I have to say I’m finding video to be a great way of explaining all of the concepts and techniques that I have to share with you and also for bringing to life many of the examples that will help with applying these tips to your own situation. So I hope you’re enjoying them too!

This week’s tip focuses on how you can improve your child’s articulation and speech clarity skills using a technique called Video Modeling. There are many ways to improve articulation, but Video Modeling is one technique that I’ve found to be very effective over the years with the children I treat.

So anyway, I created a quick, step-by-step guide to show you exactly how you can use Video modeling to help your child’s articulation and speech development. So if your child is struggling with this then I think you’re going to find this video tip particularly helpful.

It goes for about 10 minutes.

P.S: Please share any thoughts or stories you may have about this video by leaving your comments in the box provided below.

But the thing is, we decided to try video blogging, which I’m really excited about! However it took us much longer than expected to get Part 2 ready.

So anyway, I’m sorry it’s late, but here it is as promised…

Part 2 in shiny new video format!

The first video below looks at the importance of stage 3 of play development – Imaginary Play, while the second video gives you some great tips on how to use Imaginary Play to help your child (or those children that you treat).

Stage 3 – What is Imaginary Play? (18 min)



Tips on How to use Imaginary Play to Help Your Child (10 min)

I’m excited about creating my weekly tips on video because it will just bring everything to life! And now instead of reading through long pages of text, you will be able to see and hear me in person, which I hope you will find far more personable and easy to digest and no doubt sometimes even a little entertaining.

But as with anything new…
I’d really love to get your thoughts on the new video format.
Do you like it? Did the video play ok for you? Should I do more videos or stick with good old text and links??

Either way, please have your say and let us know so we can keep producing more of what you like, how you like it.

Till next week
Monique

P.S: If you have any thoughts or stories to share about this week’s article please leave your comments in the box provided below.

Ok. So how does play develop and what should your child be able to do in play?

Stage 1

From birth to 18 months of life, much of your child’s play will revolve around Sensory Play.

This means feeling different textures, learning about how their body feels when it is moved in different ways, listening to interesting noises like birds tweeting, the clock ticking and how different people’s voices sound different and can make interesting noises etc, etc. Their sensory play will continue to develop and become more complex during the first 18 months.

Stage 2

As your child gradually learns to ‘make sense’ of the world around them they then learn to engage in Exploratory and Manipulative Play.

This means that they begin to work out the properties of objects (round, soft, hard, small, large) through their senses and work out how they can play around with them to do different things.

For example; if we take a ball there are many things that we can get to know about a ball… it is round, it can be big or little, heavy or light, you can throw it, kick it, catch it, bounce it, roll it… if I drop it from my high chair it bounces really high, if I put it in water it might float or sink… if I put it down the ramp it will go very fast etc, etc.

This kind of exploration and thinking is very important for a child to develop so that they can go on to learn how to use objects in many different and more complex ways.

Children develop some of this sensory and exploratory play on their own, but they also learn it through interacting and watching their parents, siblings and other children. Once children have built a warm and trusting relationship with certain people they become curious to learn more from them and gain a great deal from watching and copying them.

Stage 3 – Imaginary Play

Sensory play and Exploratory play will continue to become more and more complex. However, once your child has started to really explore objects for their physical attributes they will then be curious to learn about the different functions of objects.

…OK WAIT! Let’s just stop there for a moment.

Many of you might be thinking… “Hold up, my child is stuck at Stage 1 or 2!!”

Your child may be engaging in Sensory play for a good part of their day (playing in the dirt, mouthing objects, running back and forth, wanting to play crashing games, making noises for self stimulatory purposes, playing with objects to create fascinating visual effects, etc) OR they may be using Exploratory play with toys/objects in a very repetitive way rather than exploring all the different properties of the objects.

Challenges in the first two stages of play development are largely the result of poor sensory motor development and/or immature social skills. Since I have already talked about these topics in previous blog posts, I will simply say that if you would like further advice on how to improve these areas of development please check out the following resources…

Sense part 1 and 2 of my Autism Essentials DVD program

and the audio 7 steps to unlocking your child’s social skills.

OK. Back to our discussion of play development and Stage 3 – Imaginary Play…

What does Imaginary play look like?

