spin off of Resources for Social skills

[mamashark]

I admit I'm still a baby in my thinking process here as many of you are much more researched than I on the topic, but I had a question about something that Peterpan said in her post on the social skills research post.

"your very bright kid will memorize and learn the faces and words they say. Will he apply it? Will he recognize it in himself? Will it be natural and durable?"

I realize the importance of the interoceptive piece - and we are hitting those goals at our new OT and Play Therapy and at home. BUT, reflecting on my own social skills, I wonder if the question of natural and durable are the right ones? I have no diagnosed label other than anxiety and have been seeing a psychologist for the past year that has literally changed my life regarding the anxious bit. She has helped me through the diagnostic phase for my son and has the opinion that my dad is on the spectrum but does not think I am. BUT my social skills are learned. I play with social settings and phrases and practice on check-out people in stores and on persons trapped in elevators with me. I am a people watcher and will try a comment and see what kind of response I get. I have learned to survey a room and find someone "safe" to converse with and have a collection of conversation starters that I will pull out based on a variety of inputs. I've gotten really good at faking it. I've tricked people into thinking I'm an extrovert and surprised my mom at my ability to manage awkward social situations where even she felt lost. But I memorized and learned the faces and words to say. 

I guess my question is, if we can get kids to learn faces and memorize the words to say, can that not have a really important place in proper social skill development? The phrase that comes to mind is " fake it until you feel it". 

 

[PeterPan]

Well what I love about what you've done is that you discovered it for yourself. What I found with ds was that he was actually SCRIPTING the crap the SLP was teaching him. He was memorizing and repeating phrases robotically, which is not even remotely close to what you're doing.

Is your new OT actually using the Interoception book with him and working through the body parts and phases? If she's not, then when the new IAC comes out, ask for it! It's going to be super stellar. 

Female autism involves so much masking that I think it's really questionable to ask a counselor whether you're on the spectrum. For an adult, a psych will go through developmental history, looking at what you were like before age 5, they'll also look at how you fit the criteria now and significance (effect on life, whether you're currently requiring support or having issues). There's also such a range (woo-woo, a spectrum) that sometimes it's easier to look at what supports you need (see the Social Thinking Communication Profiles article) rather than DSM terms. 

Here's that youtube video on autism and gender differences. It's brief but thought-provoking. Also the book Pretending to be Normal is very good.

 

[Lecka]

I think it can.

I think the thing is, some people are more successful than others with these strategies.  

For some people this is a good strategy and will be successful.

But for some people it may not be successful, and then it’s not a good strategy for some people, so it is good to have more options.

There is really a wide variety of levels and different things work for different kids.  Or, at different times different things will be more appropriate.  

What can happen (for one thing) is some kids will memorize the right thing to say, but not say it at the right time.  That can be a time when memorizing can fall down for some kids. 

But when you see things working or have a sense they will be helpful, then that is the most important thing.

It’s also fine to have a mix of things that includes some memorizing.  

Unless you can see — hey, this memorizing is really, really backfiring.  

I think there’s also a lot of overlap between memorizing and learning.  Memorizing can be a first step in learning.  Or, it can play a major role. 

But “only” memorizing could be incomplete.  But that doesn’t mean it’s “never” part of the process or a good thing to do.

The thing is, too, you made a lot of choices in your practice, and you noticed a lot of things.  You did a lot more than have someone teach you to recite something you had memorized with no thought of context or the response you got.  So in that way it is more than “just memorizing.”  

Something I have heard wrt ABA ——— and I am a “yes” on ABA ——— is people complain it’s not natural, they have seen kids who don’t seem natural.  Well, sometimes kids start out trying a new thing and they may not seem natural *at first.*  But then over time they may become more comfortable and familiar, and seem more natural.  

But on the other hand, there are strategies to practice skills more in a “natural environment,” and that is important to include.  

You will hear a lot about issues where kids can do something in the therapy room, but it doesn’t generalize.  A lot of kids will need extra help to generalize to other situations.  

So you also can hear frustrations where parents feel like “he does good in the therapy office, but they don’t realize that he doesn’t do the same skill out of the therapy office.”  And then — ABA I have had, have been good about ideas for generalizing and practicing skills in the natural environment.  But sometimes some people are better about this than others.  

For me personally, I have seen my son become natural with skills that started out seeming more “wooden.”  

But I have also talked to parents who felt that their kids were not helped by anything with a script, and I think that is something people should keep in mind if that is the child’s history.  

