Corrective work with an autistic child, where to start or “the road can be mastered by those who walk.” Children's learning difficulties: autism, ADHD, speech disorders

- Does the neurodiversity paradigm contradict the idea that autistic children need to be taught something? After all, training suppresses their individuality.
This question was asked to me by a woman who works with autistic children. This question continues to surprise me, even though I have heard it more than once. Perhaps he surprises me because the answer has always been obvious to me:
- Of course not. After all, if a child is not taught household skills, he will never be able to live independently. If a child is not taught to speak or use alternative communication, he will be completely helpless because he will be deprived of communication with the outside world. If you do not teach a child to read, write, arithmetic and various sciences, then illiteracy and lack of education can greatly affect the quality of his life in the future.

The neurodiversity paradigm is based on the fact that there is no one correct way of functioning of the brain and nervous system, and that not all deviations from the average and generally accepted norm are pathological. The neurodiversity paradigm speaks of equality for autistic people. Equality for autistic people does not mean that autistic people should be helpless, that they should have no connection with the outside world, that they should not be able to live independently, and that they should have a lower quality of life than non-autistic people. So the neurodiversity paradigm is more likely contradicts the idea that autistic children do not need to be taught anything, or that one must very quickly give up trying to teach something to an autistic child.

The problem is not with the neurodiversity paradigm, but with the fact that when teaching an autistic child, many parents, teachers and professionals try to suppress his personality. And this approach is used so often that in the minds of teachers and specialists, one has become inseparable from the other. How and why does this happen?
Why have I never heard the mother of an ordinary neurotypical girl afraid to teach her daughter to tie her shoelaces, speak or read because it could allegedly deprive her of her individuality?

When a mother teaches her neurotypical child to speak, read, or tie shoelaces, and if the child does not master these skills quickly, the mother begins to use special teaching methods.
When a mother tries to teach exactly the same skills to her autistic child, and he does not master them right away, then in order to teach him, the mother turns to a psychiatrist or therapist and uses therapy.

Therapy, in contrast to teaching methods, assumes that there is some extremely undesirable deviation from the norm, some kind of disease that needs to be cured.
So what kind of disease do doctors want to cure if a child cannot learn to speak or tie his shoelaces? No matter how absurd it may sound, if a child is autistic, then that “disease” turns out to be autism.
Very often, teaching a child necessary or highly desirable skills for life, the same ones that are taught to neurotypical children, is called “autism therapy.”

Obviously, having learned these skills, the child will not cease to be autistic. There is a myth that autistic children's brains become less "autistic" after they are trained through "therapy." Of course, this is not true. If I teach you to shake your hands and arrange objects in a row, it won't make your neurotypical brain autistic. Another thing is that the brain “evolves”, and in adults it works differently than in children. This extends to autistic people as well, so that over time many children actually become “less autistic” if we consider the functioning of an autistic child’s brain to be the norm for autism. Then what does “autism therapy” change and on what basis can the diagnosis be removed from autistic children?

Autism “therapy” can affect a child's behavior, making that behavior less autistic. Through therapy, it is possible to teach an autistic child to pretend to be normal, and parents often “purchase” this “pretend training” in a “bundle” with teaching useful skills, such as mastering alternative communication.

Often, teaching an autistic child how to communicate is considered successful only if the autistic child learns to make eye contact like a neurotypical, move like a neurotypical, talk like a neurotypical, in general, if he can pretend to be neurotypical.

During “therapy,” they try to “cure” behavior that is natural for an autistic person, such as stimming, as well as the child’s own desires and aspirations (for example, an autistic child may be forced to give up his “obsessive” interest in dinosaurs or watch his favorite cartoons because they “do not correspond to age"). Therapists have been trained to perceive anything unusual in a child as pathological, even if this unusual thing poses absolutely no danger. This training-therapy is really suppresses individuality child and can provoke in the child distrust of others, self-hatred, perception of his natural needs and peculiarities of his perception as something wrong, depression, suicidal thoughts, inability to choose a favorite activity in the future, because in the past all the aspirations of this child were suppressed by parents and therapists. Even if the child does not hate himself or the significant part of his personality that autism is, it is very likely that such training will cause him serious psychological trauma. If he, despite the fact that all the people around him consider his way of thinking, his interests and his natural behavior as something undesirable, is able to maintain his self-esteem, most likely “training” will have a negative impact on his perception of other people. It can cause severe social phobia, misanthropy in a child, or form in him ideas about autistic superiority and neurotypical people as extremely vile, dangerous and inferior people.