Let’s take a toy car for example. A child will learn that you can push it just like the cars you see on the road, you can also put people in it and carry them to different places (like the park, or the shops, or to grandmas house etc), you can also put seat belts on the passengers, beep the horn, put things in the boot to take to the beach etc. As a child gains a greater and greater comprehension about what happens in their day and their life experiences continue to expand it endless what they will do with their play. This type of play is called imaginary or symbolic play and typically starts developing at around 12-18 months and becomes more and more complex as the child gets older (ie to six/seven years of age), until they reach a point where they can even act out things that have never happened in their life (eg going to the moon, pretending to be a fairy, etc).

There is SOOOO much that can be taught through Imaginary play and it is a wonderful way of developing your child’s thinking, language, emotional, problem solving and creative skills. However many families are not sure of how to effectively develop these imaginary play skills in their child. If you are interested in how to do this please look out for my next post because I am going to explain this in more detail for you.

See Part 2 here

Until then best wishes.
Monique

P.S: If you have any thoughts or stories to share about this week’s article please leave your comments in the box provided below.

Last week I attended the Asia Pacific Autism Conference and one of the big take-home messages (which I am always going on about) was “how important it is to fit the therapy to the child rather than the child to the therapy”. This is incredibly important and also a great way of distinguishing good quality therapy from more generic approaches that may not be effective, or sustainable.

As you may know, I strongly believe that every child’s intervention plan needs to take into consideration the unique and individual differences of the child with autism. But what is equally important and often overlooked, is that the intervention must also take into consideration the values, circumstances, and lifestyle of the FAMILY for it to be most effective and sustainable.

This is why I love carrying out sessions in my client’s homes, because I get to know the family dynamics very quickly and how I can help incorporate therapy that respects the core values of the family, into their day-to-day activities.

This is important so that the family is strengthened and motivated by the therapy, rather than feeling like it is putting too much strain on the family unit, which can often be the case where families are also caring for other siblings who also have very individual needs. If therapy can be incorporated into your normal daily activities rather than being thought of as something else that you have to try to fit into your day, you will be much more motivated and inclined to do it regularly and consistently.

I chose to write about this today because I went to see a lovely family on the weekend who live in a two bedroom apartment with their four children and two grandparents. One of the children, Oliver, has been diagnosed with ASD. It is often not possible for this family to carry out extensive one-on-one therapy with their son because of the simple day-to-day demands of raising four children. Therefore it is critical that the therapy with their son is organised in such a way that fits in with the whole family.

They love to go to the park as much as possible so that the kids have an opportunity to run around and to get some fresh air and sunshine. The father told me that he tries to work on Oliver’s social and communication skills while they are playing on the swing, which is great. However as Oliver gets better at expressing his desires on the swing, saying things like ‘more’, ‘push’ and ‘higher’, he will eventually reach a limit of things he can talk about that relate to swinging on the swing. So in order to keep building his vocabulary and language skills he needs to be doing a range of different activities.

So I suggested that the father take a bag full of toys with them that he could use to play some simple interactive games (e.g: bubbles, balloons, a sheet/blanket, musical instruments) at he playground so that he can create some more opportunities for Oliver to expand his language. The father thought that this was a great idea and it would also take some pressure off the family by incorporating the new games into their time at the park.

I give you this example because it’s important for therapists and families to be creative and to ‘think outside of the square’ when working out how to incorporate therapy into the child and family’s everyday life. If doing therapy at the same time and in the same place on the same days every week is difficult or simply isn’t happening, then get creative and take your therapy with you! There’s no right or wrong, just endless possibilities!

Best wishes on your journey
Monique

P.S: If you have any thoughts or stories to share about this week’s article please leave your comments in the box provided below.

The ability of a child with autism to talk well is not just dependent upon having the motor skills to be able to shape sounds into words and words into sentences. But more importantly the child needs to have thoughts, ideas and feelings that they want to ‘share’ and communicate with others.

The reason that I want to talk to you about this today is because I had a session with a little girl named Sasha on the weekend. She is a delightful little girl who has many of the pre-verbal skills necessary to be able to talk and in fact she has already started to appropriately use some important words in her life e.g. more, go, biscuit… which is a wonderful start.