I’m not sure, but maybe especially when kids have done a lot of scripting?  My son has rarely scripted.  It is just not how his mind works.  So it’s a little bit of a different issue.  

He does have to work and work at things that kids who script will pick up instantly, so I think it can be something where another parent would find it very foreign.  

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, mamashark said:

I guess my question is, if we can get kids to learn faces and memorize the words to say, can that not have a really important place in proper social skill development? 

So what the IAC suggests we do is 3 phases. First, we recognize what our bodies are feeling (interoception), then phase 2 we start to put words to it. So I'm actually doing pretty well at phase 1 now. I used to not be able to distinguish being tired from a headache. Now I can say I have a headache and I actually know it's a headache. I used to walk around and go something is wrong, I don't know what's wrong. Now I know it's a headache. So I'm nailing phase 1, but what I'm not doing so well on is phase 2. Like yesterday my head hurt and I felt dizzy and my brain was slow and my muscles were low energy, but did I actually put that together and say I'm SICK? Nope. That was phase 2, and that's what I have to work on next. We have to pull all those things together inductively, slowly, so I figure it out for myself, how it looks in me.

What's good about doing it that way is that I notice more. Like say I looked at a picture of a sick kid on a couch and said the boy is sick. What good did that do me? I memorized a word and how it looked, but what if *I* don't look that way when I'm sick?? What if the person I'm living with doesn't look that way? Then I'm screwed because my definition of that word didn't fit how it really looks in real life, only that one picture. It can't generalize. 

So to generalize to life, we need more than a single picture. 

So then you go ok, I've figured it out for myself and I realize that emotion or feeling (affective or hypostatic) in lots of situations. Now could I start noticing it in others? That's phase 3. And the IAC is going to suggest a progression where we go from more static, instructional presentations to more dynamic, faster-paced situations. So NO ONE is saying don't use videos. Absolutely explicit instruction has it's place! But we want it to be able to generalize and we want it based on self-awareness and having the input more socially typical people would have had. When a sensory-typical person is asked how their body feels when they're angry, they can TELL you! Ask someone. Got to Chat and just ask people hey, how does your body feel when you're angry? They're going to have all this data they've been receiving from their bodies and noticing and cataloging. And that data then gives them a way to look at OTHER PEOPLE and put all those dots together. Oh you're sweating and your face is red and you're fanning yourself, and I know when I feel all those things I'm HOT and need a drink, so you are probably hot and need a drink! 

So by not getting all that data input, the person with sensory issues is missing the input that would help them make natural connections and generalize across settings. 

1 hour ago, mamashark said:

The phrase that comes to mind is " fake it until you feel it". 

I did this with my kids.  I didn't "feel" the love for them, so I intentionally smiled and told them I loved them. It's not a crime and it's fine and it worked. I don't think my kids are confused about my love for them. However it was really nice when I started 5HTP and started actually *feeling* some of the things instead of having to just fake it. So whether it's a chemical deficit or being disconnected from your rightful sensations due to interoception deficits, the goal is to fill the gap and actually let the person feel it and recognize it. 

[mamashark]

10 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Is your new OT actually using the Interoception book with him and working through the body parts and phases? If she's not, then when the new IAC comes out, ask for it! It's going to be super stellar. 

I do not know if she is using the book, but I have the book coming today in the mail and we are pairing that with our science unit on the human body starting in January. The OT IS familiar with Kelly Mahler and I have already put a plug in for the new IAC coming out. She has shared some with me some of what she has planned starting in January and it sounds excellent. 

[PeterPan]

I think the other thing to remember is that there are difference in how autism and these issues need to be approached. The SLP world is told constantly they mustn't use cognitive referencing, that there are no norms for higher IQ language in typically developing kids vs. average or lower, but it's baloney. I'm not talking statistics but logic here. You have to have language comprehension to function at the higher level they expect the higher IQ dc to function in. The populations Mahler was working with were sometimes 150+. Like seriously, it stretches the logic to say the intervention is going to look exactly the same in a radically different situation. These are metacognitive strategies.

So there are times when memorizing is TOTALLY APPROPRIATE. However we're not going to take my higher IQ dc, who CAN use a metacognitive strategy, and use the same memorization and limited generalization approach they're using at the autism school with kids with ID. We have huge potential here to bring in metacognitive approaches. I don't know all populations, only my ds. But what I don't like is memorization without thinking. It results in scripting for him and isn't natural for him. It doesn't allow him to function at the level he COULD function at.

