Friends who have watched the recent live broadcast of Professor Zou Xiaobing's public welfare lecture held on the Star Watcher Platform should still remember that Professor Zou recommended a book -
"More Than Words" (from Hanen Center in Canada) .
▲Subtitle: Helping Parents Promote Communication and Social Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Helping Parents Promote Communication and Social Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder)
Professor Zou showed part of "More Than" in the lecture PPT The illustrations in "Words" make it easier for parents to understand various methods and scenarios in family intervention for autism. Therefore, many parents have become very interested in this book and left messages or private messages asking us for information about this book. .
There is currently no Chinese translation of "More Than Words", and there are certain difficulties in purchasing and reading it.
But it doesn’t matter. We will share our reading notes with you and select the key points in the book to explain to help you get a brief understanding of this book.
* Reading notes alone cannot replace book reading. There will definitely be a certain amount of information loss and understanding deviation. If possible, I suggest you read the original book!
First of all, I present the reading notes of the first chapter of "More Than Words" .
Next, we will talk about the 4 stages of children’s communication mentioned in Chapter 1, as well as the 5 different roles and functions played by parents and children in communication.
Which communication stage is my child in?
In order to make it easier for everyone to understand, we use a scene as an example:
Dad bought a bunch of fresh big yellow bananas home and placed them on the dining table. Xiao Ming loves to eat bananas. When he saw a banana, he wanted to eat it, so he——
A. looked at the banana and walked to the table He reached out to get the banana, but couldn't reach it. He was very anxious. He stared at the banana and tried his best to stretch out his little hand.
B. pulled his father who was playing on his mobile phone to the dining table and instructed his father to get the banana for him to eat
C. stood in front of dad, looked at the banana, looked at dad, pointed at the banana and said to dad: "Eat! Eat!"
D. said to his father: "Dad, give me a banana to eat~" While eating the banana, he also said to his father: "It's so delicious!"
What kind of reaction will your child probably have? The four situations
ABCD correspond to "More Than The four stages of children’s communication in Words:
A. Self-agenda stage (pre-intentional communication stage)
B. Demand initiation stage
C. Early communication stage
D. Partner stage
The above stages do not mean that all children will completely follow their sequential development, but it is true that many children start from the ego agenda stage, and as they grow older and improve their abilities , and finally reaches the partnership stage.
If we can accurately assess the stage of a child's communication ability, we can better plan for the child's subsequent development.
However, we cannot accurately judge by just relying on a "banana eating" scene. We also need to know more about the behavioral characteristics of at each stage..
A. Self-agenda stage (pre-intent communication stage)
Children at this stage show an "independence" and "closedness". They tend to have fun by themselves and are nonchalant about those around them.
They will do some things with "communication meaning", but they actually don't know that they are communicating , and they don't know that it will affect the behavior of other people.
In our example of scene A, Xiao Ming's behavior of "reaching out for a banana" has a certain communication meaning, but he does not know how to ask his father for help directly and needs his father to "observe and interpret" his behavior.
Some behavioral characteristics of children at this stage:
● Interact with you briefly and almost never interact with other children
● Like to do things alone
●Looking or reaching for something you want
●Communicating with you unintentionally
●Playing in unusual ways
●Making some noises to calm yourself
● Protest with tears and screams
● Smile
● Laugh
● Hardly understand any vocabulary
B. Demand initiation stage
Different from children in the previous stage, children in the demand initiation stage begin to understand:
His behavior will have an impact on others By doing some things (such as eyes, smiles, voices, body movements, etc.) can satisfy him own needs.
Some behavioral characteristics of children at this stage:
● Simple interaction with you
● Use sounds or repeat a few words to calm yourself or focus
● Reach for what you want
● Communication mainly occurs when he is in need, he will pull you or guide you
● Use eyes, smiles, body movements or sounds to ask you to continue playing a certain physical game, Such as tickling or chasing Game by game
● Sometimes if he knows what he is going to do, he will do it according to the familiar process
● Understand the familiar routine activity process
C. Early communication stage
Children who have entered the early stage of communication, communication is more purposeful (of course the main purpose is to let you meet his various needs) , he has learned to use some specific gestures, sounds, pictures or language to communicate .
Moreover, the child may start to have two-way communication with you, understand the simple words you say, point you to something he is interested in (joint attention) and so on.
Some behavioral characteristics of children at this stage:
● Interact with you and familiar people in familiar situations
● Take turns to play interactive games, and want to play with you for longer
● Use the same actions, sounds, or language to ask you to continue playing some of his favorite games, For example, tickling and peek-a-boo
● Sometimes use imitation to initiate requests or responses
● Use pictures, gestures, or words to purposefully make requests (such as food, toys, physical play, help)
● Start using the same movements, sounds or words expressing protest and rejection
● Occasionally use body movements, gestures, sounds, or words to get your attention or show you something
● Understand simple, familiar sentences
● Understand the names of familiar objects or people without visual cues
● Can say hello and say goodbye
● Able to answer "yes/no", make choices and "what is that" questions
D. Partner stage
Children at this stage are more like a "partner" who can communicate effectively and can have simple conversations and discussions. Things that have happened and things that haven’t happened yet, like what you did at school today or what you want for your birthday next week.