However it is very obvious that the area of development that is going to get in the way of Sasha’s language and speech development is going to be her ‘limited interests’ in her life. Sasha’s world currently revolves around food, lining up objects, food, some simple sensory play and MORE food. If we do not keep expanding Sasha’s world of play and new/motivating experiences then I can already foresee what is going to happen with Sasha’s language development…

She will get very good at requesting for her basic needs and wants with words, but then she is going to plateau with the different ways that she can use her language because she will not have a desire to speak about anything else!

I have come across so many kids with autism and asperger’s syndrome over the past 12 years where the parents have been desperate for the child to start talking and then have been so disappointed that when they finally start talking that it does not amount to much!!

Because of this I am training Sasha’s parents to really work on improving Sasha’s play skills. They’re also following the tips in my audio “7 Steps to Unlocking Your Child’s Social Skills‘.

In our therapy sessions I remind them that whilst we are working on increasing the number of words that Sasha can say, it is really vital that we keep expanding her world and interests so that she will not be one of those kids who’s language plateaus out shortly after they start talking.

The key to doing this successfully is by taking small steps and introducing new things very gradually so you don’t overwhelm them. You want to help them see the value in trying new things. The trick is to take something they’re familiar with that motivates them and combine it with something else that they like.

The first obvious step is that you need to know what they like and what already motivates them. This will make your job much, much easier.

As an example, lets pretend that your child likes jumping on the trampoline, singing songs, blowing bubbles and playing with balls…

So the next time they’re jumping on the trampoline… rather than simply jumping, try singing a song or blowing some bubbles whilst they are jumping, or put a few small balls on the trampoline and watch them bounce everywhere as they jump! You could even try just adding one ball at first, then adding more as they adjust to the new experience.

By introducing new things in this way they can focus on the new experience (the songs, bubbles or balls) while being comforted by the familiar and motivating sensation of jumping on the trampoline. This technique can be applied to just about anything your child likes to do. You’re only limited by your imagination!

If it’s obvious that your child is not enjoying a new experience, go back to what they like and then try again later or try another idea.

Using this technique will gradually expand your child’s world over time, and it will really encourage their expressive communication because they will have so many more things that they really want to share with you!

How does your child cope with new experiences?
Have you tried any particular strategies? How well did they work??
Please share your experiences and feedback by leaving a comment below

Happy connecting!
Monique

P.S: If you’d like to share this article with anyone who may enjoy reading it, you can click on the ‘Share’ button directly below, then simply follow the instructions on the next page.

Though I must admit that this statement confuses me a little and I will tell you why…

I think that when most professionals say this they mean that they ‘discuss’ their therapy goals with the other professionals or therapists who are working with your child.

This might sound ideal but unless all the team members are actually implementing the treatment goals in the SAME way, the child’s program will not be consistent and can often be very confusing for the child.

What you need to keep consistent in your child’s program is the ‘therapy style’ or the way that you and your therapists interact with your child when you are working on these goals.

Generally, the ‘therapy style’ should not change, no matter what goal you are targeting (i.e. a behavioural versus a relationship building style). Otherwise, each of your child’s team members will have a different way of interpreting how the therapy goals should be implemented.

Example:

Lets say that the treatment goal is to increase the range of foods that your child enjoys eating. This goal is very general and can be approached in so many different ways.

If we are using more of a Behavioural treatment approach, then you might expect the child to try a little bit of a new food and then be rewarded by a treat, or a more motivating food item.

If we are using more of a ‘Relationship Building and Developmental approach then we understand that there might be some sensory issues and or social/emotional issues that are underpinning this challenge. Therefore we might first spend time treating the sensory processing issues as well as building up the positive memories associated with mealtimes to reduce some of the child’s anxiety.

So it’s absolutely crucial for everyone in the team to be aligned with not only the ‘goals’ but HOW the goals will be implemented, right down to the interactional style! Otherwise the team won’t be working collaboratively or holistically.

However this is not always possible, because all professionals have their own way of working and therefore may not always agree on the ‘best’ approach.


