Additionally, it is much easier to talk this through (or draw it out for those needing the visual support or for those needing decreased auditory input in the moment) than it is to deal with a meltdown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are a clinician and interested in learning more about therapy with the autistic client please join me along with two of my colleagues in an online course.
CLICK HERE for additional information about  Mental Health Therapy with the Autistic Client. 

Note: The author is a mental health therapist and is also autistic. She iintentionally uses identity-first language (rather than person-first language), and invites the reader, if interested, to do further research on the preference of most autistic adults to refer to themselves using identity-first language.

This blog series is based on Chapter 9 from Autistically Thriving:Reading Comprehension, Conversational Engagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life Based on Autistic Neurology, pg. 126-133.

BY JUDY ENDOW

Endow, J. (2021). Executive Function Assessment. McFarland, WI: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2019).  Autistically Thriving: Reading Comprehension, Conversational Engagement, and Living a Self-Determined Life Based on Autistic Neurology. Lancaster, PA: Judy Endow.

Endow, J. (2012). Learning the Hidden Curriculum: The Odyssey of One Autistic Adult. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2006).  Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism’s Helpers. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2013).  Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated. Cambridge, WI: CBR Press.

Endow, J. (2009b).  Paper Words: Discovering and Living With My Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2009a).  Outsmarting Explosive Behavior: A Visual System of Support and Intervention for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Endow, J. (2010).  Practical Solutions for Stabilizing Students With Classic Autism to Be Ready to Learn: Getting to Go. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.

Myles, B. S., Endow, J., & Mayfield, M. (2013).  The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment. Shawnee Mission, KS: AAPC Publishing.