So, the harm of educational therapy based on “rewriting” the child’s personality is clear. Then why do parents of autistic children choose such “therapy” for their children and try to make the autistic child conform to the dominant idea of ​​the norm?

The fact is that most parents of autistic children believe that their child can live a full life only if he can behave like a neurotypical person.
But copying neurotypical behavior is not the only method for autistic people to adapt to the dominant neuronormative culture.
How else can autistic people adapt to life in a society designed for neurotypicals?
Basically, now we are talking about social skills, but what are they?

This question was answered very accurately by Nick Walker, an autistic activist and one of the leading American ideologues of the neurodiversity paradigm: “When teaching autistic children or working with autistic people, the term “social skills” is used, which usually means “the ability to comply with the dominant norms of social interaction in society.” " But leaving, continuing to behave in a natural way, is also a “social skill.” Changing social reality by fighting for the right to be who you are is also a “social skill.”

So, there are three main methods that an autistic person can use to interact with society in general and with their neurotypical acquaintances in particular.
This is a method of self-advocacy - based on these very attempts to change public perceptions of the norm, or at least defend your right to behave in a natural way for yourself, a method of avoiding unfavorable situations, and the method of “adjusting to society”, the same one that experts most often talk about on autism issues.
None of these methods are “more difficult” or “easier” - more often than not, an autistic person has a tendency towards certain behaviors and if, for example, you find it easier to pretend to be like the people around you, your child may find it easier and more comfortable to assert their rights.
None of these methods are “better” or “worse” than the other. Preferring one method over another is as normal as the fact that some people prefer to write with their right hand and others with their left.
None of these methods contradict the neurodiversity paradigm.
All these methods need to be developed - one child should learn to defend his rights, another should learn to appear normal, and a third should avoid unfavorable situations.

So, now let's look at these methods in more detail:

1) The method of adjusting to dominant norms or the method of imitation.
This method is just as consistent with the neurodiversity paradigm as the other two. After all, if you copy someone or try to adjust your behavior to someone else’s standards, this does not mean that you recognize his superiority. For example, to be an actor, you don't have to think that the characters you play are better than you. And in order to “adapt” to the client while working with him, the marketing specialist does not have to think about the client’s superiority.

As the autistic guy Arken Iskalkin wrote in his article “I want to be normal”: “Now I no longer believe that I need to become normal, because there is no norm. And I wouldn’t completely break myself either. But to be able to professionally and programmatically recreate the behavior of a neurotypical person when needed is something that an autistic person really needs now, and this is what would be best to focus on. Moreover, this is often necessary to repel the attacks of ableists who, under pressure, impose their dogmas, which destroy the self-esteem of autistic people.”
As you can see, in this case, attuning is simply a convenient tool for interacting with other people and in no way pathologizes the way autistics think or implies that the way autistics think is wrong.

According to statistics autistic girls and women use the tuning method more often than autistic guys. Some autistic girls use this method at an early age, noticing their differences. In order to fit into a group or meet adult norms, they copy the behavior of their neurotypical peers. Neurotypical children often repeat the actions of other children and adults involuntarily, with little or no awareness of it, while autistic girls often consciously copy the behavior of others. This often becomes an obstacle to the correct diagnosis of autism, because the “adjustment” prevents parents of autistic girls from discovering that their daughters have communication problems.

For many autistic people (regardless of gender), conforming to neurotypical norms and copying the behavior of other people is almost impossible, especially in childhood and adolescence. Many autistic people can copy other people's behavior, but this requires too much emotional strength from them. This “life of a scout,” in which it is necessary to constantly play some role and adapt to someone, can cause serious mental problems. This is probably one of the reasons that autistic women are more likely than autistic guys to have co-occurring mental health diagnoses such as clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Therefore, if your child cannot copy the behavior of neurotypical people, or if this is difficult for him, do not require this of him under any circumstances.

At the same time, there are many autistic people for whom the method of adjustment and/or copying is the most convenient, simple and safe way to interact in society. If you think that your child may be one of these autistic people, do not interfere with his desire to copy other people and, if possible - depending on the desire and strength of the child himself - develop this skill. However, avoid the temptation to force your child to always copy behavior that is not necessary for him to appear “normal” and make sure that the desire to copy other people is not caused by low self-esteem.
If it really is a matter of self-esteem, then do not forbid your child to copy other people, but do your best to help him develop self-confidence and a positive autistic identity.