Therefore I’ve put together some important things that you should think about when working with your child’s team or when seeking the right professionals to help your child…

1. It is important to surround yourself with a team of professionals that are closely aligned with their delivery of therapy and have a similar treatment approach. Often it is useful to find a team that regularly works together with clients.
2. Parents and carers are always at the center of their child’s program. They are the only ones who have regular contact with every member of the team. Because of this you are in a unique position to act as the coordinator of your child’s program. So it is really important to know as much as you can about what is happening in their program so you can share the information around the team and ensure that each of the professionals is using a similar therapy style and striving for the same developmental goals. The benefits of being able to take on this role will be invaluable to your child’s progress.
3. Not only is it important that the team of professionals are working together, but that any other significant people in your child’s life are also involved in the training (e.g. grandparents, aunties, uncles, siblings etc). For example, on Tuesday night one of my clients asked me to do a training session with the grandparents because they spend a lot of time with Christopher. The grandparents found this so useful that at the end of the evening they asked me when the next session would be! So don’t underestimate how much other people would like to get involved in your child’s program.
4. Video cameras are a great way of trying to get consistency in your child’s program. Many of my clients videotape me during our sessions because at the end of the session I express my thoughts to the camera so that other family members and professionals can hear about what I am targeting in therapy, and more importantly HOW I am doing it. This can be a great way to help everyone work more collaboratively.

So the question I’d put to you is…

Is your team really working collaboratively??

I’d love to hear your answers. Please leave your comments below.

Happy Connecting!
Monique

This week’s tip as the subject says is a quickie, but a goodie

Have you ever noticed that after your child has been jumping on the trampoline, swimming, swinging, playing chasings or basically just moving around that they are a lot more talkative and chatty, or if your child is not talking yet that they are playing around with their vocalisations more?

Well there is a reason for this…

Movement stimulates the language areas of the brain.

This is one of the BIG reasons why I incorporate a lot of movement activities into my therapy sessions with the kids. In fact, with one of my clients, Max, I used to carry out his entire session on a platform swing! This is simply a swing with a large flat base.

We used the swing with Max because:

1. He enjoyed it, so it was very motivating for him
2. The back and forth movement of the swing was very calming and organising for his nervous system which helped get him into a good state for learning during the session.
3. The movement stimulated the language areas of his brain.

So very quickly the swing became an important part of our sessions and a critical element for maximising the productivity of our therapy time! Consequently it also helped Max learn at a much faster pace!

BUT I’m not suggesting that you rush out and get a platform swing!

Because that is not the point of this week’s tip…

As I often say, every child with autism or aspergers is so unique and needs strategies and therapy techniques that are going to work best for them. So while the swing worked well for Max, it may not be an effective strategy for another child.

What I really want you to take away from this week’s tip is that…

Understanding your own child’s unique nervous system is so crucial for selecting and carrying out an effective treatment plan for them.

Just because something worked for another family or is very popular or has a slick marketing brochure does not mean that it will be an effective intervention for your child!

Over the years I have heard stories from many of my clients of how they spent months or in some unfortunate cases even years trying different treatments and therapies with little or no measurable progress.

But trust me, when you get it right (or even close to right) you’ll definitely know it!

Your child will absolutely love what they are doing and the leaps and bounds they make with their development will knock your socks off!

So just some more food for thought.

Please share your story
Have you had an experience with a program or intervention that for whatever reason was not as effective as you had first hoped? If so, please share your story with us below. You will really be helping other families understand the importance of knowing their child and discovering the most effective intervention for them.

Like more help?
If you would like more help learning about all of the individual characteristics of your child’s autism so you can feel empowered and confident to make the best decisions for their treatment, then please take a look at our Home Training Program.

Till next week!
Monique

However this is not true…

Let me explain why.

There are three primary learning styles;
Auditory, Visual and Kinesthetic (learning through ‘doing’).
Most people have one learning style that is more dominant than the others and prefer to use this when learning new things.

To illustrate this, the following image shows a very simple version of the differences between Auditory and Visual learning.

Copyright Silverman, L.K. (2002). Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner

This picture is not supposed to be saying that Visual learning is in some way better or more powerful than auditory learning, it’s simply showing how different people have different learning styles. The girl on the left likes to read the instructions and say them out aloud in her head, while the boy on the right is a visual learner and prefers to think about an image of what it is he is building.

