Sensory issues, or connectivity issues?

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eikonabridge
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25 Oct 2015, 9:46 am

Since my son (Ivan) was growing bigger, and his car seat was becoming tight. We bought a booster seat for him to put into my wife's car. When we made the switch, Ivan refused to sit on the new booster seat. Matter of fact, he preferred to stay home with me when my wife went out, all just to avoid sitting on the new car seat. All right, sensory issue, or whatever you call it, we told ourselves. It was not a big deal, as the old car seat still fit. So the new booster seat sat in the garage for a few months.

Ivan had his 6th birthday recently. As is usual, school asked for a poster of his past 6 years. So I made a poster for his birthday celebration. I showed him the night before, and Ivan got very excited. He read along all the sentences on the poster. I took the opportunity to tell him: "Ivan is a big boy now, and big boys need big car seats." Next morning, my wife made the switch of car seats again, and Ivan was perfectly happy riding in the new booster seat.

Sensory issue? What sensory issue?

Not only that, in school the teacher made a paper crown for him, and asked him to decorate it. I don't know why schools always make paper head gears for children. It's like every single school at one point or another always made a paper hat and asked Ivan to wear it. Ivan was never receptive to wearing paper hats. But this time it was different. After writing and drawing on his birthday paper crown, Ivan wore the paper crown happily, the entire time during his birthday celebration in school.

Sensory issue? What sensory issue?

Now that Ivan was fine with the new booster seat in my wife's car, I went out and bought another (simpler) booster seat for him in my car. No problem whatsoever.

How was it possible for Ivan to change his tolerance level, so quickly?

------

Obviously the birthday celebration was a big factor. So I started to think what specific details contributed to his acceptance of things he used to dislike. I looked at his paper crown's decoration. Among other things, I noticed the drawing of a "service elevator," as well as the name of "San Francisco." Elevators are Ivan's passion, and San Francisco is where we went for our summer vacation. Come to think about it, we went to San Francisco in part because we wanted to show to Ivan a 100-year old elevator that he saw on the Internet. The hotel owner was really nice. We went to the hotel just to visit its elevator (we did not stay there.) The owner even gave some cookies to our children. I felt so bad at inconveniencing the hotel owner. OK, I told myself, next time if I ever have a trip to San Francisco, I'll stay in that hotel.

Image

Then I took a look at the poster I made for Ivan. I have been making these posters every single year, ever since my children started preschool. I am so used to these posters that I wasn't paying much attention to the details anymore. It was only when I took another look that I came to realize, yeap, there was this picture of Ivan standing right next to an elevator.

Image

Ivan learned to write, to type, and to draw pictures, all from his passion with elevators. When Ivan started to acquire larger volume of words around age 4, DieselDucy (the famous "elevator photographer" on YouTube) contributed quite a lot to Ivan's vocabulary.

Ivan learned to read and to recognize static images, because I taught him those skills from drawing pictures on magnetic drawing boards for him, with speech bubbles. Hard to believe, but when Ivan was 2.5 years old, he was absolutely unable to look at static images. I introduced stick figures to Ivan, by modulating them into Ivan's favorite video clips. So Ivan learned to focus on drawing and images, from his passion on video clips. It was also from his passion with video clips, that he came to learn about elevator videos.

So to recap, here is the "connected development graph" of Ivan that lead to the success of his acceptance of booster seats and paper crowns.

Image

Two observations regarding this graph:
(1) At the root of development of all Ivan's skills and solutions to his tantrums and many sensory issues, the starting point was video clips.
(2) The single block with most connections in this graph is with elevators.

In all these years raising my children and observing other children on the spectrum, I have come to realize that "sensory issues" or "sensory problems" is a misnomer. It is never about "defects" in the sensory part of these children. It's always been about lack of connections, lack of context. In a sense, it's not about "sensory issues," but about "connectivity issues." Once children are able to link their sensory experiences to other parts of their brains, to those parts of their brains where they have good experiences, sensory issues are gone.

When neurotypical toddlers refuse to eat hot chili peppers, we don't say they have sensory issues. We simply say: they are still children! It's natural for children to handle stimuli differently from adults. We know that. We don't label it as a problem. So why do we label autistic children's sensory intolerance as issues, as problems, as if they are defective in some fashion? The only thing autistic children are guilty of, is they are still children! You don't develop them, they are stuck with their sensory issues. You develop them, those issues are gone. (Physical allergy is a different issue.)

