Autism Lecture Final

What does collaboration with other professionals look like when working with autistic clients? And in your experience, what makes collaboration with other professionals such as OTS, ABA therapist, effective or challenging in autism services?

I really like collaborating with other professionals and I find it really helpful. I think there's a little bit of a history of SL PS and ABA therapist not getting along.

And they tend to **** heads and clash, but that has not been my experience. I think that if we collaborate, it's going to be a lot easier for the family. And I do think that they have a lot of things that they can bring to the table and.

I've learned a lot from behaviour analysts, so I think that would be my attitude. I think if you go into it with, let's just collaborate and see how it goes, I think that's gonna be a lot more.Effective for your clients.

Yeah. And then OTS, I mean, yeah, OTS are always good to collaborate with. I think that regulation piece is helpful. I think the behaviour consultants, if you see.

They do like a data-driven way of trying to understand why behaviours are happening, which can be helpful because.

If we're looking, for example, if a child is constantly, like, let's say hitting someone or that's something that's coming up frequently and we're like, oh, they're frustrated, that's I think that's kind of where people's head jump to. But there could be other things going on. And if we look at.

What's happening before and what's happening after that may give us a better picture of like why something like that's happening. So I think and it says ABA therapist, but I think I don't know, I think more of like behaviour consultants every not every behaviour consultant is necessarily doing.

ABA, right? Like it can be. There are some practises that have some. Maybe they started from ABA, but they're different now and I think a lot of a lot of behaviour. Consultants are kind of transitioning.

Their practise to be better than it was 'cause there. There were some bad things happening in the past for sure, but I think most most places are better. Again, there's probably.

There's probably some bad ADA therapist. There's probably some bad SL. PS, right? There's bad, no matter what you're looking at, there's going to be things that aren't perfect. So yeah, I think collaboration is really good.

Did anyone have anything to add or I guess I guess I could add that I've had teams like as big as like 12 professionals. We might have like low vision on our team. We might have physio, we might have doctors.And then, like just people that are like like service coordinators, I I have a team of 12 that I work with up north and it it gets a little hectic when you have that many people. So I think it's important to be able to meet and be on the same page so that families are receiving the same messaging, otherwise that's going to be confusing.

Do you have any insight on handling parents or coworkers who are potentially not presuming competence with autistic clients? And likewise, when someone is potentially doing something more harmful than supportive?

So that's kind of a tricky question. I think it depends. So

I think it depends on what it is that may be seen as harmful rather than supportive, because there could be, I guess if it is really harmful then that obviously that's not good, but if.

It could be subjective, right? Like maybe that parent or that worker has known this kid for like 7 years and they're doing something. I'm going to use an example of hand over hand prompting because I think sometimes.

Like a lot of people are trying to steer away from hand over hand prompting and think that it may be more harmful than supportive. I think there are certain instances though, when that would be an appropriate intervention. For example, if.

If you've been modelling on a device for like 5 years straight and a client is not making any progress, it may actually be supportive for that client to help them learn to use the system. If that modelling is not working, then we may. It may be beneficial to support them in a different way. You would obviously need consent to be doing that and.

I think that's something you do on a case by case basis and but a lot of kids are kind of.

It can be supportive rather than bad. Obviously the kid is pulling away, then we don't want to be doing something like that. But sometimes there's reasons people are using slightly different approaches, so I think trying to go into that situation with an open mind.

But if it is something that you think is actually like harmful, then that would be definitely something you would want to bring up with your SLP. And because if you have to do a call to like CPS.

Right. That that's something that sometimes comes up in our line of work. You may have to have a phone call, Child Protective Services. You know, I've had to do that before.

But that would be something you would talk to your SLP about before you would do something like that. This is a pretty broad question, so I don't know if I answered it perfectly.

But I'm happy to have further discussion about it. Yep. Yeah, I'm just curious about that presumed competence. Yep. Aspect of it. Yep. Have you had I? I don't know. Maybe one extreme to the other. Somebody who is seeing beyond what is happening versus somebody who's.