Research suggests that most children with autism are very good visual learners.

Therefore one of the keys to helping kids with autism learn as quickly and as effectively as possible is using their strong visual learning skills to help. Otherwise we are making learning hard for them which doesn’t help them reach their full potential.

This is why I always recommend that parents and teachers learn as much as they can about all of the different ways that visuals can be used to facilitate learning. The possibilities are endless and exciting!

The reason why I wanted to raise this topic this week is because…

On Tuesday I saw Samantha, a 3 year old girl diagnosed with Aspergers. Her mother explained to me that she has difficulty maintaining conversations with people because she takes a while to process what people are saying to her. As a result, she tries to keep the conversation going by relying on a few repetitive phrases that are not always very appropriate.

So in order to get Samantha using her strong visual learning skills to help her with this, I suggested that her mother draw out the conversation on a piece of paper. For example they might talk about and draw out their trip to the beach or to Grandma’s home etc. You don’t need to be able to draw like Picasso, stick figures will do just fine. In fact the simpler the better.

By drawing her conversations and turning them into visual stories, Samantha’s mother would be helping her in the following ways…

1. Giving her more time to process what is going on, because drawing things on paper slows down the pace of the conversation.
2. Increase Samantha’s comprehension of what is being said because she is a visual learner and she will use the drawings to help understand.
3. Help Samantha realise that her thoughts and ideas will add to the picture which will help her generate something relevant
4. Improve her concentration span in the conversation because her visual attention is better than her auditory attention.

…and so on and so on

As a result Samantha will be able to have more time to think about and generate her responses rather than just saying anything that comes to mind!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Drawing things on paper is just one of many visual strategies you can use to help your child.

But no matter which strategy you use you won’t go wrong if you follow these three key steps:

Step 1: Decide on your goal or what you would like to help your child accomplish.
This might be helping them understand what activities they will be doing in their day or explaining why they can’t have another biscuit or understanding some more basic vocabulary.

Step 2: Choose a visual strategy that you think will best help your child achieve this goal

Step 3: Work out how you can implement this strategy consistently throughout your child’s day (for best results)

So there’s a brief insight into how visual learning could be a very effective tool in helping your child learn new skills and understand new or unfamiliar situations.

If you’ve got any questions about Visual learning or have had any great experiences using visual learning techniques with your child (or those you treat) please share them by leaving your comments in the box below.

To learn more about all of the different types of visual strategies that you can use with your child and how to implement them, please check out the Visuals DVD from my Autism Essentials Training Program. There is over two hours of great ideas for you to learn and use with your child.

Until next week.
Happy Connecting!

Monique
Director | Head Speech Pathologist
Connect Therapy

PS: Whilst Visual learning is most dominant in children with Autism, we also need to help them develop their Auditory and Kinesthetic learning skills for a more effective, balanced approach. So once you’ve got the hang of using visual learning strategies you may like to take a look at DVD 6 (Learn Part 1) for Auditory learning, and DVD 8 (Behave) for more on Kinesthetic learning.



Welcome again to our new readers out there!

Apologies that I wasn’t able to send out my regular weekly tip last week. I was fortunate to have a few days off with my family which was a very nice break.

This week I thought I would share with you a new and slightly ‘nutty’ therapy idea that I only trialed for the very first time this week. Because each of the children I treat are so unique, I’m constantly testing and trialing new therapy strategies to find out what works and what doesn’t in order to get the breakthroughs and results that families are desperate to see.

So I really wanted to share this one with you because it worked wonders for this client of mine, Sam.

It still blows me away how incredible it is that such a small change in therapy can make such a huge difference.

Sam is a visually distracted 5 year old boy with autism. He interacts and communicates very well but the moment that something catches his eye he is compelled to go and check it out. This can be very frustrating when we are trying to work on his ability to maintain attention and develop a great connection with him. Sound familiar?

To address this we needed to somehow get rid of all of the clutter in his play room to minimise as many distractions as possible. But as most of you will appreciate, mess and clutter are a natural part of having a child and you can’t simply lock everything away in a big box every time your child gets distracted by something new!

