Autism Essentials Blog » Relationship building

Signs That Your Speech Pathologist may not be a “Good Match” for Your Child

Monique Simpson — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:33:21 +0000

Howdy all,

Well I am now the proud mother of two beautiful children. Our little boy Liam was born on the 30th of March and he has certainly been a lovely addition to our family. Though I can hardly say ‘little’ as he weighed in at 4.45 kg, which is nearly 10 pounds! Eek…poor me

Anyway we are enjoying him immensely as there is nothing quite like a cuddle form a newborn baby.

In my last blog post we looked at some of the main things to think about and some key questions that you should ask any speech pathologist before employing their services to help your child with autism.

After you’ve been working with your therapist for a few months you’ll want to know if the therapy is actually making a difference and that you child is making some real progress. This depends greatly on how good a ‘match’ your therapist (and the therapy) is for your child.

So today (as promised) I’d like to share with you some of the warning signs that may indicate that it’s time to find another speech pathologist who is ‘a better match’ for your child.

If you haven’t read my previous post about why this is so important please read it now.

As you know, time is precious and no parent wants to waste it when treating their child with autism! This is particularly true for early intervention. So it’s very important that you are able to determine as early as possible whether the therapy your child is receiving is effective or not… otherwise days will turn into weeks that will turn into years…and before you know it time is slipping away.

But fear not

Here are some tips to help you determine just how effective your child’s speech therapy really is… and whether you should continue with your current therapist or start looking for another one…

1. Does your child have a good connection/relationship with their speech pathologist?

Please remember that without a warm, trusting and fun relationship your child will not genuinely want to interact or learn from their therapist. This is essential for creating a solid foundation for all future learning.

2. Is your child enjoying their therapy sessions?

Two of the primary ingredients for learning new things and laying down memories are ‘fun’ and ‘motivation’. So for speech therapy to be effective is must be fun and motivating for your child. It’s crucial that your therapist incorporates your child’s interests into their therapy sessions. If your child is attentive in the activity because it ‘pushes their buttons’ then the quality and rate of learning will be far greater. So if after several months of therapy, if your therapist is not incorporating highly motivating activities into your sessions (easy to spot because your child will be bored and disinterested 8 out of 10 sessions)… or worse still, they may not even be aware of what activities actually motivate your child, then it may be time to move on.

3. Are there noticeable improvements in your child’s Social and Communication Skills as a result of the goals that are being targeted in speech therapy?

Can you notice a difference in day-to-day functioning of your child? Can others notice a difference?

The reason that I ask you this is because sometimes speech therapy sessions can seem to be going well ‘in the clinic’ but these improvements do not necessarily translate to the everyday functioning of your child…. and let’s face it, this is what is really important!

This can happen if the goals that are being set are not very meaningful and important to the child’s existence. In my opinion, the best way of speech therapists creating practical and meaningful goals is by doing home and school visits that clearly show the therapist what is important to target in intervention. If a speech therapist is simply creating goals as a result of carrying out some formal language tests then there is a good chance that the goals will not be practical and meaningful and perhaps will not target the social aspect of communication development. Instead they will just end up teaching splinter skills (i.e: following instructions, answering questions, requesting things etc) without addressing their application in day to day life.

4. Are you clear at the end of each therapy session what goals you are targeting in therapy and what you need to work on and practice before the next session?

I know you already know this but an hour or so of speech therapy weekly or fortnightly is simply not going to create the huge breakthroughs you want for your child. Whenever possible you need to be following up and working with your child at home. It only needs to be for half an hour or so but it must be regular.

Therefore it is crucial that your speech therapist is including a lot of parent training and education in your sessions so that you feel confident on how to apply what you’re working on at home (another really good reason why your therapist needs to understand what goes on at home so they can give you practical activities and exercises that actually work in the home environment). By doing this you will gradually learn how to make every interaction with your child a fabulous learning opportunity… which is when you start to see the big breakthroughs!! So if your therapist is not helping you achieve this then I’d suggest that you’re not getting the most out of them!

