replies – Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Hello, I am a teacher. I wanted to say thank you for your posts. I work with one student who is autistic and not quite non-verbal, but speaks very little.

I found myself talking to her as if she were much younger than she is because I had no way of telling if she was understanding. Your posts have helped me to understand that even though she doesn’t speak, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand, and even if she doesn’t, I should still treat her like the 12-year-old she is

On Wednesday I spoke to her to let her know that I was wrong to have spoken to her like a little kid, and that I would now be speaking to her like a twelve-year-old. She seemed pleased. I have ASD traits myself, but I’ve never been non-verbal (even when I couldn’t speak, I still signed), so I didn’t really understand that non-verbal doesn’t mean not understanding necessarily. Thank you.

realsocialskills said:

Oh wow. That is heartening to hear. It’s wonderful that you realized that it was wrong to talk to her like a young child, and that you apologized. That is such an important sign of respect for her. Thank you for taking this seriously, and thank you for telling me about this.

I want to add that, in addition to talking to her like a 12 year old, you probably need to develop better skills at listening to her like a 12 year old.

Probably most of the people you’ve known in your life who had a small expressive vocabulary or spoke only sometimes were very young children. Her speech is not like that. She is thinking much more complex things than a young child is capable of. If you’re not used to listening to nonverbal or minimally verbal folks who are not babies, you probably don’t yet know how to do so in an age-appropriate way.

So it’s not just the way you initiate talking to her that needs to change, it’s also the way you respond to what she says. She has a lot to say. Possibly through her words; possibly mostly through her actions; possibly mostly through body language. But, in any case, she is 12 years old, and she has a lot of 12 year old things to say.

You can learn how to listen to her better. It’s a matter of respect, practice, and skills you can develop.

For instance:

You can get a lot of mileage out of asking yes or no questions. (For some people, it helps to prompt with “yes or no” if it seems like answering yes/no questions isn’t a skill they have all the time) Eg: “Did you bring a lunch today – yes or no?”)
You can also use other kinds of two-option questions. Eg: If you know that she wants a book but she can’t tell you which book she wants, you can put your hand in the middle of the shelf and say “Up or down?” “Left or right?” “This one?”.
You can get even more out of asking a question with an open ended and closed response. Someone who can’t give you a meaningful answer to “What do you want to do?” may well be able to answer “Do you want to draw, or do something else?” Or “Is the answer England, or something else?”

You can also listen to what she says, make guesses about what she means, tell her what your guess is, and ask if you are right. For instance “You just said juice several times. I think that might be because you want to drink juice. Do you want juice, or do you mean something else?” Or “You just said “We’re all friends here!” and you sounded angry. Are you upset about something?“ Or “You just said “Separate but equal!”. Are you talking about discrimination?“

I’ve written about listening to atypical communication here, and here, and I wrote a more general post about how to provide respectful support to an autistic student here.

For some further perspective on this, I’d highly recommend reading the blog Emma’s Hope Book. It’s a blog written by the mother of a 12 year old autistic girl whose speech is unreliable (with some posts from her as well), and they have a lot of really important things to say about how to respect people whose communication is atypical.

Short version: Your student has things to say, whether or not she has figured out how to say them. She is already saying some of them (in words or otherwise), whether or not you understand her communication. The more you assume that she is trying to communicate with you, and the more you assume that what she says is worthwhile, the more you will be able to understand her and teach her in age-appropriate ways. Scroll up for some examples.

flannelfrog asked:

I recently got a job offer to be an in-school aid for a gradeschooler I know with aspergers and I’m genuinely afraid to take it because, while I have teaching experience, I’ve never been an aid before. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong and mess the kid up for the rest of his life. Do you have any advice for me?

Several piece of advice:

First, shift the way you’re thinking about this.

The problem before you is how to do right by a kid in your care. Thinking in terms of wanting to avoid doing something wrong and messing the kid up for the rest of his life is going to make it harder for you to do right by him.

You’re going to do things wrong (you’ve done things wrong in every teaching job you’ve had, it comes with the territory); and it’s going to be important for you to acknowledge and fix your mistakes. Making possible mistakes, even serious ones, a referendum on whether you are a good person, makes it a lot harder to do right by others. I’ve written about that before, here.

