Sneaking in some Language work

Jman not only has autism, but he also is very language delayed, possibly with a language disorder. So, part of his ‘school’ consists of working on very simple language structures. He can pick up ‘vocabulary words’ fairly easily, particularly if they are nouns. But he really struggles with how to put language together in phrases or sentences. Thus he has a decent vocabulary, but still very little language. Compounding the situation is the fact that he not only has trouble expressing himself with language, but he also has trouble understanding the language that others use. Thus, we often have to find simpler or different ways to say things so he can understand what we mean, and some concepts we just can’t communicate about (yet!) because they are too abstract.

So, to that end, a large part of Jman’s schooling needs to focus on language development, and of course that work needs to be within his ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). In his case, he can use nouns, some verbs/action words, colors, and numbers very well in trying to communicate, but rarely are they put together into sentence form. For example, when he was looking for his hairbrush yesterday, he used context (I was brushing my hair and I wanted to brush his) and he said “black brown.” No, neither of us has 'black' or ‘brown’ hair. But the hairbrush that he prefers has a brown wooden handle and black boar bristles—“black brown.” Or today, when Brother Sly’s whirly copter thingy from Dayton Aviation Historic Park landed on the roof, Jman was able to point and say “climbing” to ask for help in getting it back down. On a really good day, we might get “Mommy climbing” with the pointing—close to a sentence, but still wrong syntax (or sentence structure), but moving in the right direction.

So, for Jman we’re working on language, with a particular emphasis on language structure. We are loosely basing our work on the model provided by the Association Method as adapted by my friend Tammy here. We are beginning with the repetitive sentences, focusing on “What is this/this is ____” and “What do you see/I see ___." In Jman's case, he can answer “What is this?” with a single word answer, but often doesn't even do that, perhaps saying "yes" instead or finding a nonverbal way to answer (such as pointing). When he does speak, he struggles with the full sentence “This is a/an/some _____.” In addition, he doesn’t use words to ask the question if he doesn’t know what something is. However, he can say or write the full sentence structure when it’s scaffolded for him. So, that is potentially within his ZPD—something he can do when he has a little help.

Just as we are approaching autism from a developmental perspective, so to we are trying to work on his language developmentally, meaning we want to work on language skills in the natural order they would develop in a ‘neurotypical’ (or ‘NT’) child. Thus, since Jman has (and uses) plenty of nouns but lacks regular use of such simple sentences as “The doggie sits” (agent + action), it would be out of order to work on past tense structures (‘the doggie sat’). To be developmentally appropriate and to give Jman the greatest chance for success, we need to ‘develop’ his language in ‘developmental’ order working within his unique (and often changing, depending on the day and what he ate) Zone of Proximal ‘Development.’ Get it? Good!

Now, because we’re working on both a language delay AND autism, we want to try to make things 'co-regulatory,’ meaning in this case that we want Jman to practice the communication concept both ways, sometimes as an answerer and other times as an asker. Thus, we want to target not just Jman being on the receiving end of a never ending barrage of questions (What is this? Okay, well, what is this? And how about this? What is it??). That would get old for him VERY fast and give him very good reason for wanting to avoid us altogether. Not very conducive for working on the autism. Instead, we want to help Jman be able to not only answer the questions, but also to ASK the questions. Thus, we’re targeting not just ‘This is ___’ but also ‘What is this?’ Thus we can practice changing roles and perspectives—very ‘RDI’ and great for working on both language and autism simultaneously.

Finally, Jman needs a LOT of repetition to master language concepts, but at the same time TOO much repetition is bad for him. If he’s the one doing or directing the repetition (stimming), it ‘feeds’ the autism (like rewinding and rewatching snippets of videos over and over and over again). If I’m the one imposing the repetition, it feels to him (and me) manipulative and forced and it undermines our relationship and future work on remediating autism and developing language. So, there has to be a balance of enough repetition led by me for him to practice, but not SO much repetition that it feels forced and aversive. Again, I’ve got to work on both the language AND the autism, and they aren’t the same problem. So, right now the primary language structure we’re targeting is “This is ____” and the corollary “What is this?” but we’re also throwing in “I see ___” and “What do you see?” to keep things from being TOO repetitive. If this proves too confusing to him, we’ll have to back off and just work on one structure at a time, but for now we're focusing on one while tossing in another related one for enough variety to ease the tension.

So, now, on to today’s Jman story. Still wanting to work on ‘re-connecting’ I chose an activity that I knew Jman would enjoy doing—using his new Color Wonder set. Now this is something he can and does do by himself, so the ‘challenge’ was in doing it cooperatively WITH me. So, I would suggest a marker to color with or a place to color, or whose turn it was to color, his or mine. He wasn’t too keen on all of it, especially at first, but he warmed up to it after a short while and we worked together on the page.

Now, another goal for today was to work on that language structure—"This is ___." Rather than create some artificial drill card scenario, I instead took advantage of our coloring activity, but not until he was comfortable with doing the coloring WITH me. At that point, as I was pointing out what to color next, I would ask, “What is this?” and scaffold his answering “This is (whatever I was pointing at).” Now, in proper Association Method form we’d be supposed to be working on the articles a/an/some with this sentence, but according to Brown’s stages, those articles come later in language development. So, I was happy and content with simply, “This is bird” or “This is tree.” That is more developmentally appropriate for where Jman is now. Occasionally I’d alternate with an “I see” just to keep it from being too stiff, and he was okay with that. Also, we worked a little on a new vocabulary word—owl (the kind of bird on the page we were coloring). Lastly, the coloring page had a “How many” question at the bottom, so we added that language structure in for some natural variety and a little ‘math’ practice as well. Together we asked “How many” owls were flying in the sky, together we counted the answer, and together we stated the answer. Another day (week, month) we’ll work on that math language concept more. Again, he knows his number, so the goal would be to work on the language surrounding the number concepts.

So, anyway, there’s a sample of using an ordinary activity (coloring) to work on autism goals (connecting and working together) and language goals (What is this?/This is ___), with a little math (another language goal) thrown in as well. Tomorrow we’ll review our picture from today, and also practice writing the sentences instead of just saying them.