5. Lastly. Trust your own intuition as a parent!

Some families will say to me “I knew for a long time that the therapy was not right for my child and I felt like I was just handing over my money at the end of the session and not achieving very much”. If it doesn’t feel right to you then it’s probably not! But make sure you give something new a few months before you decide to stop.

A final thought…

Please do not waste your precious time and resources on therapy that you feel is ineffective or not a ‘good match’ for your child. Constantly review and challenge the effectiveness of your therapist’s intervention and make the necessary changes by trusting your intuition. I can’t tell you what a buzz it gives me to see parents who feel so capable and confident to trust their intuition because they have spent a little bit of time every day training and empowering themselves to better understand their child’s needs.

Please keep these things in mind at your next session!

If you would like further assistance in building your knowledge and practical skills to help your child on a daily basis and to become better at assessing the effectiveness of their therapy sessions then I think you’re really going to get a lot out of my Autism Essentials In-home Training Program.

As always, I’d love to hear about your experiences and stories that you may have on this issue.
Please leave me your comments below.

Till next time
Monique

P.S: If you liked this article you can always subscribe for free (top right of this page) and each time I create a new article I’ll let you know via email so you’ll never miss a thing!

Effective Speech Therapy… what works and what doesn’t

Monique Simpson — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:52:28 +0000

Howdy everyone,

I’m sorry that some of you have not heard from me for a little while. Things have been crazy busy!!!

Not only am I due to have our second child any day now but I have also been running some training workshops here in Sydney for other speech pathologists to share my knowledge and experience in working with children with autism.

I really enjoyed doing the workshops and the attendees got a lot out of them, which was great!

One of the main aims of running the workshops was to help shift the way that speech pathologists work with children on the autism spectrum. I figured that if I can help fellow speech pathologists work more effectively with these kids then I will indirectly be helping many more families because they will have greater access to speech pathologists who are trained with the unique knowledge and skills that are needed for treating children with autism.

The title of the workshop is “Effective Speech Pathology… what works and what doesn’t”. Some of the key messages that I shared were:

It IS possible to treat the social part of the triad of impairment
When we use a developmental approach to treatment we are treating the core deficits of autism
We must get to know the ‘individual differences’ of the child if we are to achieve greater therapy outcomes
Parent training and empowerment is an essential part of effective treatment
Practical and meaningful speech pathology is a must

I then went on to practically explain how I carry out ‘effective therapy’ with the families I treat, using lots of client examples and video footage etc.

In a nutshell….
As speech pathologists I strongly believe that we need to be carrying out a ‘relationship building’ and ‘developmental style’ of therapy rather than sitting these children down at a table, drilling them with specific, isolated skills that are often not meaningful or motivating for the child.

After specialising in the treatment of autism for over 12 years and consulting to many different programs, I’ve treated enough clients and seen the case history of enough families to know that this structured style of teaching does not address the core deficits of autism or lay the foundations for even more effective learning.

I am a very open-minded therapist and certainly not ‘stuck in my ways‘ but I still continue to practice a relationship building style of therapy today for one very simply reason… because I find it get results.

My plan now (after our baby is born!), is to travel around the other capital cities of Australia to carry out the workshops there, then head overseas to do the same. Towards the end of the year I’ll be running more advanced training days for speech pathologists to increase their skills even further.

So along with continuing to manage Connect Therapy and creating more Training Resources I’m very excited to now be training other therapists in autism as I know that it will reach so many more families and quite possibly indirectly assist each one of you in your journey as well as other families that will follow in your footsteps!

So that’s what I’ve been up to… how about you guys?
How effective have you found Speech Therapy to be in your child’s treatment? What type of therapy approach has worked for you? I’d love to hear your experiences from a parent’s perspective.

Please leave your comments in the boxes provided below.

best wishes
Monique

Don’t forget about toy libraries!

Monique Simpson — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:15:57 +0000

Often toy libraries can be a very underutilised service in many communities… but they have a lot to offer, particularly for children with autism, aspergers or pdd-nos.