Instead of using the blanket terms of "sensory issues" or "sensory problems," I would much rather hear from parents that their kids "still cannot get used to wearing hats," or simply "he doesn't like wearing hats." And if people ever ask why, just say "he is still a child, an autistic child." Yeap, the only thing these children are guilty of, is that they are still children. They have problems with some external stimuli, just like any 2-year-old would have problems with hot chili pepper.

-------------

I never raised my children with the prospect of avoiding sensory stimuli. The other day we went for our weekly shopping at a warehouse grocery store. We saw this plastic toy 4-cylinder internal combustion engine on sale. It looked really cool and it was mechanical/electrical, so I thought Ivan would like it. But Ivan got scared at the look of the machine. He kept saying: "Papa, don't buy it, I don't want it." I just laughed and told him: "No, the toy is not for you, it's for Papa. Papa likes it." So we bought it. It took me quite sometime to assemble the toy. Once it was assembled, I showed it to Ivan. All the strange noise and lights surely kept him far away, but he did start to take a peek at the machine, from some distance. To make a long story short, he has gotten used to the toy engine. And today, he not only plays with it, but would let it run for hours with all that noise. My wife is the only one in the family that goes crazy with the noise of the engine...and she is the one neurotypical person in house!

Sensory problem? What sensory problem?



By similar processes, Ivan learned to get used to noise from vacuum cleaners, as well as noise from the high-speed blender that my wife uses to make our daily green juice.

Sure, Ivan has always been afraid of noise, before. But today, he handles noise pretty well. Ivan used to hate holding people's hands. Now he holds my hands without problems.

I believe autistic children/adults with sensory issues invariably have some bigger problems: the development of their foundational skills has been incomplete. If we look at it linearly, and place sensory issues to the right, and foundational skills to the left, then the way of solving sensory issues is not by approaching the problem from the right, but rather from the left.

Image

If people asked me how I solved my son's problem with booster seat and wearing paper crowns, and I tell them that I did it by taking my son to elevator rides, or that I actually started the whole process by letting my son watch a dinosaur cartoon video clip, they would probably think I am crazy. What do elevators, or dinosaur cartoons, have ANYTHING to do with car seats and paper hats? Sure, the story is more complicated, but elevators and dinosaur cartoons did play major roles. If you posit the same challenge to other parents, invariably they will start thinking on how to solve car seat and paper hat problems from the angle of, erh, car seats and paper hats. They will never be able to hit on the right solution, for the case of my son.

Sensory issues, as well as tantrum or anxiety issues, are negative/repulsive auto-feedback loops in the brains of these children. To solve these issues, an "inward modulation" process is needed. That is, in the linear view, we approach the problem from the left, not from the right. By approaching the problem from the right, you will never be able to figure out the correct solution, and you can easily spend your next 10, 20 or even 30 years scratching your head and never figure out a solution. Because of the nature of "inward modulation," your starting point should NEVER have anything to do with the sensory issues themselves, at all. That's the non-obvious part about inward modulation, and that is why solutions to sensory and tantrum/anxiety problems have eluded parents and educators for 70+ years.

Hallelujah mountains look awesome and lofty. But they just can't happen, because of the lack of a foundation. If you want your real Halleylujah mountain peaks, you should start by building their foundation, first.

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Hallelujah_Mountains
Image

Autism has nothing to do with underdevelopment. I would like to believe that some children are more "severe" than others, but from all the children have met and seen, I simply cannot say that. I just haven't seen one single hopeless case. I stand firm. The kids are fine and can be developed. The adults are the ones with behavioral problems and intellectual disability. Period. Full stop.


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Last edited by eikonabridge on 25 Oct 2015, 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

HisMom
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25 Oct 2015, 9:58 am

Jason, can you give us more details of foundational skills that you think should be developed to help children overcome any sensory issues ?

Thanks.


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ASDMommyASDKid
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25 Oct 2015, 12:46 pm

eikonabridge wrote:
Since my son (Ivan) was growing bigger, and his car seat was becoming tight. We bought a booster seat for him to put into my wife's car. When we made the switch, Ivan refused to sit on the new booster seat. Matter of fact, he preferred to stay home with me when my wife went out, all just to avoid sitting on the new car seat. All right, sensory issue, or whatever you call it, we told ourselves. It was not a big deal, as the old car seat still fit. So the new booster seat sat in the garage for a few months.