In Sam’s case this was no different. It simply wasn’t possible to have a room in his house completely clutter free… so we needed to think a little creatively….a little outside the box

The solution was simple but effective.

We decided to use a TENT!

Yes a tent! One of those very large, light weight, collapsible sunshade tents that you might take to the beach, that you can just spring open anywhere.

We faced the opening towards the wall and filled it with comfy pillows so that it was a fun, enticing and reassuring place to spend time in. Sam loved it! And better still he was able to concentrate and focus on a single activity for nearly twenty minutes without being tempted by all the other objects in the room.

Previously without the tent his best time had only been about 5 minutes.
So a 400% improvement… not bad for a few minutes of creative thinking

It really was the perfect solution.

To be honest, I was blown away with this dramatic improvement and you can be sure that I will be remembering this therapy idea for many years to come!

Till next week.
Happy Connecting

Monique

P.S For many, many more great therapy techniques and ideas just like this one, please check out my Autism Essentials DVD Training Program.

P.P.S Got any terrific ideas or tips that have worked with your child?? Please leave us a comment below.

which is great because….

What I have to tell you today is very important. In fact it may change the way you think about just about every aspect of your child’s treatment.

———————————–

I often get asked to give families strategies to help deal with specific behaviours such as ‘toilet training’ or ‘picky eating’ or ‘poor sleeping patterns’.

It would certainly make my job MUCH easier if I could tell each one of you that ONE particular strategy would be the ‘Magic Formula‘ for solving each of these issues.

But the truth is…

because every child with autism (like any child) is so incredibly different and so unique, there simply isn’t a ‘magic formula’ or one strategy in particular to remedy these individual behaviours.

But there is a solution… so please read on.

———————————–

After 11 years specialising in autism and treating hundreds of children, I absolutely believe that

…the children who make the greatest gains (and the fastest gains) are the ones whose parents and carers fully understand the unique differences of their child and know how to work with these individual characteristics, for maximum effect to help their child reach their full potential.

I have witnessed this time and time again.

So in order to interact with your child effectively and determine the best methods for managing their individual behaviours (eg: not weeing on the toilet, not socialising with peers, not eating a range of foods etc) you really need to understand your child’s individual sensory, emotional, thought processing patterns and learning style. Without this understanding, you will simply be guessing as to the best (and most suitable) methods of addressing particular behaviours with your child.

So what do you do…?

How do we help them with these issues…??

———————————–

My “Magic Formula”

The good news is that I have developed a magic formula of sorts… although with less magic and much more formula.

And although some of my clients might believe that I have a bunch of magic tricks up my sleeve,

the reality is that this formula involves no magic but rather…

…a well structured, methodical and individualised process, that systematically uncovers the underlying cause of ‘problem’ behaviours, enabling us to identify the most appropriate strategies and methods for treating them.

This process can be used with any child to target virtually any kind of behavioural issue.

I have never publicised this formula or the essence of my treatment model until now…

It is something I have only ever shared with my clients and those of you who already have my Autism Essentials Training Program.

But I know that unless I do share it with you, you will never fully understand why it is so important and how it forms the foundations for everything else that I do in the treatment of children with autism.

So let me introduce you to my Magic Formula… which I call the ‘Connect Therapy Pyramid’.

———————————–

The Connect Therapy Pyramid

I developed this formula and treatment model gradually over many years of working with children with autism and now use it everyday in the work that I do with the families I treat.

Whenever we have a problem behaviour that we are trying to target with a particular child we pull out the Connect Therapy Pyramid and work out systematically what is going on for the child.

I know it looks incredibly simple. But believe me, when used correctly it can be very powerful.

Each level of the pyramid is interconnected, starting from SENSE, then working all the way up through FEEL, THINK and LEARN, and finally arriving at BEHAVE at the very top of the pyramid.

Behaviour is only the tip of the iceberg

Imagine the pyramid is an iceberg. Your child’s behaviours are just the tip of the iceberg. They are what everybody sees on the surface.

But what we can’t see is the other 90% of the iceberg submerged beneath the water. What most people don’t realise is that they key to treating your child’s behaviours lies in being aware of and understanding the foundation skills and developmental deficits that make up the other 90% of the iceberg.