Many families say “We have so many toys at home…the last thing we need is more toys”

But let me give you a little bit of food for thought….

I saw a boy named Oli on the weekend for a session who will be going to a mainstream school next year.

He is doing really well with his play and interactions at home with his parents and his brother. This family have done an incredible job at building their relationship with Oli, helping him realise that they are heaps of fun to be around and can add so much value to his life. In fact, when I recently analysed some video footage of Oli playing with his family at home it really was not apparent that he had autism!

Yet aside from all of his wonderful progress at home his parents report that he is having significant trouble forming relationships with his peers.

One of Oli’s challenges is that he experiences a considerable amount of anxiety which is getting in the way of helping him develop friends. The thing that triggers this anxiety for Oli is new and unpredictable things. For example when he has play dates with friends, away from home, there is soooo much unpredictability (new home, less familiar people and of course new toys!).

So we needed to focus on helping Oli become more comfortable with new situations. Therefore I recommended that this family create more unpredictability in their play time at home, where Oli already felt very safe and secure.

One excellent way to create this unpredictability is by introducing different toys into your child’s play sequences.

But as you no doubt know, kids can get bored of the same toys very quickly. So if you’re child is no longer motivated by the toys you have at home, an excellent source of new and interesting toys can be your local community toy library… just like a plain old book library but instead you can borrow toys! Plus what’s also great is that as soon as your child gets bored of them you can simply return them!

Just do a Google search for toy libraries in your local area. Obviously some toy libraries are better equipped than others but it’s definitely worth checking out! And if you can’t find any toy library in your area then you could always organise to swap some toys with friends or family members.

Even if your child is not up to the same stage as Oli, toy libraries can also be a great way of trialing toys or equipment (e.g: mini trampolines) to see if your child likes them before purchasing. Because we all know how much money we can waste on toys that we think our child is going to like!

Til next time

Monique

Part 1 – Why ‘Play’ is SO Important for Children with Autism

Monique Simpson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:51:56 +0000

One thing that you need to understand is how important PLAY is for the thinking, language, emotional, problem solving and creative skills development of children with autism. So many people underestimate the importance of PLAY.

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.

Is there a ‘Magic Formula’ for Autism?

Monique Simpson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:50:17 +0000

Since you are reading this I’m guessing that the subject line may have grabbed your attention 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.

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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.

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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…??

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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’.

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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.

Dealing with your child’s challenging emotions

Monique Simpson — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:37:41 +0000

I was reading back over the questions that you posted me and there was a common theme emerging…

“What is the best way to deal with my child when they are feeling upset, frustrated, annoyed, disappointed?”

I am pleased that this topic was raised because it is an area of treatment that I get quite passionate about and I would like to share my thoughts with you…

So often we are happy to engage with children (not just special needs kids!) when they are happy and joyous, but we tend to disconnect with them when they are experiencing more challenging emotions.

But why do we do this?

Feelings of frustration, sadness annoyance etc are all basic (and completely normal) human emotions that we all encounter on a regular basis. But when this happens to our own child we are naturally driven to find a way of making them feel ‘happy’ again by saying things like “Stop crying”, “You’re okay”, “Where’s your happy face?”, “It’s ok, how about we have something to eat”.

But all this actually does is disconnects us from what they are really experiencing and feeling, and we miss an important opportunity to ‘connect’ with our child and to help them learn and grow from the experience. Your ultimate goal in any situation like this should be to help your child learn something new so they can be better prepared to understand or cope with the situation in the future.

So please, please, please do not squash these emotions in your child.
They are ‘real’ and ‘normal feelings as well as fabulous learning opportunities!

It is very important that your child learns to emotionally connect with you when they are experiencing more challenging emotions because:

There is so much that you can teach your child about life by working through these challenging times together (emotional development).
You want to always encourage your child to ‘connect’ and ‘communicate’ with you when they are experiencing these emotions so that they don’t feel alone with these emotions and so they learn more effective and appropriate ways of expressing themselves when they are upset or angry.