Saying Oh no, they wouldn't be able to do that. Yep. So yeah, that's a good point. I've had. Yeah. I've had both extremes of that, right. Sometimes it's my kid knows absolutely everything, which is, you know, what? I'd rather that attitude than thinking that their kid doesn't know.

Know anything? I've had this with. This actually has come up with schools too, where and I think this is something an important piece that I would hope that you guys will be able to do, but if someone is talking poorly about a student in front of them.

I would shut that down, or if a parent does, I will also that happens not. I haven't had that as frequently, but if that happens, I kind of say, hey, I wonder if it might be beneficial if we.

Talk about this like maybe we can schedule a phone call to talk about this, or I'm just saying, like, you know, I don't think.

I don't think this is a conversation we should be having in front of the student kind of thing because I mean, there have been there have been students who have been that are that later adults that say, you know, people just talked about me in front of me all the time and it wouldn't be good for your self esteem or development for someone to be talking poorly.

About you in front of you. So yeah, the presuming competence, I think we're going to presume competence, but if our intervention is not supportive, right or we're presuming competence and that child is not making progress, we may have to add additional steps in.

To help that student make progress.

Is there a particular experience that really stood out to you or shaped our approach to working with this population?

That's also an interesting question. I think there's so many experiences that have shaped my approach to working with this population. The more and more that I worked in autism services like you're gonna slightly tweak what you do, but also.

Keeping in mind that everything is very client centred.

Yeah, it does. Like I I would say the strategies that I use stay pretty similar now, but there's certain instances where they change based on the child. It's more just like following their motivation I could share.

This kind of goes into a different question that someone had asked, but this is a good one for.

This doesn't happen usually. I know you guys have had experience with AAC or most of you or all of you have had experience with AAC now, but one of the kids in my class was one of those situations where parents didn't really think that the kid knew a lot and we got him in their class and we got him an AAC device.

And he learned the device pretty much on his own, which that doesn't happen. That's pretty unheard of, right? Usually you have to teach them to learn it. But he had so much to say, and he was navigating and using the device so quickly and so.

I don't know that kind of struck me too, because I thought about.

You know, even when I was a kid, there was no right. There's no AAC device that didn't exist. And I you kind of think about the students who could have benefited from something like that if it had existed. So I think that one was a big one for me.

So transitions transitioning from class to speech therapy session or transitioning from activity to activity within a session can sometimes be difficult. What strategies do you find most effective when supporting transitions so?

There are like general strategies that can be used for all students. There might be more specific ones that you would need, but some transition strategies that come to mind would be letting them know beforehand. So sometimes.

If, if especially if you know a a client's gonna have difficulties with transitions if you can even have like a picture of yourself there for them to look at, right, get the teacher to warn them. Oh, you're gonna have speech today. Or to include it in their visual schedule just so that they know it's coming. I think that's one thing like.

Knowing what's happening also as they build a routine, I think it becomes a little bit easier. You can have transition items, so I had a kid. It was helpful for him to carry play DoH with him wherever he went, so we would just have the play DoH to transition. Or you could.

I think also just having something that's the same at the beginning and end of your session could be helpful. We do the Hello song at the beginning, we do the goodbye song at the end. That's gonna help them. Just all those things that help them understand what's coming next.

And maybe or it could be like something really fun at the start of session that you know, they're going to look forward to.

Timers, countdowns I like to do the 10 finger countdown. I think if you're in the clinic you've seen me do that. Where that's to help them transition away from something. When you first do it, they're not going to know what it is unless they've seen it before. But we did this in the class.

At the start of the year, all the kids would be upset at the end of the year, you start doing 10, nine and they transition away from the activity like immediately 'cause they know it's coming. So I think any of those kind of supports can be really helpful for transitions.

What are some strategies that work well when building rapport with non speaking autistic clients?

So again this is like a client dependent thing. It needs to be pretty client centred. So I think keeping in mind the students.

