Experience Autism

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I have learned from reading here that folks on the spectrum really don't want to "be like NT's". I started really thinking about that. So much of the therapy my son does is to help him "act more typical". I don't think it's wrong to learn how to be as socially appropriate as possible.

However, it occurred to me that maybe NT's should learn more what it's like to have autism and adapt to people like my son instead of always expecting people like my son to adapt to them.

So I developed an "experiential learning module" called Experience Autism. I have been facilitating this training in our local school system. I started with the "Autism Specialists" and have facilitated a few trainings not in some middle school classrooms. I will be conducting it for some special needs aides and for a church group and for teachers as part of professional development over the summer. I want to make sure that it is as accurate as it can be.

The training has a lot of activities that mirror sensory and communication challenges so that they can experience even just a little of what it is like.

We do a table setting exercise where they have follow my instructions but they can't understand what I'm telling them to do. I get angry and frustrated with them so that they can experience what it's like to feel that. Then I give them a picture and they can set the table.

They wear a piece of scratchy velcro in their clothing during the whole thing so they can feel the tactile irritation.

They wear huge construction gloves and then have to string beads. Then they have to do it while wearing binocular glasses. This mimics fine motor skill and vision issues.

They have to walk a line looking backwards through binoculars which makes balance and perception a real issue.

They have to read and complete a worksheet while wearing goggles coated in vasaline and wearing construction gloves.

Then there is a laser show, flashing lights, loud music and I read them a story and ask them simple questions about it. This shows how overwhelming sensory input can be and how it's impossible to concentrate when so much is going on around you.

I know that there probably is no way to truly mimic the sensory challenges of autism but I think these activities might be close. I'm really hoping that an hour of this gives us NT's a small taste of autism and then encourages us to adapt to friends, family and peers on the spectrum because maybe we understand them just a little bit more.

Do you think this will be helpful? Do the exercises get close to some of what it can be like to be on the spectrum?

Great post! Thank you! : )

Well, I think you've done well with some of the sensory issues we have to deal with, but missed another major piece of the bigger picture. That is our struggles with social cues, recognizing others' emotions, difficulties in social activities, etc.

Thanks for the encouragement and the suggestions.

I forgot one activity. I printed pictures of kids faces but I cropped out everything below their eyes. I show the picture of just the eyes up and ask the group if they can tell me what emotion the child is having. The answers are all over the place! Then I show the picture of the full face and everyone is shocked.

I know that a lot of people on the spectrum actually don't like to look at eyes, but I couldn't figure out another way to help NT's experience the frustration of reading a face without all the data.

Do you have any suggestions about how to mimic the social cue and interaction challenges? I have wracked my brain, my my brain is an NT brain so it's hard for me LOL I know this is a really huge part of autism but I just don't know how to help NT's experience it. Thoughts?

One thing you could try with the social cues / interactions... perhaps find some people (ahead of time) either from, or portraying to be from, a different culture, whose mannerisms, traditions, etc. etc. are quite a bit different from ours. Your students should at least get some idea of the difficulties trying to communicate and find "common ground" with them.

That's a very cool idea! I need to research some cultural things and figure out some role plays. Actually reminds me of some of the "living history" places, like Williamsburg, Va. The "actors" can only talk about things that happened as of the date in history that Williamsburg was being founded. If you try to talk to them about anything modern, current events, or use slang, they act suprised or uncertain and tell you that they don't know what you're talking about. I never thought about it before but, as a visitor, you have to figure out how to ask questions in a way that they understand and only talk about what they are familiar with. Very Awesome. Thanks!

I just realized that I might be posting in the wrong place Should I be posting in the Open Hotline? If so, I'm really sorry.

Not at all... it's OK posted here, as far as I know. It does have to do with Autism, which is the basis of this part of the forum.

Wow, I wish things like "experience autism" existed in more places. What you have is excellent, and would remain so even without changes.