Here are the steps I would recommend that you follow the next time your child is experiencing these more challenging emotions…

1. Show your child that you understand how they are feeling and that you are ok with this.

For example if your child is crying and saying “I want biscuit” even though you have said no, you will match the tone and emotion in their voice and say “I know you want biscuit, I know you want biscuit, but Mummy said no more”. It’s important not to have a judgmental tone of voice as you are saying this. Simply show your child that you hear what they are saying and that you know that the situation is making them feel sad.

If your child is open to a cuddle then while you are talking to them I would give them a slightly stronger cuddle (what we call “deep pressure”) as this should be reassuring and soothing for them. If your child is non-verbal you can still show them that you understand by hugging them and matching their vocialisations and body movements.

2. Help calm your child down.

When something upseting happens, your child’s first response will be to go into “survival mode”, shutting down all rational thinking and problem solving skills. So the calmer your child is the easier it will be for them to think clearly and to learn from the situation. It will also help you move them on from the challenging emotion to a more organised or ‘normal’ state.

3. Wait for the right moment to help your child learn.

Once your child has calmed down this is the right time to provide some further learning in the situation. There is absolutely no point trying to do any talking or explanation whilst your child is in survival mode. At this time you could:

- Talk about the thoughts, feelings and ideas behind what happened (depending upon your child’s comprehension).

- Help move your child onto another activity, because children with autism can tend to ‘perseverate’ (get stuck on) the same recurring thought.

4. Pitch your child’s learning at the right level

This is really important! To effectively help your child learn from the situation you need to be able to ‘pitch’ your child’s learning at the right level for them so that they learn new skills and grow from the experience.

It’s a bit like trying to teach high school mathematics to a group of 5 year olds. No matter how hard you try or how many times you try to teach it to them they simply aren’t going to understand it or learn anything new.

So how do you know what the right level of learning is for your child??

You need to have a really good understanding of your child’s sensory, emotional, thinking and learning profile. Just as we know that typically developing 5 year olds will not be able to understand high school mathematics, you need to know where your child is at with each of the key developmental areas in order to know what they will be capable of learning in any given moment.

If you are interested in further training on how to do this and acquiring the skills to turn every interaction with your child into an amazing learning opportunity then please take a look at the various training modules in my Autism Essentials Training Program.

Also, please share your experiences with us by leaving a comment below.
What are some of your child’s more challenging emotions?
How have you been dealing with them up till now and has this been working well?

Until next week. Happy connecting!

Best wishes
Monique

PS: Just in case you don’t already know, each of the training modules in the Autism Essentials Program are now available separately. So if you feel you only need help with one particular area of developmental then this may be a good option for you. Or you can choose to start gradually with one or two volumes and order more as your skills develop over time. It’s completely up to you.

PPS: Oh yeah, and the program also comes with my 90-day risk free guarantee. Open it up, try it out, go through all of the training modules and if for any reason you are not happy, simply return it to us and we’ll refund your purchase price. So you’ve got plenty of time to decide if it’s right for you, without any of the financial pressures that come with a new purchase.

One Habit to Avoid for Better Communication

Monique Simpson — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:58:21 +0000

Welcome again to our new subscribers out there.

I’m slowly but surely answering the emails that many of you have requested some help with…

Today’s topic…

How Avoiding this one little habit will help improve your child’s social and communication skills

Often children with autism can be very passive communicators and may only talk when they are spoken to or when they are very motivated to communicate something.

Sometimes when I’m carrying out assessments, parents tell me that their child is capable of stringing a few words together into a sentence, yet often the child will not utter a single word for the entire session which is very sad! This is because the child does not know how to share their wonderful thoughts with others yet.

One way that you can dramatically improve your child’s ability to actively share their thoughts and ideas with you is by reducing the amount of questions that you ask them. Sounds simple I know. But sometimes we have such a natural desire to constantly ask our child questions because we know that they understand many things and we want to try and ‘squeeze’ as much information out of them as possible!