Ivan had his 6th birthday recently. As is usual, school asked for a poster of his past 6 years. So I made a poster for his birthday celebration. I showed him the night before, and Ivan got very excited. He read along all the sentences on the poster. I took the opportunity to tell him: "Ivan is a big boy now, and big boys need big car seats." Next morning, my wife made the switch of car seats again, and Ivan was perfectly happy riding in the new booster seat.

Sensory issue? What sensory issue?



That sort of issue can be a rigidity issue not a sensory issue. It is possible. of course to have a sensory issue with a new seat, but often it is is that they like the seat they have b/c they are familiar with it and are reluctant to try or switch to something new. We tend to have more rigidity issues even, than sensory ones, so we are pretty familiar with them.

Appealing to a desire to be a "big kid" (when it is present) is a great way to get them past some of the fears they have about new things. Sometimes that little extra motivation can make them open to new things and often embrace them.

So, good job, Jason. :)



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26 Oct 2015, 4:52 am

The booster seat was a resistance to change, most likely. The paper hat situation could have been pure willpower: "It's my crown so i'll wear it, watch me", combined with the 'big boy' comment, since "big boys" don't complain about sensory issues.
As for the noise of the vacuum and the blender: training, and coping skills. I have also learned to tolerate those (and similar) sounds, but they still hurt like no tomorrow; i simply stopped complaining.



It is a good thing that OP got his son to grow past his assorted issues, but be careful to generalise the methods to all children, or to assume it was issue A which was solved rather than issue B which is merely tolerated...



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26 Oct 2015, 5:09 am

izzeme wrote:
As for the noise of the vacuum and the blender: training, and coping skills. I have also learned to tolerate those (and similar) sounds, but they still hurt like no tomorrow; i simply stopped complaining.




I hope the things i think my son has gotten desensitized to, are not just things he has decided to let go and not tell me.

Thank you for this post. I think I am going to ask my son about a couple of things...



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26 Oct 2015, 6:06 am

It's not a sensitivity issue, it's a rigidity issue.

And yes, with rigidity issues, this is pretty much how it works, got to break down barriers. But nothing will make my daughter just forget about the tag on her shirt. It's not going to suddenly stop being prickly or itchy to her.



eikonabridge
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26 Oct 2015, 9:01 am

HisMom wrote:
Jason, can you give us more details of foundational skills that you think should be developed to help children overcome any sensory issues ?


I tracked a bit. So your son is about 6, had plenty of ABA, and severely delayed.

And of course, he probably has never been communicated visually in his whole life. In the sense that no one in his whole life have made one single personalized video clip for him, no one has drawn picture for him on a regular basis to teach him skills and remove his resentments. He's got 6 years of resentments piled up, never felt communicated with one single day of his life.

Video clips are still the superhighway to reach into him. But they need to be hand drawn. I'll post soon enough two cases further explaining why stick figures are a must (one from recent experimental study, one from a teacher.) Making video clips actually is a snap nowadays, any 7 year old like my daughter has done it. My problem is, most adults are unwilling/unable to acquire technical skills. So their kids get stuck forever, because parents are unable to take the very first step. As I say, the problem of autism is not with kids, it's with the adults. Getting help from a more technical guy (a.k.a. fathers or boyfriends)? Tried that, even worse. Again, problem is, when parents take the "medical view" about their children's condition, they evade parenting responsibilities so easily. My wife's suggestion is to start with the mothers. That'll work out much better, as when guys see their wives making video clips, that's all that is needed for the guys to feel the pressure. Ha ha.

Come to think about it, I'll just post the links to the two cases here. Please spend some time try to understand these two articles. Check out also my website, and see why stick figures are a must.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/autism-study-photos_562a51dfe4b0443bb563ad29
Image

http://infiniteach.com/autism-behavior-visual-schedule/
Image

Without personalized, cartoonish video clips, your ROI (return on investment) significantly dwindles. My son at age 6 today, still works out much better through the video channel, even though he now perfectly can be communicated verbally, or through a magnetic drawing board. For those messages that are extremely important, I still use a magnetic drawing board, and I sit down and talk to him, while drawing out the pictures to illustrate every detailed situation. You could try with stick figures directly on magnetic drawing board and index cards, and see if it works out. It's better than nothing, I guess. I hope you have already gotten the magnetic drawing board. Get some blank index cards as well, for things that you need to show to your son repeatedly. Put the cards into some mini-photo album pouches. From now on, remember that everything needs to go through his eyes, not just his ears.