2) Method of avoiding unfavorable situations.
Those who choose this method behave in a natural way most of the time, but try to avoid situations in which their strange behavior could harm them.
This method is most often (but not always) chosen by those autistic people who do not have “high goals” associated with working with people. Indeed, not all people want to earn a lot of money, have the most expensive car, become a television star or the president of the country. And that's completely normal. Even if your child dreams of working in a low-paying job where he will receive exactly what he needs in order to provide himself with only the bare necessities, this is normal. I hope you will not deny that happiness is more important than prestige and money.

Perhaps your avoidant child dreams of success, but hopes to achieve success, for example, by using his technical or economic knowledge and communicating with a very limited number of people. And the experience of some scientists from Silicon Valley shows that this is possible.

Also, at certain periods of their lives, autistic people, even those whose life plans are directly related to working with people, use the “avoidance” method in order to avoid stress and emotional burnout. This method may be a necessary refuge and how long this refuge will be needed can only be known by the autistic person.
The “avoidance” method is not a sign of laziness, weak will, or desertion. It's often a coping mechanism or a handy strategy for saving time and energy that can be spent on simpler, more interesting, and more productive things than dealing with unpleasant and strange people.
Avoiding unnecessary social interaction is not so easy, and it is as much an art as learning to play the role of another person or adapting to people.

3) Method of self-advocacy.
Those who use this method try to be themselves no matter what. They explain to others the peculiarities of their behavior, defend their rights in a situation where they believe that they are being discriminated against because they behaved strangely (for example, when applying for a job). In a broader sense, this method can be called the method of activism, because those who choose it often prefer to change the system than to change themselves. These people are fighting ableism in the broadest sense of the word - from unwitting ableism among their acquaintances, to advocating for the interests of people with disabilities at the state level. The activism of these people can be based both on the neurodiversity paradigm, when they claim the equality of autistic and neurotypical neurotypes, and on the pathology paradigm, when they explain their behavior as a disease and look for a way to “cure” and “prevent” autism.

Unlike those who try to imitate other people, proponents of the “method of activism” try to get other people to accept them exclusively for who they are. Unlike those who prefer to avoid problematic situations, activists often rush into action themselves, for example, taking part in conferences of parents whose views obviously contradict theirs.

It is this way of interacting with society that one most often hears about from supporters of the neurodiversity paradigm, because the vast majority of them are self-advocates or even activists. It is this method, as the simplest and most convenient for myself, that I most often write about.
At the same time, as I wrote above, I do not claim that this method will be the easiest for your child, but such a possibility exists. You may not be aware of this now, just as my parents and the parents of many other autistic self-advocates were not aware of it at the time.
Perhaps, in order to discover their abilities for activism and self-advocacy, the child must have information about the possibilities of using this method and how it works, and perhaps he needs to get rid of related problems or become more self-confident.

Or perhaps self-advocacy and activism are simply not his path.

Conclusion.
So, there are three main ways that autistic people interact with society. Most autistic people find one of these methods easier and more convenient than the other two.
Additionally, the vast majority of autistic adults use all three methods in their daily lives.
For example, I prefer the method of self-advocacy, but when I have little time, when I am tired, I cannot explain to people the reason for my behavior. Sometimes I can't do this simply because it becomes difficult for me to formulate thoughts in words. In such cases, I try to avoid any interaction with other people or at least those situations in which I have to explain to other people what I am doing.
Sometimes, such as during job interviews or important conferences, I try to look people in the eyes to appear more “normal.” Yes, I really advocate changing the system and believe that I do not have to adapt to others. And I don't want to do this. But changes in public consciousness will have to wait a long time, and I need the result now.

What I called “three methods” is a rather arbitrary combination that I made based on my experience, the experience of my autistic friends and the experience of authors of books and articles on the topic of autism. In fact, there are thousands of similar strategies. For example, I combined autistic behavior under favorable circumstances into one method, and avoidance of social interaction under unfavorable circumstances, calling it the “avoidance” method. But an autistic person may behave autistically most of the time, and at the same time use adjustment and imitation in all “unfavorable” and difficult situations. Essentially, each combination is a distinct strategy, and each autistic person has their own unique strategy for interacting with society, which may change over time.

But I did not write this article in order to embrace the immensity and describe all the possible ways autistic people interact with society. I wrote it to make you understand that these ways of interacting are, in fact, tools, and they may or may not contradict the neurodiversity paradigm. They contradict the neurodiversity paradigm only when you try to justify the use of one of the methods as a “flaw” of the autistic neurotype, or when you try to impose on your child a way of interacting with society that is unnatural for him.

The fact that all three methods can be useful in life does not mean that a child should master them all at the same time. Most often this is practically impossible, and too intensive training will lead to the deterioration of existing skills. It is best to inform the child about all three methods and allow him to choose the method that is most convenient for him and help him develop his talents.
Most likely, he will be able to take something from other methods at a later age if he considers it necessary in his life.