Here are 3 reasons why you should avoid doing this…

It constantly puts your child into a passive position in the interaction, and they get used to the pattern of just responding all the time, rather than initiating.
It incorrectly teaches them about how we use our language. They begin to believe that they should ask many questions of others during a conversation. But in reality, we spend the majority of our interaction with others simply ‘sharing’ our ideas such as what we will be doing on the weekend and what we have been up to over the past week. Constantly asking someone question after question is typically not an appropriate way to interact.
Often you might ask your child questions simply to test them… but this is not actually the purpose of a question. Generally, the reason we ask a question is to get an answer to something that we do not know (e.g: What would you like for dinner? What is the matter?). Can you imagine how awful it would be to constantly be asked questions to test your knowledge? It would be enough to turn your child off interacting with you because it’s simply no fun!

When communicating with your child you must remember…

to keep questioning to a minimum and only ask them a question when you genuinely want to know the answer.
to ‘model’ the behaviours that you would like them to improve. For example, if you would like your child to use their language to share more of their thoughts, then you simply need to do more commenting and sharing of your thoughts.

For example
- If you are looking at a book with a picture of a duck, instead of pointing to the duck and asking your child “What’s that?“, model what you would like them to say e.g. “Quack, quack” or “The duck is silly” (depending on your child’s level of comprehension).
- Or instead of saying “Why is the girl sad?” you could just say “Oh no the girl fell off her bike“.
- Or instead of asking your child “What did you do at school today?” (which most kids hate!) share something that you think would be funny or interesting to them about what you did in your day.

Finally, remember that your child’s desire to listen to language can be poor at times, so it’s important that you make your language fun so that your child becomes very motivated to listen to you.

For more training in this necessary area of development you will find my audio HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILD LISTEN AND LEARN very beneficial.

Click here to take a closer look at this.

Till next time, stay well and wishing all Mum’s out there a very happy Mother’s Day over the weekend

Have a great day.
Monique Simpson

PS: Share this with others by clicking the button below.

The Key to Socialising with Peers – the next step

Monique Simpson — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:37:26 +0000

In my last post I spoke about improving your child’s social skills, and how preparing your child with autism for successful play interactions with other kids is a step by step process.

As mentioned, your child will need to become competent at playing and interacting with YOU (their primary caregiver) before they have the necessary skills to be able to do this successfully with their peers. This is mainly because ‘typically’ developing children are not very patient and will not wait around if your child does not have the skills to participate in the game or activity that they want to play.

Step 1

Therefore, step one is to make sure that you equip your child with these necessary skills by teaching them how to interact well with YOU first. You can get more help learning these skills with the ‘7 steps to Unlocking Your Child’s Social Skills‘ audio which I use regularly with all of my clients.

Step 2

Once your child has mastered the skills from step one you can move onto step two, and begin increasing the amount that you expose them to peer interactions.

Please remember that to begin with your child’s abilities with their peers will not be as advanced as they are with you. It is important that you learn how to support your child through their play with peers so that you give them every chance of success by ensuring that they have a positive experience.

Here are 5 key strategies I use with my clients on a daily basis to help them build successful interactions with peers…

To begin with I very much encourage my clients to be involved in the play with peers. I get them to use the strategies that I have taught them on how to ‘increase the emotional connection’ in play with their child. By doing this, parents become a very fun and effective player, and the other children tend to gravitate towards you of their own accord without you forcing them to be involved. This is a very natural way and one of the best methods of getting other children also involved in the play.

Where possible, to begin with, parents should try and create play situations where there is only one or two other children involved, because otherwise it becomes too overwhelming for your child. Once they feel comfortable with small play groups then the number of peers can be increased.

