Taking this course on evidence-based practices for teaching autistic children and youth has made me think about how autism has always been viewed by experts in the field of psychology and education through the lens of disability or even worse of deficits.  

Parents concerned that their children aren’t living up to typical standards for human children in the home, school or at the park, playground or summer camp seek desperately for help in fixing what they perceive to be a problem. Teachers concerned that their wards, who tend to live in their own worlds and focus on their own interests, may not be malleable enough to shape into acceptable graduates who get a passing grade on all mandatory assessments, seek the analogs of annealing and alloying for their unpliable material.  

And then there is that hallmark of autistic people – their emotional response to perceived threats or overstimulation – a shutdown or meltdown. That certainly makes it hard for any community, be it home or school, to accept them as equal citizens, for how can one work collaboratively with someone who at any moment may perceive you as a threat? This in my opinion is the primary area where an autistic person could truly use some understanding and support, but this aspect of autism is not considered part of the diagnostic criteria for the condition.  

The course gave me access to several ‘modules’ - detailed descriptions of evidence-based practices that meet acceptable standards of scientific study in the field of autism, as defined by experts in the field. Several of these modules include videos of the practice being used on subjects (autistic learners). Watching these videos, one can’t help but imagine what it must feel like to be such a subject. The video of the child who is no more interested in the matching task designed by their teacher in the presence of the ‘enticing’ reinforcer than they were before (Selecting an EBP - Sam et al., 2022). The video of the child walking around with strips of tape on his arm to keep track of how many peers he has greeted (Self-management - Sam & AFIRM Team, 2016).  The child (Jack) who is taught to draw and cut out a circle with scissors and given a ball to hold when he makes progress toward the goal set by his instructor. Why should this child learn this skill now when he seems disinterested in it? He seems to know how to use scissors. What is he really learning in the video then? Is he learning to demonstrate that he can cut a circle? Why? 

 

I think there are interesting ideas in many of the modules. I think that introducing autistic individuals to tools that they can use to communicate more effectively with the people in their lives (AAC) so they can share ideas with others and get their needs met is a great idea if the learner sees value in it. Similarly, introducing them to the ideas of visual-supports and self-management might benefit them if they perceive that reminders and self-monitoring will help them accomplish their goals more easily. Similarly, giving them insight into their emotions and introducing them to strategies for self-regulation can benefit them if they seek to improve their control over their own actions. Incidentally, the AFIRM modules didn’t include any strategies for this last goal, except perhaps self-management. 

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In all that I mentioned above, I've said that these strategies could benefit someone who wishes to use them to accomplish their goals. But I wonder if autistic children are ever asked what their goals are. For that matter, I don’t know if children in general are often asked what their goals are. It seems that children in today’s world are mostly sent to school, before and after school activities, winter, summer camps, etc., to participate in activities chosen or at least designed by adults for children.  

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Is the purpose of this structured and designed life to keep children occupied? The purported purpose of education is to teach children the skills they need to independently survive once they are adults. So, is society concerned that if children don’t follow the designed path to independent survival, they might become dependent survivors? Does this fear make us mandate that every person be taught the skills they need to make a living on their own? I think it is important, especially when considering the education of children who seem resistant to being taught in standard ways, to state candidly and explicitly what the purpose of their education is. And if it is concluded that the goal of education is more altruistic and meant to benefit the individual rather than the community they inhabit, then for sure the learner should play the largest role in deciding how they wish to live and in turn what they wish to learn. 

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One could also consider the extreme reactions (read challenging behaviors) of autistic students simply as an amplified voice that speaks for all their peers who have learned to exercise greater restraint over their own emotions. This brings us to what can be learned from these ‘disabled’ children rather than simply focusing on what can be taught to them. 

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Let us for example consider functional communication training (Griffin & AFIRM Team, 2017)– an evidence-based practice that aims to replace ‘challenging behaviors’ with more appropriate behaviors that serve the same function. Take for instance the case of an 8-year-old boy who has a meltdown (picture any challenging behavior here – yelling, screaming, tearing worksheet, hitting) when asked to complete an English worksheet on discriminating nouns and adjectives (I’m not really a teacher and I have no idea if this is something 8-year-olds are required to do but, stay with me 😊). You train him to instead say he wants a ‘break’. He’s allowed to take a break, you set a timer and when it elapses, he’s asked to ‘get back on task’. This is repeated until he gets the message that there’s no real escape from the task, but he can ask for and receive temporary respites. Eventually, once the message sinks in, you ‘thin’ reinforcement - make him wait longer before affording him a break, etc., - until he gets used to ‘doing the assigned task’. Was this a success? After the first meltdown, does the teacher then stop to consider what it was about the situation that triggered the meltdown? Is the student consulted and asked this? Or is it too problematic to receive the answer “I don’t want to do this because I am not interested in doing this and want to do something else.” Or perhaps it was the way the teacher asked them to work on the task. Perhaps the authority in her voice made the student feel threatened? Would the teacher then make the request sound more like a request or would that undermine their authority and therefore be impractical? Would the teacher perhaps even stop to consider what it is the student really wanted to do instead and are there no survival skills he could learn by doing what he chooses to do? 