O. S. Nikolskaya

The transition to school age is a critical period for every family raising a child with mental development disorders. Will the child go to school, will he stay in school, will correctional work with him continue, will there be hope for improving his social adaptation in the future?

For a family raising a child with autism, such questions often arise regardless of the child’s formal level of intellectual development, regardless of the formation of his orientation to be a student, to go “like everyone else” to school, or to his possible possession of certain academic skills. Difficulties in contact with adults and, especially, with peers, adaptation to new conditions, voluntary organization of attention, assimilation of socially correct forms of behavior and, conversely, an abundance of reactions and actions that are strange for everyone, disorganizing the behavior of other children, often call into question the possibility of such a child’s stay At school.

Such problems face the families of about twenty out of every 10 thousand children. This is precisely the frequency of manifestations of childhood autism and similar mental development disorders - cases that require a unified educational approach to training and education.

Childhood autism is a special disorder of mental development. Its most striking manifestation is a violation of the development of social interaction and communication with other people, which cannot be explained simply by a reduced level of cognitive development of the child. Another characteristic feature is stereotypy in behavior, which manifests itself in the desire to maintain constant familiar living conditions, resistance to the slightest attempts to change anything in the environment, in the child’s own stereotypical interests and stereotypical actions, in his predilection for the same objects.

This is a pervasive disorder of mental development, i.e. a disorder that affects all aspects of the psyche - sensorimotor, perceptual, speech, intellectual, emotional spheres. In this case, mental development is not just disrupted or delayed, it is distorted. The very style of organizing relations with the world and understanding it is changing. At the same time, it is characteristic that the greatest difficulties of such a child are associated not even with the acquisition of knowledge and skills (although this is quite difficult for many autistic children), but with their practical use, and he shows himself to be the most helpless precisely in interaction with people. It is indeed difficult to help such a child.

Childhood autism, a general type of developmental disorder, externally takes very different forms. It includes a deeply maladjusted speechless child with a low level of mental development and children with brilliant “adult” speech and early interest in abstract areas of knowledge, selective talent. Both of them, however, need special pedagogical and psychological help. The significance of the characteristics of autistic children will help the teacher to include them in the teaching process.

Let's consider what most often awaits an autistic child in the existing education system. In some, the most severe cases associated with a profound impairment of mental development, such a child is immediately recognized by the PMPC as unteachable and the family is left with virtually no help from teachers and psychologists for the rest of the child’s growing up.

At the same time, the experience of experimental work shows that even in these most difficult cases, if adequate conditions are created, a child’s learning is possible. He can master previously inaccessible ways of communicating with other people, become more adapted in everyday life, and master certain teaching techniques.

It is known that with age such a child can spontaneously become less autistically withdrawn and more focused on social life. Thus, even if the first attempts to start training were unsuccessful, they must be repeated after some time again and again.

Sometimes such children receive a recommendation to study individually at home according to the program of a mass or auxiliary school. In these cases, however, the child rarely receives a truly individualized remedial education program. Teachers in mainstream and even special schools, unfortunately, are usually not familiar with the special needs of autistic children. There are no goals of helping the child develop his everyday adaptation to home life, practical communication skills, or social development. Usually, teachers simply formally supervise training in general educational programs, the main burden of which falls on parents, and do not ask the question whether the knowledge acquired by the child will ever be used by him in real life.

In addition, the autistic child finds himself in situations of artificial isolation in these conditions, which further limits his opportunities for social development. He does not see other children, other models of social behavior, he is faced with real tasks of complicating his interaction with the world and people. It should be noted that, as a rule, he perfectly distinguishes between situations of real urgent need and artificially organized training, and learning is more effective in the first case.

The third option is the possibility of placing an autistic child in a class of a regular mass or special school, where, again, the learning conditions are not specially adapted for him. This not only makes learning difficult, but also creates a host of behavioral problems. Very soon, the characteristics of such a child may lead to a decision by the teaching staff to place him in individual education. Teachers should be aware that they often cause trauma. An autistic child experiences enormous difficulties in organizing social contacts, but he also experiences a need for them. The loss of the social status of a “student” is painful for him. The resulting negative experience complicates future attempts at social adaptation.