Interests and motivation that's going to be your biggest thing if their interests and motivation aren't super clear yet, I would start with some early interaction kind of games like songs. This is if it's young kids.

So kind of like.

Wheels on the bus 5 green and speckled frogs row your boat, but it depends on their motivation, so I've had some kids. We start like if a kid enjoys rocking in his chair, we're doing row your boat. The kid likes jumping. We're jumping on the trampoline.

And sometimes you can. I don't. I like to do play assessments with kids that I'm working with so that I can understand where their play development is at because play and language often kind of go together and so.

I liked we can even just watch and see what are they gravitating towards? Are they playing with something? If if they like lights, then maybe we're doing something with a light. We might do games like peekaboo. It's really like figuring out.

What they like and trying to include yourself in it.

If it's a client who has a difficult time, like maybe they really like building and it's upsetting if you touch their things, that's going to be a little trickier because that might be really upsetting if you try and jump in there right away while you're trying to build rapport.

If you can have your same. If you can have your own set of toys and play alongside them, that could be helpful, but I think those early interaction games are always a go to for me because it doesn't involve an item.

It's going to be less upsetting. Yes, I was working with a 15 year old like very many speaking guy that we were reading an emotion story and we were trying to talk about like speaking. So I made like a.

Snore noise and you just eat lit up and then you requested more, so you just used that. And I've been doing that like 20 times and it got to the point like when I was working with him every week, you just called it sleepy, so it would be like first this then sleepy. And I'm like, you get 2 because it was absolutely killing. But now like, I still work.

At this clinic and when he comes in, he just go sleepy. Sleepy, sleepy. I'm like, I want sleepy. Then you get it? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great one. Like. Yeah, wake up games. I like the sneezing game, but then sometimes kids will just start putting stuff on their head. But you just do put something on your head and sneeze.

It's usually it, but then you might like. I've had that, and then I go to the client's house and he starts putting stuff on my head when I get there. And I'm like, sorry, but it's motivating so.

Yeah, that's a great example.

How do you determine which AAC system is most appropriate for a non speaking child?

I think my approach to this is slightly different from maybe like so sometimes right a client could go to an AAC clinic and they have like a very kind of rigorous way for their.

Where they're gonna go and determine the clients like best.

System that will work for them. I do think like obviously that piece is important, but I think a bigger piece for me is family by it. So I often would have a family child, a couple different systems for a couple weeks.

Which one do you like and right? So do one for two weeks. Do another one for two weeks. Which one do you like? Which one do you see yourself using? Obviously, there's going to be a piece of like what? Like which one is the child doing better with? But usually families are.

That's part of why families like one usually. So I think mine has been very family involved when I've done this because otherwise what kind of happens is if you just assign something and parents aren't bought into it, it doesn't get used. And then.

It's not really helpful. So I think that's my biggest piece when determining which AAC system. And sometimes that's sometimes a family. Like I I will provide education and reasons why we might want a different system over another, but.

At the end of the day, if the family is saying this is what I want to do.

OK. Like, they're probably gonna. They're gonna be more likely to follow through if you include them in that choice. So that's a huge factor. And then obviously like seeing.

The size of the icons that they can press. I'm gonna have the most icons on the screen as possible if I can. If they can isolate the picture because that makes it easier for navigating. It gives them access to more language versus when we have like 20 cells.

It's a good starting point and like hopefully we can build on it. It's just it's harder to navigate. So yeah, that's usually my approach.

Sometimes there may be right if if we can't use an AAC system that's more robust, we might look at something like a go talk or switches like a button.

But those are things I kind of look at after we're going to try something more robust first. Usually, unless there's a situation where a child really needs language for something specifically, and then we might have something like a switch. And while we're trying to work on a robust system.

OK. Yeah. With that that approach then is that with families who are willing to purchase AC our pocket and not go through approach, you don't need a prescription to get funding through the device.

I'm so

I work up north and so usually we do have an AAC clinic, but a lot of times families can get a device through school, so it would be working with them in that sense through school.