Your number one priority to begin with is to get an ‘emotional connection’ going between your child and the other kids, where they are sharing smiles and laughter with them. Please note that you are not just interested in your child having a fun time but rather that they are sharing this great time with the other child. Sharing face to face smiling at one another is a great example of this. It is through this emotional connection that your child will increase their desire to interact with the other kids, see the value that they add to their life and then eventually become curious to learn from them….which is what you want!

The most successful way of initiating interaction with peers is by you starting to play in a really fun way with YOUR child with what THEY are interested in (ie: the way that you do when you are playing one-on-one with them). If it looks like fun then the other child will be curious and will want to join in the action. Then just like magic you have another child joining in!

When you are playing you should direct your attention and ‘sharing’ of smiles and laughter a lot of the time towards the other children. The reason for this is because hopefully YOUR child will naturally be drawn to look at YOU because of the work you have done following my strategies from step one. Then when your child looks at your face and you are directing your attention towards the other child this will naturally direct your child’s eye gaze towards their peer. Remember that your number one priority to begin with is to get your child sharing more emotion and fun with their peer.

So these are just a few key tips to get you started. As your child gets better and better at sharing emotions with other children you can slowly withdraw more and more from the interaction.

The key to making this work really well is the ‘emotional connection’ your child creates with their peers and not just playing alongside them! Sure it is important for your child to have time in their day to also explore their environment independently but they also need some adult support when working on developing their socialisation skills with other kids.

Have a great day
Monique Simpson

“My child wants to socialise with other kids but doesn’t know how”

Monique Simpson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:30:15 +0000

Hi all,

Thanks to those of you that sent me through your questions and comments in response to my last message. It gives me more ideas of the knowledge that you would like me to share with you. As mentioned, unfortunately I won’t be able to answer them all immediately, but over time I will certainly try to answer everyone’s questions.. so stay tuned!

A number of you were interested in knowing more about how to help your child socialise with other children. I may have touched on this topic before, but since most of these issues can be quite complex and in-depth, it can be quite valuable to revisit them from another angle.

So in relation to the topic of Socialisation with Peers it is important that you understand a few key things.

1. Signs that your child is ready to begin Socialising with Peers

A child’s ability to socialise effectively with other children comes very naturally once the child is interacting well with his or her parents/caregivers first. When your child is playing with you they must be showing the following skills:

They are sharing a range of emotions with you. Your child should enjoy the value that you add to their playtime and share lots of smiles, laughter, frustration and sadness ‘with you’. They should be seeking your company A LOT throughout the day.

They use their eyes to read your non-verbal communication (i.e: facial expressions and body gestures) because 70% of meaning is conveyed this way. This is SO important in peer interactions because a lot of children when they start out playing don’t say very much at all and your child needs to be able to work out the meaning through the other children’s body movements and facial expressions.

They are curious to watch you in play and want to learn from you. Without pushing your child they should be able to see the value in copying you because they like your ideas and want to be like you. This is what it feels like when you are playing with a typically developing child and the interactions are effortless. It does not matter what you play with the child they are just so excited that you want to do anything with them!

They want to stay engaged with you, playing for a sustained period of time without you having to entice them very much to stay involved in the game.

They use their communication meaningfully (verbal or non-verbal) to share their thoughts and ideas. Some parents may think that their child cannot make friends because they are unable to use their language to communicate. Fortunately though this is not true. I have treated a number of non-verbal children at preschool who had lots of friends and played really well. These children could socialise well because of their good relationship building skills and their ability to effectively express their ideas non-verbally. This goes to show that a child can still have friends and have good socialisation skills even if they are non-verbal.

If your child is challenged in the above areas then a great way you can help them develop these skills is to learn about the therapy strategies in my audio, “7 Steps to Unlocking Your Child’s Social Skills“.

I know I have recommended this audio a few times recently, and I make no apologies for this because the skills we are trying to develop here are SO fundamental and important to everything else. I also feel that it is pointless to introduce you to new topics or strategies without providing additional resources to further your knowledge because I can’t possibly cover everything you need to know in a few short paragraphs.