Example Case Study

Let me explain this by working through an example of how we would use the pyramid in practice.

Please note that even though the example I’ve chosen below looks at feeding issues, the formula can be used with virtually any challenging issue or behaviour that your child is experiencing.

Lets pretend that Jack is a very picky eater and will only eat home made chips, bread and banana. So the ‘behaviour’ we are trying to improve is getting Jack to eat a wider variety of foods.

But in order to treat the behaviour, we first need to understand why it is occurring.

It’s no good starting at the top of the pyramid, pouring all your efforts into treating the actual behaviour. We can’t waste time merely treating the symptoms of the problem (the tip of the iceberg) without actually understanding the cause of why it is happening.

For this reason, you must always start at the bottom of the pyramid with Sense, and work your way up.

As you become more competent at understanding your child at each of the different levels, the order in which you work can become more flexible. However you must ALWAYS analyse each of the lower levels first, before moving up to Behave.

• Step 1 therefore is to take into consideration whether there are any sensory motor challenges. It could be possible that Jack has a sensory processing issue. This could be based on either touch, visual (only feels safe eating certain coloured foods?), auditory (may not like the sound of crunchy foods?) or smell related issues. It may also be possible that Jack has an oral propriocpetive challenge where he does not have a good sense of where his tongue, lips and jaw are positioned and how they move which could mean that certain types of food are more challenging to eat than others.

• Step 2 is to consider what might be going on emotionally for Jack, what he is ‘feeling’ when he tries to eat new foods. It may be causing him an enormous amount of anxiety which means that meal time is extremely stressful for him. As we learned last week, if Jack is operating in a stressful state then he is unable to use the ‘thinking’ part of his brain to learn how to eat new foods. So until this is managed effectively there will be little change in his progress.

• Step 3 is to understand and consider whether Jack’s thought processing patterns are getting in the way of him trialing new foods. He may be very rigid and lack flexibility in the way he thinks. In this instance it is so important to build a warm and trusting relationship into mealtimes so that Jack feels very reassured and supported to take a few risks. But when doing this, it is also vital that the family know how to create the ‘just right’ challenge for Jack. If the challenge is too easy, he probably won’t be interested. If it is too difficult he might breakdown.

• Step 4 is to establish Jack’s learning style so that this can be taken into consideration when helping Jack work through this problem area. This is a very big area of analysis and involves understanding the auditory, visual and kinesthetic learning possibilities for Jack.

Finally, when we have dealt with each of the levels below, we can look at Jack’s behaviour and confidently choose the best strategies to help Jack with eating a wider variety of foods because we have a thorough understanding of the underlying issues causing this behaviour in the first place.

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So there you have it.

My ‘Autism Formula’.

I’ll be talking about it more in the weeks to come but right now this post is getting quite long, so I need to wrap it up…

I have only BRIEFLY touched on some of the possibilities for using this formula in the case study above to give you an idea of how this technique can be used to fully support your child’s development and learning. Hopefully you will have also gained a sense of how individualised and powerful this process can be for working with the unique differences of each individual child.

This treatment model is also very respectful (and fun!) for the child because it celebrates the fact that all children are unique and deserve individualised treatment and uses their natural motivations and strengths to help them learn more quickly.

If you’re interested in further training on using these methods to better understand and help your child then I’d recommend that you take a closer look at my Autism Essentials Training Series. I specifically developed this program based on the fundamental principals of the Connect Therapy Pyramid. It covers each level of the pyramid in detail, beginning with SENSE then moving up through FEEL, THINK, LEARN and finally BEHAVE, teaching you how to understand and help your child at each stage.

To see how empowered and confident families become when they gain this incredible understanding of their child makes my work so rewarding.

At the end of the day it does not matter whether I have the skills to help the child. I consider it my job to hand over these tools to the parents and carers so they feel that they know how to tackle the various issues that arise. Only then do I feel that I have done a good job with the child and family!

Until next time. Happy connecting!

Best wishes

Monique

PS: Did this make sense to you? I hope that this has really enlightened many of you on the underlying principals and techniques behind my work. I’d love to hear your feedback or comments on my ‘Autism Formula’, so please leave me you thoughts below.