Your son's got 6 years of resentments built up from so many incidents, and probably none has been removed. So I am not even sure he'll be receptive to index cards or magnetic drawing board, especially when you introduce him to these devices without the help of a video clip.

You are basically starting from zero. So ability to focus on static images and realized that they have meanings, is already a great achievement. Reading skills, which your son seems to have some, can further be acquired through speech bubbles in your drawings, or just write out what the characters are saying without the bubbles. The Bob Books series may also help. When your son gets used to the magnetic drawing board, do nightly picture-aided talking with him, and make sure that you start to remove his resentments from each day. Any bad experience he may have had in the day, talk about it through pictures, explain to him the what/why aspects of each incident. Tell him about what's going to happen tomorrow. All through pictures.

That's on the input side for him. He needs to close his external feedback loop for him to develop his deep thinking skills. If he can draw pictures, great. If not, start with expressive building block toys. I tend to discourage parents from using Minecraft. But if nothing else works, that's a choice.

Delay any effort at socialization. That's a waste of time, and has wasted 6 years of your son's time. You should use that time to teach him visual-manual skills. I wouldn't worry about verbal skills, either, that'll come automatically. All your ABA effort has been translated into 6 years of noise and resentment, and who can blame the kid? Concentrate instead in visual-manual development.

Have a regular fun activity with your son. However, when he at his happiest moment, remember to keep some drawings with you, and talk to him about any bad experiences he has had, or remind him skills that he needs to learn. You need a bidirectional communication "tunnel" between his happy moments and his sad/mad moments, so picture drawing records must be kept (or re-drawn on spot).

Much of what I say probably sounds fairly strange to you. Probably sounds like something from a different world. Yeap, nothing of what I say is obvious to anyone, people probably even think I am crazy. Hey, but I am the one that have two of the happiest children in the world, with my bizarre, incomprehensible approaches. So spend some time digesting what I have said in all my postings. Have you ever seen another parent doing as much through pictures and video clips for their children? Of course not. And now, ask yourself, with the ease of technology, will more, or fewer parents start to draw pictures and make personalized cartoon-ish video clips for their children? Ha, it does not take a genius to figure out that answer.

Here is a recent video I made for my son, to teach him about the water cycle. It started simply because he flushed the toilet one day and asked me where did the water go. Well, you may not see the purpose of the video clips. But afterwards I made a poster of the same picture, for him to take to school to share with his friends. So he did and gave the whole speech in front of his class. Bingo, public speaking skills. Self confidence. And from there, social skills. Social skills come last, it's the least important skill in the development of an autistic child. Until your son can read, write, type, draw pictures, talk, have good eye contact, have developed deep thinking skills, I wouldn't worry about his social skills. The skills I have describe are also the same skills that'll help with your son's sensory issues. They form the foundation for your son to become a fully developed child.



(After the video has been done, I realized that our city's water system is quite different from my diagram. But, hey, I am not water system expert. Ha.)

Oh, let me post the drive-through lemonade stand here as well. A reward for his creativity, and a gentle way of telling him about his spelling and mirror image issues. I did almost all the drawings while sitting on an airplane, and using just my smartphone. (Sound track and effects added later with Pinnacle Studio.)


You can probably start to understand, from all my bizarre drawings and video clips, why my children are always happy and smiling, while many children of other parents are not. If anyone wants to view autism as a medical condition and be sad and bitter about it, that's their choice. My choice is to have fun with my children.

So is my son just naturally high-functioning? Not at all. He was probably exactly like your son, when my son was 2.5 years old. Hyperactive, no eye contact, can't even look at any static image, non-verbal, with sensory issues, you name it. The thing is, on one fateful day (actually, week), I came to understand him. After that, I was 100% worry free. He was 2.5 years old, but I already saw everything that was coming later into his life. I thank all my teachers and professors, for they have taught me how to understand the world through mathematical models.


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26 Oct 2015, 9:41 am

Eikonabridge wrote:
So is my son just naturally high-functioning? Not at all. He was probably exactly like your son, when my son was 2.5 years old. Hyperactive, no eye contact, can't even look at any static image, non-verbal, with sensory issues, you name it. The thing is, on one fateful day (actually, week), I came to understand him. After that, I was 100% worry free. He was 2.5 years old, but I already saw everything that was coming later into his life. I thank all my teachers and professors, for they have taught me how to understand the world through mathematical models.