As with any of the resources I recommend (whether they are mine or someone else’s), I endorse them only if I genuinely believe that they offer some very valuable and tangible benefits to the ongoing development of your child.

I am currently treating a little girl named Jodie. Since October last year I have been training her parents on how to develop the above skills. A couple of months ago at one of our sessions Jodie’s mum was so pleased to report that she was starting to play with some peers at her playgroup. To be honest, I was not surprised, as this was a natural progression for Jodie since her parents had worked so diligently on the “7 Steps” as well as building Jodie’s effective communication skills (non-verbal and verbal). You can learn more about how to build your child’s communication skills here.

2. Playing with a peer is a lot harder than playing with an adult

For this reason it is critical that your child’s fundamental social and communication skills are developed first so that they can have the greatest chance of success with peer play. If a child with autism has poor relationship building skills (as mentioned above) an adult will compensate for this and put in lots of effort because they want to have an interaction with the child. However, on the other hand, a child will not put in the same effort but instead will run off and find someone who can play their game a lot more easily.

3. Your ‘play’ needs to be fun and interactive

There are certain techniques that you can use when facilitating your child’s play with a peer that will help make the play fun and interactive. This email has already gotten very lengthy so I will explain this in next week’s email for you.

Happy connecting!

Monique Simpson

P.S: To discover how Jodie’s parents helped develop her verbal and non-verbal communications skills you may want to take a look at the audio “How to Help your Child to Talk” to help you fast track these skills.

Sharing vs Requesting Language

Monique Simpson — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:45:08 +0000

Hello everyone,

Welcome again to our new readers!

Today we’re going to delve further into something I touched on a couple of weeks ago. The importance of using language to ‘Share’ vs simply ‘Requesting’.

I’ve also created a special audio sample for you to listen to so please read on…

Often children with autism will use their language to ‘Request’ for needs and wants like:

What they want to eat
Wanting a push on the swing
Wanting help to join the train pieces together

but they can find it very hard to ‘share’ their thoughts and ideas with us.

Such as sharing…

That they can see an aeroplane in the sky
What they did at school, preschool or day care
How they feel when their baby brother draws on their picture
Their favourite flavour of ice cream
Why they don’t want to go and play with their friend today

If children are only using their language to ‘request’ things and not to ‘share’ thoughts and feelings then it often means they are not using their language very much at all because they don’t need to request for many things in their day.

This can become an even bigger issue as the child gets older and can satisfy their own needs and wants. They will have even less incentive to use their language and it will seem as though they are communicating less and less!

If your child is using their language to ‘Request’ but rarely uses their language to ‘Share’ and comment on things then you need to focus on improving your child’s social and relationship building skills.

It’s very important to know that Language Skills follow Social Skills.

In order for your child to learn how to share their thoughts and ideas with you and others, you need to start by increasing your child’s desire to share their life experiences with you. Your child needs to see the value that you add to their play and day to day life experiences to want to share their thoughts and socialise with you.

You just have to think about the people who you share your thoughts and feelings with to realise that they are the people who are closest to you.

Let’s look at how this skill would evolve in a typically developing child…

My daughter is now 14 months old and she shares a large proportion of her day with us. She is now starting to use a few words, but her desire to share her life with us started months and months ago well before she was talking. She would constantly point things out to us, then check back at our faces to make sure that we were sharing her same thought… like the beautiful light on the ceiling, the funny hat or the new piece of food that was put on her plate etc, etc. So now that she is starting to use her words and language we can now hear her thoughts and ideas. But her skills with ‘sharing’ her experiences with us began many months ago.

One of the most satisfying things as a parent is to have your child ‘share’ their thoughts and ideas with you and to know what is going on in their world.

If your child needs help in this area of language development then please take 5 minutes to listen to a sample of “The 7 Steps to Improving Your Child’s Relationship Building and Social Skills“.

This audio will help you develop the fundamental Social Skills in your relationship that will lead to them learning how to ‘share’ more of their world with you!

Click here now to listen to a 5 minute sample of this audio recording.

Best wishes
Monique