I could go on with my musings on this topic. It’s a special interest 😊  

 

But, let me conclude for now by saying that I think there are interesting ideas in several of the evidence-based practices. Ideas about the interplay between an individual’s behavior and their environment. For example, I can see how modeling (Sam & AFIRM Team, 2016) would be a great way for autistic children to learn things that they are interested in. But I do think this would both be more effective and more satisfying for the learner if they were learning something because they consciously or subconsciously found it interesting or valuable, and not because someone wants them to learn it. For example, if an adult or peer or older child was in the learner’s environment using math to solve a real-world problem or was reading about a topic that interests the learner, they might observe and learn how math and language could enrich their lives. They might then attempt to do these things themselves when they have a problem to solve or a subject that they want to acquire information on. And when they want to read, and are attempting to learn how letters form words, etc., wouldn’t it be helpful to have an adult or more experienced peer (teacher) around who could answer their questions regarding the rules of language? 

 

A final word on social skills. ‘Deficits’ in social communication skills is a diagnostic criterion for autism. I acknowledge that it can be hard to communicate your thoughts to someone who is lost in theirs and will only engage with you on a topic of interest. But what are the circumstances in life that truly necessitate this? How often do neurotypical adults even engage in a conversation on a topic that doesn’t interest them or doesn’t relate to their area of work? Given how busy the human machine is, ever progressing rapidly toward – well, toward the next step of progress, I doubt most adults spend much time thinking about topics outside their area of work. Hence the need to keep the kids occupied with all those activities. So, why should children not be allowed to specialize as well?

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If this means fewer people engage with them, then I think that should be okay. Could true understanding and acceptance of neurodivergence mean accepting that autistic children may not play in typical ways and therefore not have typical friendships? So, who will engage with them? I don’t have a perfect or certain answer for this one (or for any of the questions I raise 😊) but I’m tempted to say that the people who are interested in them, or their interests, are the people who will engage with them. When they are young this might just be their parents or a teacher or two but as they grow older, their peers get older too and eventually, all humans develop their areas of special interest (also known to some as work) and this will expand the social circle of the autistic person if they were able to land in a place where people who share their interests abound. Note that this final criterion is not too hard to meet in the virtual world. 

 

As for social norms, I recently watched a conference recording by Brenda Smith Myles on meltdowns and the hidden curriculum. I think she had some useful things to say about meltdowns in her book on the topic (Myles, 2016). In her conference video, she began the topic of hidden curriculum with the words, “Most of us know how to greet other people without being taught, whether it is by a handshake or a nod or a fist bump, or even a bow. We also know with whom to use those different greetings.” 

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I’m going to dissect this statement and use it to analyze the social-deficits view of autism. The first part of the sentence "Most of us know how” conveys that some of us don’t ‘know how’. This leads us to think that there is something worth ‘knowing’ and that something relates to ‘how’ the act of greeting someone is performed. So, ‘knowing how to greet people’ is the social skill being discussed. The next part of the statement says that the 'knowers' know this skill ‘without being taught’. Which leads one to think that this skill can be taught.  

 

So, when one comes across someone who doesn’t perform this ‘greeting’ skill, people are eager to help the person ‘know how’ by ‘teaching’ them. This seems to assume that the reason for the observed behavior ‘lack of skill performance’ is ‘lack of knowledge and an inability to learn by oneself’. What about alternative reasons? Such as, this person doesn’t greet others because they don’t want to do it, or, because it doesn’t even occur to them that it is something worth doing. Or more deliberate yet, they do not wish to greet them lest that extend into a longer interaction?  

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I can think of similar alternative causes for several of the ‘observed social skill deficits’ in autistic people. But I shall stick with the current example. What if it is discovered that the reason was one of the ones I have suggested? Would the world then accept that some people just don’t believe in greeting others? Would the believers in greetings then stop to consider why they do it and what utility it has for them? Or would they merely sample the surface level feelings that an absence of greeting from someone generates in them and conclude that the non-believers need to be saved and taught to follow the righteous path? 

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And if they do find a valid reason for why they greet each other, would they then discuss the utility of this with the non-believers and request that the latter provide the same utility to them in a way they are comfortable with? 

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Well, that was more than a word and there are so many more in my mind. But I shall stop here for now. 

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I would of course love to hear thoughts, comments, agreement, disagreement, counterarguments, etc. Feel free to email me at rohini.knudson@ku.edu