And I'll say it again. What you've done is brilliant, and I think it's natural that you're asking what more could be done, how the student can surpass his teacher, how your ds can have what maybe you didn't. It's going to be amazing. It sounds like you've got a really great team forming with your OT, and you're coming into a time when so many good materials are available. You'll get to coat tails that and learn what you need too. 

[mamashark]

8 minutes ago, Lecka said:

The thing is, too, you made a lot of choices in your practice, and you noticed a lot of things.  You did a lot more than have someone teach you to recite something you had memorized with no thought of context or the response you got.  So in that way it is more than “just memorizing.”  

True. And I suppose instead of scripting my phrases in each situation based on memory of past usage, I have learned to put bits and phrases together to match a variety of stimuli in each situation in order to achieve a specific outcome. A lot of the anxiety reduction over the past year has been learning to let go of some of the reflective analysis after each social encounter because I was internalizing too much and being too hard on myself and thus over analyzing everything I said or did. There is a lot of brain power that goes into that kind of experience that is more than memorization, you are right. 

That said, I'm kind of jealous of people like my husband where social stuff comes so naturally they don't have to think about it!

Thanks for your thoughts - lots to chew on...

[PeterPan]

Just now, mamashark said:

I was internalizing too much and being too hard on myself and thus over analyzing everything I said or did. There is a lot of brain power that goes into that kind of experience

I think you're going to be on a journey yourself, learning strategies. Has the counselor started you doing mindfulness yet? If you do some of the IAC work and begin working on your own mindfulness, that journey will probably help you find the strategies you need. It starts with the counselor, but it continues with you taking your own steps and finding out about yourself and developing your own strategies.

What I didn't realize was that it could CHANGE, that we could actually change our awareness and our ability to do something about it. So it's just a journey.

Did you run genetics yet? If your ds is diagnosed, you could do the SPARK study. They don't give you raw data, but it's interesting. 23andme would give you useful data. There are known genes for anxiety and ways to treat it based on that data. For me, the TPH2 gene was pivotal. Taking 5HTP is AMAZING. Cognitive strategies weren't really a substitute for solving the chemical problem, and the chemical solution didn't eliminate the need for the cognitive strategies.

[mamashark]

2 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

But what I don't like is memorization without thinking.

I think this is the piece I was missing when I first asked the question. Because I don't memorize lines without thinking them through. I think about how to inflect, how it impacts the listener, how listeners can respond and appropriate responses to that. And trying to parse that down into bite size pieces for my son is making my brain hurt! lol.

Color my Conversation is providing some of the pieces, but I'm finding that he tends to use the steps as a script and it sounds unnatural and he is unable to use context to think past a single scripted response. So we are working on individual pieces instead of the whole. I pulled out the picture cards and we are working on just context clues to learn what questions we could possibly ask about each picture. 

[mamashark]

2 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Has the counselor started you doing mindfulness yet? If you do some of the IAC work and begin working on your own mindfulness, that journey will probably help you find the strategies you need. It starts with the counselor, but it continues with you taking your own steps and finding out about yourself and developing your own strategies.

yes. Mindfulness has been a huge piece of the puzzle for me. And the other word that encapsulates a big part of the shift has been intentionality. I'm learning to recognize when I feel overwhelmed/overstimulated and take specific steps that I know will intentionally improve things. Yesterday after a tough school session with my daughter it was intentionally pickup up a fiction book for a half hour, straightening my bedroom, and running on the treadmill. Within about 2 hours I was able to feel centered again, and ready to face the next challenge of the day - dinner with my in-laws. 😂

The research on play therapy that I've done has been a huge game-changer in my intentionality in speaking with my children, especially my son. I think the idea that I'm playing with is that anyone can do things half-well by not focusing on the important pieces, but an intentional effort makes a huge difference. (This is the difference between OTs that we've used - the last OT was not intentional - she didn't listen to my goals or thoughts about what we needed and she would grab something 2 minutes before calling him back. Sure it met a random semi-helpful goal, to some degree, but the new OT is intentionally planning out ahead of time what activities to do and how to use them to specifically meet goals that were carefully designed to meet specific needs based on parent input and her assessments. I feel much better about the intentional process, unsurprisingly.)

[Lecka]

I’ll be honest and say it’s possible the conversation program is too advanced for him right now.  

He might do better with stuff for joint attention and play right now.

I am going to link something I love for ideas about play.  

https://www.socialthinking.com/Products/Group-Collaboration-Play-Problem-Solving-Scale-Assessment

I got it as part of the We Thinkers 2 set.  