Treat him as a person

Almost universally, autistic people are treated as though they aren’t quite real, especially by caregivers
Often, they think of this as looking past the autism to see the real person
But the autism is part of who he is.
Don’t attribute some things to him, and others to the autism. He is real all the time.
He is a real person. Already.
Your job is not to cure him. Your job is to support him and help him to develop his abilities. Learning to do more things will not make him any less autistic, nor should it.

Do not try to make him indistinguishable from his peers

Because, seriously, what kind of a goal is that?
He’s worthwhile as a person, and he’s different from most other people, and it’s ok.
He has better things to do with his time than fake normal.
Being able to do awesome things is way better than being able to look normal while doing pointless things
It’s ok to be different.
Don’t pretend that he’s really just like everyone else, or that he will be when he grows up.
One of the most important things you can teach an autistic child is that it is ok to be autistic

Forget everything you think you know about the difference between autism and Asperger’s syndrome:

People whose diagnosis is Aspergers syndrome are autistic
Autistic people who can speak are disabled
There isn’t actually any fundamental difference
Except that people considered autistic are often seen as incapable, and people considered to have Aspergers are often seen as faking their difficulties
Assume disability and ability, and that you will have to figure out how that works for the person you’re working with

Learn how he communicates.

All autistic people have some sort of atypical communication
Some autistic people are really good at hiding it, and looking normal at the expense of understanding what is going on.
Autistic children, particularly boys, often pretend to be acting out in order to mask disability. Be mindful of this possibility.
A good percentage of the time, when autistic people repeat things over and over, they are trying to communicate something and aren’t being understood. Be aware of this, and learn how to make communication possible in this situation.
If he seems not to understand something, do not get angry and assume he’s just being defiant or lazy
Some things are really really hard to understand, even though they seem simple to people with typical development
For instance, an autistic child who has been isolated might find fiction other kids their age understand completely incomprehensible because they can’t relate to the experiences and relationships it describes

If he makes repetitive motions, assume they are important:

A lot of autistic people rely heavily on motion to think well
Or to communicate
Or to understand things
Or to find words
Or to regulate themselves.
If you prevent an autistic person from making repetitive motions, you’re probably also preventing them from doing things like understanding what’s going on, communicating, and learning self-control and interaction.
Do not value a typical affect over learning and communication.
Do not say “quiet hands” for any reason ever. (Unless you’re saying something like “people shouldn’t tell you ‘quiet hands’”)

Do not make him follow rules the other kids are allowed to get away with breaking

Because that’s unfair, and humiliating
And it also prevents peer relations
It also prevents him from learning how rules actually work, which is a vitally important skill, especially for people who are likely to spend large parts of their life subject to arbitrary decisions made by people with too much power over them

Do not confuse him about consent, and help him learn what consent is

If something is an order, do not phrase it as a request. Doing so teaches people to be incapable of saying no.
Ask a lot of questions that actually are requests, and go with what he says, even if it’s not the answer you wanted.
If he always says yes when you ask him things, assume this is because he has been taught to be incapable of saying no
Ask questions in ways that remind him that saying no is possible
Or questions in ways that don’t seem to create a compliant option and a defiant option at all.
For instance “do you want to stay inside today, or would you rather play on the swings?”
But questions that are real. Not forced choices in which each option is basically compliance.

Support him in navigating the difficult and often hateful world he lives in

Do not make him play with kids he dislikes, even if this means he doesn’t play with anyone
There are worse things than being alone. Being surrounded by people who everyone insists are nice and your friends, but who actually don’t think you’re real or treat you well is much worse than honest loneliness.
It’s possible, and likely, that there are very few kids, or even no kids at all, in his group who it is a good idea for him to spend time with
And even if you think he’s wrong about this, it’s a decision he should be making for himself (and his judgement is probably better than yours)

When kids or adults do bad things to him (and they will), you usually won’t be able to make them stop. You should tell him that what they’re doing is wrong, and that it’s not his fault.
Knowing that it’s wrong, and that others know it’s wrong, helps a lot.

Some things you should read:

Ballastexistenz From the beginning. Every post. It has a lot of fundamentally important things about power, and dehumanization, and about seeing people as real. This blog has a lot of the best things that have ever been written on this topic.
Rolling Around In My Head is also a really good blog, written by a disabled man whose professional work is supporting people with disabilities. He says a lot of things worth knowing. Also his book Power Tools is important for understanding how this power dynamic works – and your environment and training will put pressure on you not to understand it.
Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking is a really important book about autism and the world written by insightful autistic people. Buy it and read it and understand it, and it will help you to do right by this boy and others