Take, for example, one of my students this summer. He has a bad case of the cute and an even worse case of the parts of autism nobody's fond of. This guy has no way of communicating his wants and needs. OK, I lied. He does have three ways that work for him on occasion. Here's how he can currently communicate, and my best guess at a translation.
1. Annoying, exaggerating crying. Translation: "I want something you're not giving me! My stomach hurts! I don't want to play with this toy! I'm bored, come play with me!"
2. Shoving, hitting, or kicking. Translation: "I don't want to do that job. I don't want to play with that toy! I'm in a bad mood! I'm bored, come play with me."
3. Grabbing. Translation: "I want that cookie and I want it now. I don't want to do this job so I'm going to do this instead. I want a high five!"
I can't see this working in the real world.
This little guy doesn't seem to point at what he wants. He doesn't know any sign language. He certainly doesn't talk. So what then?
Well, if you have about $400 lying around, you could try Boardmaker. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of cold hard cash lying around, so I came up with a different option.
First, I Googled and downloaded the best picture I could find of something my student seems to really like... Goldfish crackers.
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| Goldfish unfortunately not to scale |
I printed out this picture and mounted it on the back of piece of an old manila folder. I got me some real Goldfish crackers and I got myself my student, already doing his annoying crying thing in anticipation of the slave labor that he would shortly be required to do. Then I performed the following ritual with my student, which is totally not by the book and dead speech therapists across the world are probably still rolling over in their graves.
1. I showed my student the picture, touched it, and said "Goldfish" when I touched the picture. He's autistic. He looked for three seconds and then continued with the annoying crying.
2. I showed my student an actual Goldfish cracker, touched it, and said "Goldfish" when I touched the cracker. Ah, food. Maybe slave labor wasn't all that bad. My student stopped crying and looked at the cracker.
3. I put the Goldfish picture on the table in front of the student. Thankfully, he didn't seem too put out that the actual cracker was no longer in sight. He looked at the picture.
4. I took my student's hand and physically helped him to pick up the Goldfish picture and put it in my other hand. When the picture touched my hand, I said "Goldfish" and immediately gave him an actual cracker. At this point, my student looked like he was positively enjoying the slave labor.
5. I repeated the process a few times. He enjoyed the crackers, immensely.
6. I put the Goldfish picture on the table and waited for my student to give me the picture. He did it independently! He got a bright new cracker every time he gave me the picture for his trouble.
No problem if you can't talk, dude, we've got you covered.
Of course, soon after I had finished ooh-ing and ah-ing over my student's first words, he started the annoying crying again, and I had no idea what he was trying to tell me. You can't win them all, I guess.
Today, he communicates that he wants a Goldfish cracker! Tomorrow, he'll communicate that I'm singing the wrong version of the Days of the Week song! The sky's the limit from here on out!
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| Maybe we can even get him to spell, too... |
Maybe not by the book for a dead speech therapist, but totally by the book for discrete trial training/ABA or whatever the fashionable name is for it this week.
ReplyDeleteHaha, the speech therapists around here do PECS a specific way, and my way is not that specific way. But it did work.
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