[Lecka]

There is a social side and a language side both for being ready for conversation skills.  It’s really okay to work on more foundational skills in either area, for a younger child.  

Edit:  there is a difference between feeling like there is no understanding, or feeling like there is enough understanding to build on even if things are looking really rough.  

Edited December 12, 2018 by Lecka

[Lecka]

And this is a book I like talking about joint attention, it is at the library here:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-Start-Your-Child-Autism/dp/160918470X

Joint attention has been one of those things where I often don’t find it explained in a way that makes a lot of sense to me.  

[PeterPan]

29 minutes ago, mamashark said:

Color my Conversation is providing some of the pieces, but I'm finding that he tends to use the steps as a script and it sounds unnatural and he is unable to use context to think past a single scripted response.

It takes time and practice to generalize a skill! Ruth Aspy talks about the 10,000 hours concept. So when you've worked on it 10,000 hours, hopefully you'll look back and be happy. 

30 minutes ago, mamashark said:

So we are working on individual pieces instead of the whole. I pulled out the picture cards and we are working on just context clues to learn what questions we could possibly ask about each picture. 

Yes, yes, this is really good stuff! Have you done We Thinkers yet? I think in We Thinkers 2 they make the people files. You're totally on the right track. If you haven't done We Thinkers or anything Social Thinking yet, you might find the concepts blend.

Keep up the good work! 

[mamashark]

5 minutes ago, Lecka said:

I’ll be honest and say it’s possible the conversation program is too advanced for him right now.  

He might do better with stuff for joint attention and play right now.

I am going to link something I love for ideas about play.  

https://www.socialthinking.com/Products/Group-Collaboration-Play-Problem-Solving-Scale-Assessment

I got it as part of the We Thinkers 2 set.  

interesting thought, I'll have to look into that more. 

btw, my husband loves you guys because of what you've influenced me to do to our budget!!! 😜

[mamashark]

Just now, PeterPan said:

It takes time and practice to generalize a skill! Ruth Aspy talks about the 10,000 hours concept. So when you've worked on it 10,000 hours, hopefully you'll look back and be happy. 

Yes, yes, this is really good stuff! Have you done We Thinkers yet? I think in We Thinkers 2 they make the people files. You're totally on the right track. If you haven't done We Thinkers or anything Social Thinking yet, you might find the concepts blend.

Keep up the good work! 

 

We did we thinkers 1 with the last OT and I found it good in some areas and poorly implemented in others. But, it was the OT that I didn't like for her lack of intentionality too, so that could have colored my opinion of the curriculum itself. So I'll look at we thinkers 2 🙂 

[PeterPan]

22 minutes ago, mamashark said:

I'm learning to recognize when I feel overwhelmed/overstimulated and take specific steps that I know will intentionally improve things.

This is really good stuff! And that's the kind of self-awareness and ability to make choices that we want our kids to make too! It's a process, a journey. It sounds like you're doing really well and getting really good help. You're WAY ahead of where I was when my kids were that age. 

 

24 minutes ago, mamashark said:

the new OT is intentionally planning out ahead of time what activities to do and how to use them to specifically meet goals that were carefully designed to meet specific needs based on parent input and her assessments.

Fabulous! 

[PeterPan]

On the conversation program, I think one there's value in *you* learning. And two, you just teach someone up to what they're ready. Even 6 yos are using complex sentence structure (I want to go to the store because I want to buy a ball.) and preschoolers can change roles. You're actually farther along in CMC than we are (my bad), but I think it's probably you're not outstripping what is developmentally appropriate. The key is always to take the time to generalize the skill and get it really good and get it happening in lots of contexts. This isn't a rush to go through lots of material fast.

Everything *you* learn is making *you* more effective at helping him. You are the person who's with him the most. It also helps you recognize when good intervention is happening and when the intervention is dissatisfactory.

[Lecka]

4 minutes ago, mamashark said:

We did we thinkers 1 with the last OT and I found it good in some areas and poorly implemented in others. But, it was the OT that I didn't like for her lack of intentionality too, so that could have colored my opinion of the curriculum itself. So I'll look at we thinkers 2 🙂 

 You can get an idea from the samples!  My son is 10 now, and I got set 1 and 2 both when they came out, I guess when he was 6 or so.  Anyway -- I like all of it, but it has a way of being hit or miss with him, but more like he isn't ready for some things sometimes.  He is doing pretty well with set 2 right now (he does it with ABA) ------ but he is 10, and he has had some maturity gains!  Anyway -- it's been very frustrating for me at times to be like "well it says it is for ages 4 and up, but this is far from clicking for him right now."  But *I* like it, lol.  