"Little Buddy" Children like to play with you and also like to play with other children. But when he doesn't know what to do or say (such as when playing an imaginary game), he will still choose to play alone.
Some behavioral characteristics of children at this stage:
● Interact with you for a longer period of time
● Play best with other children in games with familiar processes
● Use language or other communication methods to make demands, protests, and greetings , attract your attention, ask questions and answer
● Start to use language or other communication methods to talk about what has happened and what has not happened, express emotions, make assumptions
● You can make your own sentences
● Have a short conversation
● Sometimes, when others do not understand him, he will adjust what he says
● A child who can understand some more complex vocabulary
does not mean that "everything will be fine" in communication, he may still face Some difficult need to be gradually improved through long-term guidance and training, such as:
●When he doesn’t know how to play, he will refuse to play with others (such as pretend games, which require language and pretending)
●When he doesn’t understand what others are saying, or when he can’t organize the language, he will imitate it.
● When he has difficulty participating in a conversation, he may:
- respond to others instead of initiating
- try to focus the conversation on his own favorite topics
- make some grammatical errors, especially pronouns like "you, me, him"
- when the conversation is complex , when others don’t talk to him directly , he will be confused
● When he has difficulty grasping the rules of conversation, he may:
- not knowing how to start and end the conversation
- not listening to what others say
- not being able to stay on topic
——Unable to follow up what others say in an appropriate way
●Cannot read words and emotions, and cannot detect subtle social cues expressed by others through expressions and body movements
●Because he can only understand the literal meaning of other people’s words, he does not understand Irony, humor and other voiceovers
Which
role am I a parent
Although the way we interact with our children depends on our and our children's individual personalities and abilities, there are some roles that parents have in common, and they will play these roles intentionally or unintentionally to promote Or hinder children's communication development.
Helper/Teacher
He who knows the current affairs is a good helper
Parents are often happy to be their children's teachers, but as a person who provides help to their children, it is very important to "know the current affairs".
Sometimes, a child needs our help. For example, when he is in the pre-intentional communication stage, he needs us to observe, interpret and help him express; sometimes, we need to let go appropriately. If we always do this and that for our children, , children will not have the opportunity to exercise themselves and show themselves.
We should first ask and test whether the child needs help, then wait for a response, then ask again, and finally provide help.
"Don't disturb" people
Don't let children idle or busy alone
Some children are not interested in interaction and do not ask their parents to play with them. Parents may mistakenly think that their children are "very independent" and "very well-behaved".
Although children do need time alone, they also need to learn how to interact, which is something they cannot do alone.
So we should not be a "non-disturbing" person and let the child play alone when we see it. Instead, we should try to join him, do things with him, interact with him, and let the child gradually understand:
There is your world More fun!
runner
In a hurry, intervention does not have to be like this
For many parents, the road to autism intervention seems to be a race against time. In order to seize the time and not waste a single minute, I packed my schedule to the brim and pulled my children to do many, many things as scheduled.
But children grow up slowly. We must slow down intentionally and give children more time to react, accept and understand .
Be patient with your children. Activities such as dressing, eating breakfast, getting ready to go out, etc. can all be used. Spending a few more minutes in each link to guide the child, interact with the child, and wait for the child's feedback will make the child happy. He learned more.
Good partners
Big hands hold small hands, let the children walk in front
Play games with the children, and guide the children to learn various communication skills in the game.
As children's abilities improve, our "guidance power" becomes weaker and weaker. We can let our children speak more and do more . As "good partners", we are always by our side and follow the guidance of our children. Just respond to him positively.
Cheerleader
If you love me, praise me
Be the child's "communication encourager", like his number one fan cheerleader, When he makes attempts and efforts at communication, cheer him up and give him a warm welcome. Provide children with confidence and good vibes. However, it should be noted that praise should be given sincerely, and praise should be used to guide children to continue communicating.
For example, when a child says "I like cars", if we say "You said it very well", the child may be full of questions and confused, and don't know how to answer the question. We can say "I like it too, wait" "Let's go out and play in the car next time." This way you are truly responding to your child's communication and you can continue chatting with your child.
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The first chapter of "More Than Words" emphasizes that parents must learn to observe and analyze their children , grasp his preferences, evaluate the communication stage of the child based on his communication performance, and use this as a basis to provide corresponding help.
At the same time, parents can also "check in" to see what role they play in their children's communication and how to better help their children grow.
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It is not easy to summarize, and I am so tired that I can’t breathe.
If you think this way of sharing notes is not bad, I hope you can continue to see the content of the next chapter , please give us a like to let us know your expectations!