Take your parent blaming nonsense elsewhere. These kids are all different and what applies to one does NOT apply to the next. Your child probably naturally developed to a HF state. My daughter also seemed quite autistic when she was 2/3. However now she is HF and I did NONE, literally NONE of what you are describing. I've seen many kids go from an apparent LF state to HF through various means including zero intervention. Congratulations on being the greatest most knowledgable ASD parent on the face of the planet. My kid has been hugely successful in the past year as well and I could get on here like you and take all the credit and claim that my super awesome parenting is the reason why they are doing so great and tell all the other parents that the reason their kids are LF or whatever is because they suck. But I won't, because it isn't true.



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26 Oct 2015, 11:00 am

Some very good ideas there - especially about reviewing his day with pictures and / or telling him about tomorrow with pictures.

However, we have tried to use visual schedules in the past with little to no real result / improvement.

Can you share more about why static stick figures (more abstract, IMO) would be more beneficial than actual photographs ? You mention video clips - again, at the risk of sounding "ret*d" to you - what sort of clips do we make and how do they help ? Are you talking about video modeling of activities to teach him how to - for example - align a shirt properly before wearing it ?

I think your belief is that all kids are visual learners. However, my son struggles even to match pictures to pictures or pictures to objects and visual performance activities (such as completing even simple puzzles) are very hard for him. Do you think that he can still benefit through a visual way of teaching ?


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26 Oct 2015, 11:15 am

HisMom wrote:
Jason, can you give us more details of foundational skills that you think should be developed to help children overcome any sensory issues ?


This was a sincerely asked question, and there was no reason for you to include insults in your answer. In case you are not aware of how what you say is insulting to people, I am going to do my best to spell it out.


eikonabridge wrote:
And of course, he probably has never been communicated visually in his whole life. In the sense that no one in his whole life have made one single personalized video clip for him, no one has drawn picture for him on a regular basis to teach him skills and remove his resentments. He's got 6 years of resentments piled up, never felt communicated with one single day of his life.


This is rude, and presumptuous. How do you know what she tried and did not try? Why would you her kid has built up resentments? That is ridiculous. You have no idea what her kid feels.

eikonabridge wrote:
Making video clips actually is a snap nowadays, any 7 year old like my daughter has done it. My problem is, most adults are unwilling/unable to acquire technical skills. So their kids get stuck forever, because parents are unable to take the very first step. As I say, the problem of autism is not with kids, it's with the adults. Getting help from a more technical guy (a.k.a. fathers or boyfriends)? Tried that, even worse. Again, problem is, when parents take the "medical view" about their children's condition, they evade parenting responsibilities so easily. My wife's suggestion is to start with the mothers. That'll work out much better, as when guys see their wives making video clips, that's all that is needed for the guys to feel the pressure. Ha ha.

Where to begin, here:
#1 - We are dumber and/or lazier than your 7-year old? Really?
#2 - Our boyfriends are more technically savvy than those of us who are women and maybe are as smart as your 7-year old. However, they are also lazy, so we should make our inferior lady folk efforts anyway, to motivate a man to help us.
#3 - Any issues with our kids are our fault do to said stupidity and laziness.
#4 - If we acknowledge that autism is a medical condition (you know b.c it was diagnosed) it is out of self-serving stupidity and laziness,
#5 -I don't care if your wife is also sexist -- Many women have internalized this kind of BS, lucky for you you found one of them.
[/quote]

eikonabridge wrote:
Come to think about it, I'll just post the links to the two cases here. Please spend some time try to understand these two articles. Check out also my website, and see why stick figures are a must.


Yes, it will take us 2-3 weeks to understand your posts (which you said on another post) because we are so stupid. (sarcasm) We are not so stupid that we don't knwo that the main point is to sell your book.


eikonabridge wrote:
Your son's got 6 years of resentments built up from so many incidents, and probably none has been removed. So I am not even sure he'll be receptive to index cards or magnetic drawing board, especially when you introduce him to these devices without the help of a video clip.
...
You are basically starting from zero.



It is all the parent's fault if we are not doing things your way.

eikonabridge wrote:
Delay any effort at socialization. That's a waste of time, and has wasted 6 years of your son's time.