[PeterPan]

3 minutes ago, mamashark said:

 

We did we thinkers 1 with the last OT and I found it good in some areas and poorly implemented in others. But, it was the OT that I didn't like for her lack of intentionality too, so that could have colored my opinion of the curriculum itself. So I'll look at we thinkers 2 🙂 

Yeah carryover is everything. We had workers reading the books every day and reinforcing the goals. I didn't do We Thinkers 2 with him, the behaviorist did.

I think there's online training for Hanen. Like I said, I'm all over anything that helps *you* do better. Play is actually my hardest area, because I suck at play. I pay other people to play with my ds and I invest in that, because I know it's not an area I bring a lot to. I'm really stellar with syntax. You want syntax intervention, really nitpicky technical detailed things, call me. But you want me to play barn with your kid? Hang it up, lol. 

Our behaviorist plays with ds every week for most of their session. I call it gentling, because it's sort of like taming a wild colt. I think she's working through those play skills and the progression, but it just takes time. She's been doing that for what two years now? I lose track. I think it's our 3rd Christmas with her, so maybe 2 1/2 years? He's gone from being exceptionally hard to play with to someone most people can play with for a bit. She always reports on how she pushed the play (which shows what skills she's working on) and how he responded. It's really sucky hard to have friends if you can't play, and my ds isn't going to learn those play skills from a book or by hanging with kids. Kids either have the skills to cover for him OR they don't have the skills and get overwhelmed. So for him, time playing with adults who have goals and a progression and intentionality to it (as you say) is really important and MONEY WELL SPENT. 

We could have put our money lots of ways, but putting it into learning gentle, appropriate play has opened a lot of doors for ds.

[PeterPan]

3 minutes ago, Lecka said:

it's been very frustrating for me at times to be like "well it says it is for ages 4 and up, but this is far from clicking for him right now."  But *I* like it, lol.  

I learned from it and I'm 42. I think truth is ageless and simple presentations are sometimes the best way to learn profound concepts. We Thinkers is disarming and playbased. It's fabulous.

[mamashark]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

On the conversation program, I think one there's value in *you* learning. And two, you just teach someone up to what they're ready. Even 6 yos are using complex sentence structure (I want to go to the store because I want to buy a ball.) and preschoolers can change roles. You're actually farther along in CMC than we are (my bad), but I think it's probably you're not outstripping what is developmentally appropriate. The key is always to take the time to generalize the skill and get it really good and get it happening in lots of contexts. This isn't a rush to go through lots of material fast.

Everything *you* learn is making *you* more effective at helping him. You are the person who's with him the most. It also helps you recognize when good intervention is happening and when the intervention is dissatisfactory.

I don't think we're "ahead" so much as I took the program apart.  I really went through the entire program to get the gestalt of what they want to teach and how, and what their goals are at each step. Then I kind of took it all apart and am applying the pieces in a different order. He's great some parts, and oddly enough, even with his extreme anxiety issues, has developed quite the ability to work a room of people he knows, saying hi to people and if he has a stuffed pet with him, he'll introduce his pet. One Sunday morning he literally had the same exact conversation with a dozen people.

And as I think through that - I'm realizing that the success there is with a concrete conversation topic - there was no abstract concept thought necessary. He can discuss the pet that he was holding, practice those lines across a variety of people. Holding something to discuss also takes the pressure off of facial expressions/eye contact. Now my wheels are spinning to see how I can figure out how to apply other concepts from CMC with a more concrete practice opportunity...

The application of social thinking 1 was centered more around the other boy in the group who was more the "I'm going to talk about my stuff and be in my own world and cause all the unexpected things to happen" rather than on my kid who was the "I'm going to be silent and terrified because those other kids are so unpredictable!". So there was a LOT of conversation and lesson time around the idea of following the group plan and the unspoken rules so that others aren't uncomfortable. But never touched the issue of how the other kids feel when that unexpected thing happens. When I asked about strategies for the kid who is anxious because of kids who don't follow the group plan, it upset the other kid's mom who was like, my kid is always going to be in trouble!!!!! And I'm sitting there going yeah, your son needs to learn to follow the group plan, but my son is terrified of your kid, hardly even speaks up in the group of TWO kids because your son dominates it and the OT can't figure out how to control the interaction. *sigh* the language was great. I still use some of it. But like I said, the application was not well done.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by mamashark