However here is some input of things you might want to try including. Some of them I imagine would be quite difficult to replicate, but I'm just tossing ideas out there:

-simulating meltdowns (seems impossible since they'd need to actually be irrationally angry)

-something simulating the need to stim
For this you could give them some sort of stim, like a hand flapping movement or something that someone with Autism does. With one of the ones I do, I put the back of my hands to my face, and wiggle my fingers a lot - while this is going on I have no idea it's happening, until it stops.
When -I- was in school (diagnosed at early age), I was -FORCED- to stop stimming whenever I stimmed, which was really really bad, because it just made me need to stim more, and there was no stopping it. All it did was cause anguish - and to this day I still stim and do compulsive movements, I've just learned to always be playing with my hands to lessen the frequency.

So give them each a stim, and have something very unpleasant happen, which goes away when they do that stim. Then to help them understand how bad it is to try to stop someone from stimming, yell at them every time they stim to get rid of whatever unpleasant thing you come up with (maybe a loud harsh noise? maybe a whistle or something, some sort of signal?), or something like that.

- something to add to the "things to do with gloves on" list

Have them button shirts up while wearing these gloves. This is one of the most annoying things for me, it takes me a while to button a shirt up, and it really irritated me when I had to wear a button up shirt every day for a job.
Another good one, folding socks and clothes with the gloves.

handwriting difficulty

Have them wear the gloves and write with a piece of pencil led. Just a stick of mechanical pencil led. The pencil led may be overkill, but I wouldn't know - my handwriting looks like a first graders (actually, worse than most 1st graders - I had a job as a teacher assistant for a 1st grade teacher in a German immersion school, so I saw their handwriting frequently).

Sensory issues

What you have for sensory issues is good, but here is a good idea:
Have them wear a blindfold or sit in the dark or something, to make their eyes adjust fully to the darkness. Then shine some really bright light on them. Perhaps, to prolong the time of discomfort, have them wear an eyepatch and just switch eyes once one of them adjusts to the light.

Another option, just have a room very, very overlit, to show how bright fluorescent lights common in classrooms can affect Autistic people.

Make a bunch of metaphors/idiomatic phrases, etc. that only you know the meaning of.

Then use them over and over throughout the training. Give them all a meaning that has nothing to do with their words, like "Oh, of course, the yellow cow cries at midnight." to mean "stand up" or something along those lines. Then get mad at them when they don't understand what you're saying, or act puzzled like they're all idiots.

Oh, perhaps also something to replicate anxiety from non-rehearsed/unfamiliar social interaction, but I don't know how you'd go about this.

I know this will sound strange but have you ever seen Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) starring Christopher Lambert? When I was watching this movie it occurred to me how much the character was like me in the he was brought into this alien 'NT' world only to be looked down upon for his differences. He tries to fit in and learn the normal customs and behavior but he is just too different and eventually has a meltdown of sorts and goes back to the jungle. If nothing else you should watch this for yourself. It seems odd to me that NT's can empathize with this character but have a hard time empathizing with aspies but I think if they can relate to this character they would understand the social difficulties of AS much better.

It's not that we don't want to be like NT's it's just that it's so foreign to many of us that we get burned out attempting it.

How about you start getting mad at them for things they say even though there was nothing wrong with what they said and you were not offended but it would show them what it's like for an autistic when people get upset with things they say and they don't understand why. They do not see what they have said wrong or don't understand why it offended you.

For not being able to understand social cues, have a short presentation to them with several people acting the parts that they would see people doing in normal every day life. Responding in completely different ways that a person would think they need to respond. Also have the actors do this while either having no expression at all on their faces and a monotone voice, or have them use different facial expressions and different body language that doesnt match the expression, and tone that doesnt match, but all of those things being completely different than what a person would normally do.

An example would be if you wanted to make small talk about a band that you and they liked, in a friendly way, you could frown, use a very sad voice, and body language like you were scared. Send three different messages, all different from your intent.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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