Anything you done prior to learning my method is a waste of time and you should feel bad for wasting yoru child's life on it because I know best.


eikonabridge wrote:

Much of what I say probably sounds fairly strange to you. Probably sounds like something from a different world. Yeap, nothing of what I say is obvious to anyone, people probably even think I am crazy. Hey, but I am the one that have two of the happiest children in the world, with my bizarre, incomprehensible approaches. So spend some time digesting what I have said in all my postings. Have you ever seen another parent doing as much through pictures and video clips for their children? Of course not. And now, ask yourself, with the ease of technology, will more, or fewer parents start to draw pictures and make personalized cartoon-ish video clips for their children? Ha, it does not take a genius to figure out that answer.

I think I am doing something brand new and no one here or anywhere else has ever tried it before. Whenever, someone says they tried it, I ignore them or say maybe they did it wrong or not enough.
eikonabridge wrote:
Until your son can read, write, type, draw pictures, talk, have good eye contact, have developed deep thinking skills, I wouldn't worry about his social skills. The skills I have describe are also the same skills that'll help with your son's sensory issues. They form the foundation for your son to become a fully developed child.

My way is a panacea, and sensory issues are pretend.

eikonabridge wrote:
(After the video has been done, I realized that our city's water system is quite different from my diagram. But, hey, I am not water system expert. Ha.)

Ooh ---something you admit you are not an expert in? You mean your doctorate in an unrelated field doesn't help you with this?



eikonabridge wrote:
You can probably start to understand, from all my bizarre drawings and video clips, why my children are always happy and smiling, while many children of other parents are not. If anyone wants to view autism as a medical condition and be sad and bitter about it, that's their choice. My choice is to have fun with my children.


You can recognize established science and still not be bitter and sad. This is not the website for that. You want those people go to Autism Speaks.
eikonabridge wrote:
After that, I was 100% worry free. He was 2.5 years old, but I already saw everything that was coming later into his life. I thank all my teachers and professors, for they have taught me how to understand the world through mathematical models.


I call bull poop. All parents worry.



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26 Oct 2015, 12:37 pm

I had sensory issues as a child, and still have them today though I have learned ways to controlling those states, except when I am fatigued.

I don't think this auto-feedback loop theory has anything to do with sensory issues, but it's really hard to tell because the theory is not explained.

Quote:
Sensory issues, as well as tantrum or anxiety issues, are negative/repulsive auto-feedback loops in the brains of these children. To solve these issues, an "inward modulation" process is needed. That is, in the linear view, we approach the problem from the left, not from the right. By approaching the problem from the right, you will never be able to figure out the correct solution, and you can easily spend your next 10, 20 or even 30 years scratching your head and never figure out a solution. Because of the nature of "inward modulation," your starting point should NEVER have anything to do with the sensory issues themselves, at all.


What are these foundational skills and how does a lack of them cause hyper or hypo sensory sensitivity?

This sounds more like religion than science at this point, but perhaps detail would help you to express your theory in more concrete terms.



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31 Oct 2015, 8:52 am

HisMom wrote:
Some very good ideas there - especially about reviewing his day with pictures and / or telling him about tomorrow with pictures.

Thanks.

Quote:
However, we have tried to use visual schedules in the past with little to no real result / improvement.

I know, I have two children. If I don't mention my daughter and keep mentioning my son to you, it's because your son is a pro-video child, like my son.

As I said, around 2.5 years old, my son absolutely could not look at static images. Let's call the ability to look at static images a "Hallelujah Mountain Peak." Now you know how to proceed. You don't teach him that skill (being able to look at a static image) by shoveling static images (like visual schedules) down his throat. Doing so may actually have a negative impact. You modulate in static images into his favorite activities. Let me explain.

My son learned to focus on static images through a few things that I did with him.

(a) I made a metamorphosis video of himself, another one for my wife, another one for my daughter. I showed the metamorphosis video to him, so he could learn that stick figures mean something and represent actual people.

(b) He loved a dinosaur video. I inserted silly static frames of stick figures of myself, his mom, his sister, and himself, into the dinosaur video. Each frame only appeared for some brief seconds, with silly voice-overs like "Papaosaurus, PAPA!" "Mamiosaurus, MAMI!" "Mindyosaurus, MINDY!" and "Ivanosaurus, IVAN!" I still remember that it was such a surprise to him when he saw those additional frame. His eyes were glued to the entire video. From there, he not only learned to focus on stick figures, but also learned to call me Papa. For those people that think my son automatically turned "high functioning," ha, no, I know exactly what I did for my son.