And so if they get it through the clinic, then they keep their device. If they get it through school, then the device stays at school, which is kind of.

Silly 'cause, I'm like, then schools also just have iPads. They're like, I don't know what to do with these iPads like anyways, so that's not a perfect system. But so those conversations will be had along the way of either trying to get one through the AAC.

Through an AAC clinic or I kind of keep track of when the different apps go on sale as well, so that families might be able to purchase it. Or we can look if we know that that's going to be a challenge, then we can look at.

Lower cost options.

What are Some common challenges faced by families of non speaking autistic children and how can we support them?

I mean, there's a lot. There can be a lot of challenges, right? Like people don't necessarily understand and.

I I think there's like the social aspects of that. And then also just the functioning aspects where if you don't know what your child wants, sometimes there can be clear indicators like they might be reaching. But there's also children who are not indicating their needs and then that's like a huge challenge in itself.

If the client is kind of.

Not indicating anything. Then how does that parent know what that child needs if that child is hurt? If that child is hungry, that's that's a huge challenge. And then the social piece of that as well, where?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of like misunderstanding in the public and people don't really under people don't understand how to interact with kids either. All the time, right?

So I think there's that piece where you could be non speaking and have these huge challenges or there's also the children who are non speaking who.

Have so much to say, and then people don't presume competence. And then that's a different challenge.

Is another guy that he's entirely not speaking, but.

Occasionally we'll just shriek, like really high pitched. Really. Like, really piercing screams and you don't even the SLPS like they don't know why. Maybe he likes how it feels like we do the bathrooms. That I can't. I can't pretend to understand.

What it means? His mom says. You know, they've done like the OT is also trying to figure it out, but it's becoming a problem because when he's taking the bus home, he'll do it. And the bus driver's like I can't. Yeah. Have that in the bus because it's so.

Loud and piercing and disruptive and yeah. No, absolutely just.

Yeah. So those like stems as well, I'm, I don't know this client. I'm guessing it could be a a vocal stem, right? Just kind of yelling because it feels cool or you don't really know, right? Or maybe it's something he's doing to regulate himself.

Yeah, that stuff is also challenging. And then I think again like.

There's a lot of challenges faced by families of autistic children, a lot of it being trying to support their kid and then their whole life is like therapies. That's like a whole nother challenge or.

Or yeah, those those social pieces.

Right. So this is we're kind of getting into the perceptions of things. So the stigma around neurodivergence, especially autism and what resources would you recommend to help educate parents or guardians who might be fearful or nervous about their child's diagnosis?

Umm, I think the timing of this is important.

Because when a parent first gets the diagnosis like this.

They might be grieving and they might be grieving for a long time, right? If you've ever grieved someone or something, you know that that isn't something that just like is done, it will fluctuate. And that will happen at milestones as well, right?

That maybe doesn't feel fair to the kid that that happens. But that does happen. They expected a different life for their child, and some of those parents are kind of thinking, you know, my child can't.

Go to the bathroom on their own or my child can't. Is not going to ever live independently. Sometimes that's a reality for families. Not obviously. It's a spectrum and there's tonnes and tonnes of really capable autistic individuals who are going to live independently and live.

Fantastic lives, but there are. There are children who are not going to do those things and I think.

That's really difficult for a parent to kind of face and so.

I think they're scared about their child's development, and so I think if you can get them into some kind of parent support groups, I think that would be the one thing that you can do, although I've heard mixed things about some parent support groups, some are.

Can be negative if you can get them.

In some of those groups, and they might be able to find someone like that, they relate to trying to get them involved with their community. In general, I think like there's lots of programmes and stuff available for for children and I think I think the biggest thing is trying to.

Trying to get them in touch with other people who who know what they're going through. We don't. We don't know we can be.

We we can work with those students, but we're not their parent. And so I don't know even like the specific experience of that parent could be, it could vary right depending on their child and where they're at. So if you can get them, I think that's the biggest thing trying to get them.

A little bit of community so that they can find someone that they relate to. I think that's that's a huge thing.