Temple Grandin: Autistic Children Plus

I spoke briefly to Dr. Temple Grandin at a professional dog training conference in Atlanta, Ga several years ago. She offers sound advice to parents of children with not only autism but also very accurate help for ADD/ADHD continuum and other special needs children.  I’ve posted some of her helpful tips  taken from the Autism Research Institute website. The following bulleted tips are all direct quotes from Dr. Grandin, taken from the article linked above  except for my explanatory remarks in brackets. If you’d rather listen to Dr. Temple speak about these points, she covers much of the below on her YouTube Videos.

Sound and Visual Sensitivity

• Hearing tests indicated that my hearing was normal. I can’t modulate incoming auditory stimulation. I discovered that I could shut out painful sounds by engaging in rhythmic stereotypical autistic behavior [or manipulating something in my hands]. Sometimes I “tune out”. For example, I will be listening to a favorite song on the car radio and then later realize that I tuned out and missed half of the song. In college, I had to constantly take notes to prevent tuning out.
•   An autistic child will cover his or her ears because certain sounds hurt. It is like an excessive startle reaction. A sudden noise (even a relatively faint one) will often make my heart race.
•  I can shut down my hearing and withdraw from most noise, but certain frequencies cannot be shut out. It is impossible for an autistic child to concentrate in a classroom if he or she is bombarded with noises. High-pitched, shrill noises are the worst. A low rumble has no affect…..
• The fear of a noise that hurts the ears is often the cause of many bad behaviors and tantrums. Some autistic children will attempt to break the telephone because they are afraid it will ring. Many bad behaviors are triggered due to anticipation of being subjected to a painful noise. The bad behaviors can occur hours before the noise. Common noises that cause discomfort in many autistic individuals are school bells, fire alarms, score board buzzers in the gym, squealing microphone feedback and chairs scraping on the floor.  Autistic children and adults may fear dogs or babies because barking dogs or crying babies may hurt their ears. Dogs and babies are unpredictable, and they can make a hurtful noise without warning.
•  Children with less severe auditory sensitivity problems may be attracted to sound and visual stimuli that more severely impaired children tend to avoid. I liked the sound of flowing water and enjoyed pouring water back and forth between orange juice cans; whereas another child may avoid the sound of flowing water.
•  Some autistic individuals can see the flicker of florescent lights.

Tactile and Sensory Experiences and Problems

• I believe that the beneficial effects of holding in some children are due to desensitization to touch of the autistic child’s nervous system. It is not the “cure” that some of its proponents tout, but it has a beneficial affect on some children.
• I wanted to feel the comforting feeling of being held, but then when somebody held me, the effect on my nervous system was overwhelming…..and confusing.
• The sensory activities are done gently as fun games and are never forced. Strong encouragement and some intrusiveness may be used, but a good therapist knows how far he or she can intrude before the stimulation becomes so overwhelming that the child starts crying. Even intrusive activities are kept fun. During the activities, the therapist will also work on improving speech and establishing eye contact.
• Ray et al. (1988) found that a mute child will often start making speech sounds while he or she is swinging in a swing. Swinging stimulates the vestibular system and the defective cerebellum.
•  Spinning in a chair twice a week helps to reduce hyperactivity (Bhatara et al. 1981)
•  non-contingent vibration will reduce stereotypical behavior (Murphy 1982).
• Research has also shown that vigorous aerobic exercise reduced maladaptive and stereotypic behavior (Elliot et al. 1994).
• Many autistic [and ADHD] children will seek deep pressure. Many parents have told me that their children get under the sofa cushions or mattress. A slow, steady application of pressure had a calming affect on me….Good results can often be obtained with less than an hour of sensory treatment per day. Spending hours and hours each day is not required.The effectiveness of sensory treatment will vary from child to child.
•  It is important to desensitize an autistic child so that he/she can tolerate comforting touch.  I learned how to pet our cat more gently after I [gradually learned to tolerate the deep pressure stimulation].
  

Cognitive Considerations

•  In autism, the systems that process visual-spatial problems are intact. There is a possibility that these systems may be expanded to compensate for deficits in language. The nervous system has remarkable plasticity; one part can take over and compensate for deficits in language.
• [Thinking in language and words is one category of cognition.]   Brain scans have revealed that some of the circuits between the frontal cortex and amygdala are not functioning normally (Haznader et al., 1997). This may force a person with autism to use intellect and logic to make social decisions instead of [observing and interpreting] emotion cues.
• [Thinking in pictures is another category of cognition.]  I think totally in pictures. It is like playing different tapes in a video cassette recorder in my imagination. I used to think that everybody thought in pictures until I questioned many different people about their thinking processes.  This method of thinking is slower. It takes time to “play” the videotape in my imagination.
• Written language is easier to understand than [a long string of]verbal language. Word processors should be introduced early to encourage writing. Typing is often easier than hand writing [because of small motor skills challenges].
• I screamed because it was the only way I could communicate. When adults spoke directly to me, I could understand everything they said…. I had the words I wanted to say in my mind, but I just could not get them out….. When my mother wanted me to do something, I often screamed. If something bothered me, I screamed. This was the only way I could express my displeasure. If I did not want to wear a hat, the only way I could communicate my desire not to wear the hat was to throw it on the floor and scream.   Being unable to talk was utter frustration.  [However,] some children with more severe sensory problems may withdraw further because the intrusion completely overloads their immature nervous system. They will often respond best to gentler teaching methods such as whispering softly to the child in a room free of florescent lights and visual distractions.
• The speech therapist had to put me in a slight stress state so I could get the words out. She would gently hold me by the chin and make me look at her and then ask me to make certain sounds. She knew just how much to intrude. If she pushed too hard, I would have a tantrum; if she did not push enough, there was no progress. During recent visits to autism programs, I have observed this technique being used in many different types of programs. When I started to speak, my words were stressed with an emphasis on vowel sounds. For example, “bah” for ball. My speech therapist stretched out the hard consonant sounds to help my brain to perceive them. She would hold up a cup and say “ccc u ppp.” Vowels are easier to hear than consonants.
• [When teaching some children with ADHD or Autism, observe if their minds are MONO-CHANNELS.  Dr. Grandin uses the following example with her friend Donna to explain this as follows:]  If Donna is listening to somebody talk, she is unable to perceive a cat jumping up on her lap. If she attends to the cat, then speech perception is blocked. She realized a black thing was on her lap, but she did not recognize it as a cat until she stopped listening to her friend talk.

Conclusions

• Teachers, therapists and other professionals who work with [ADHD or ] autistic people need to recognize and treat sensory processing problems…. At ages two to four, many autistic children will probably respond well to gently intrusive programs where the child is required to maintain eye contact with the teacher. Lovaas (1987) has documented that roughly half of young children will improve sufficiently so they can be enrolled in a normal first grade at age six or seven. It is likely that the children who did not improve in the Lovaas program were experiencing sensory overload. They may respond better to a gentler approach using only one sensory channel at a time.