(c) He was obsessed with playing with a vacuum cleaner. I made a mini-photo album with the 5 steps involved in playing vacuum cleaners, including the step for cleaning up and putting the vacuum cleaner back to the closet. Yeap, he could always get the vacuum cleaner back anytime, but I would show him each one of the five steps. (I later modulated in additional activities, and he learned to follow verbal commands, learned to read 5-word sentences, etc.)

I call these children pro-video because I want to emphasize to parents that video clips are crucial to the development of these children.

Technology has changed very fast in these last two years. I think I am ready to make some recommendations for Apple parents. (I am a technology person, so Apple is really not my thing. Let us just say many software programmers have certain opinion regarding the whole business model of Apple, and regarding Apple users.) What you need, if you have an iPad or iPhone device, are:
(a) Autodesk Sketchbook Express (the free version suffices)
(b) Cute Cut (start with the free version, too.)

You'll need a stylus. If you get them in bulk from Ebay, it costs pennies per stylus.

For Android users, replace Cute Cut with VideoShow.

To display the video clips on your big screen TV, Google's Chromecast is a good choice.

Quote:
Can you share more about why static stick figures (more abstract, IMO) would be more beneficial than actual photographs?

In the two articles that I mentioned, it's easy to see that "what you see" is not "what they see." In one case, the teachers see the playground so clearly, but to the child the picture was all about the tiny, almost-invisible, school bus! In the other case, some contrasting spots like boundary of tree leaves, and the back of the head of a person, catch more attention of the autistic people. Stick figures eliminate all irrelevant information. When I read those two articles, I was joking to myself: "Bravo, give those teachers or researchers another 20 years, and they may well figure out that stick figures are the way to go."


Quote:
what sort of clips do we make and how do they help ? Are you talking about video modeling of activities to teach him how to - for example - align a shirt properly before wearing it ?

Start with the child's interest. One particularly successful video clip I made for my son was this one, really silly, but he loved to sit on the hammock with his sister and utter and non-sensical words like "oi, oi, ay-o-wah!"

I made quite a few other video clips using this video as basis. From there, Ivan learned to say "No", from sentences like "Yes, I do" and "No, I don't." I built up my son's skills in baby steps.

Your son is your best teacher. He will let you know what his interests are. You use your son's interests as the starting points, and from there you modulate in those skills that you want to teach your son. Skills such as:
- Ability to focus on static drawings
- Ability to echo sentences
- Ability to recognize speech bubles
- Ability to read
- Ability to say yes, no
- Ability to make verbal requests
- Ability to play a telephone conversation
- Ability to role play
- etc. etc.

By using extensions to the "Oi, oi, ay-o-wah" video, I taught my son to stop mouthing (biting on objects), and I also taught him the concept of "or" (as in, "do you want apple, or orange?")

That is, once you figure out your son's passion, you can teach him an endless list of skills from there.

Quote:
Do you think that he can still benefit through a visual way of teaching ?

I have absolutely zero doubt about it.

கற்றது கைமண் அளவு; கல்லாதது உலகளவு.

Yeah, in mathematics, after the understanding of symbolic logic and the whole axiomatic approach on numbers (particularly regarding infinities), people know well that human intelligence is limited. In my words, we are trying to touch and understand the universe by wearing gloves. Sure, we are successful at calculating the fine-structure constant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant) to 12-digit precision, but we are always on this side of the glove. It's futile trying to understand the "real world": we are not allowed to get to the other side of the glove. All that we can deal with, and act upon, is only information, which by nature is countable. When you look at the "Axiom of Choice" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice), an axiom so important that without which our entire body of mathematics collapses, you get to start to wonder that, maybe, just maybe, science is not that different from religion, after all. Ha!

It's frustrating, and there is so much to learn. Sometimes I feel like I don't even have a moment to breathe. But I guess that's what makes life fun. Just imagine that if one day we knew everything. Life would be so boring!


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http://www.eikonabridge.com/


Ettina
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24 Nov 2015, 3:54 pm

He's just a snake oil salesman. Ignore him, he doesn't have a clue.