However, there are also cases when an autistic child continues to attend school and is taught in class throughout the entire primary period and even during the entire period of schooling. Unfortunately, we are forced to admit that its inclusion in the life of the school is often of a mechanistic nature. He can learn general stereotypes of correct behavior and, learning not to disturb others, exists next to them. Laconically, but formally correctly answers the teacher’s questions, and can even accumulate great knowledge in certain areas. Knows the names of teachers and classmates, but does not address other people himself, does not take part in the real life of the class. In a word, without additional pedagogical efforts he does not master more complex, more flexible forms of relationships with other people. Even good teachers usually do not know that such an apparently detached child actually needs contact with adults and peers, and with adequate work he can understand more about his surroundings and can participate in the life of the school in a less mechanical way.

In the absence of adequate work with the class, such a child in adolescence often goes through a period of alienation from his more prosperous classmates. They may take pleasure in provoking him to behave incorrectly. The social naivety of such a child makes him a convenient object for such “entertainment.” Only a passionate desire to learn and to be with others allows him to continue going to school at this time.

A special case is the situation of a gifted autistic child. Quite often, an autistic child with high intelligence does not come to the attention of the PMPK; moreover, he easily passes the selection committees for prestigious lyceums and private gymnasiums. He captivates his future teachers with his unconventionality and talent, which can manifest itself in the field of technical design or in mathematics, music, drawing, and mastering foreign languages. Their expectations, as a rule, very soon cease to be justified. In addition to the difficulties of organizing behavior, it turns out that such a child prefers to learn on his own with his own logic and what he wants, outside the system of advanced pedagogical technology being introduced. Difficulties in organizing interaction are perceived with irritation, and the family often receives a refusal with the wording “your child does not meet the concept of our school.”

These cases are especially unfortunate because the giftedness of such a child, with patient work, can actually serve as a basis for the development of his social skills. In addition, they show how even our best teachers are primarily focused on giving knowledge in the best possible way, how much even for them there is no general context for introducing a child into life.

The characteristics of the mental development of a child with autism determine the need to create special forms of organizing his school education. Of course, for such children it is necessary to create a special type of school with its own program of psychological and pedagogical correctional work that meets their special needs, where the very organization of the environment, the interaction between the teacher and the child will make it possible to make the most of and develop his abilities for learning and social adaptation.

The organization of such schools, we hope, is a matter of the near future. At the same time, even now, teachers at schools where such children study, taking into account their problems and the nature of their difficulties, can help them both in training and in organizing socially adequate forms of behavior and contacts with peers. Keeping such a child in school, creating more adequate learning conditions for him means preserving his desire for life together with other people, the family’s hope for the child’s future.

An autistic child vitally needs social contacts with other people, with normal peers. But we must note that this is not a one-sided need. In the same way, “healthy” children need contact with others for their normal mental and social development. Organizing assistance for a child with special needs allows the teacher to create a healthy moral atmosphere for class life.

Let us dwell on the features of the pedagogical approach to an autistic child. Let's try to determine how best to conduct his pedagogical examination; how to organize his life at school; determine the objectives, methods, content of training; to establish special work on socialization, complicating and intensifying his contacts with the world, organizing interaction with other children.

We hope that taking these features into account can contribute to the development and implementation of an individual correctional pedagogical program for an autistic child studying in a mainstream, speech or auxiliary school.

PEDAGOGICAL EXAMINATION OF AN AUTISTIC CHILD

Difficulties in examining an autistic child are associated not only with difficulties in establishing emotional contact, with the frequent inability of the child to voluntarily concentrate on a task. Mental development disorders determine the heterogeneity and ambiguity of all manifestations of such a child. Dexterous in his movements, he immediately shows extreme clumsiness in completing tasks, having clearly uttered a long “profound” phrase, he immediately finds it difficult to answer the simplest question, easily solving visual-spatial problems himself, he does not understand how to fill in the fields in a notebook. It often seems that such a child simply does not want to contact the teacher. All this, of course, complicates the pedagogical assessment of his level of knowledge and skills, and ability to learn. Moreover, both underestimation and overestimation of the child’s capabilities are possible. In both cases it is harmful to him.

We will get a more adequate idea of ​​the child if we organize the examination situation more flexibly than usual. Considering his difficulties in establishing contact, the underdevelopment of means of communication, the fear of a new situation, a stranger, we should, if necessary, allow parents to be present during the examination, ask them to bring aids familiar to the child to begin work, outwardly present the examination as a familiar situation, perhaps , like a “visit” trip. We must not rush to directly address the child, give him time to get used to it, and show his own initiative in contact.

Taking into account the difficulties of a child’s voluntary organization, the difficulties of interacting with him: instability of combining attention on a common object with an adult, inability to engage in flexible dialogue (verbal and active); rigidity, rigidity of his entire line of behavior, it is advisable to find the combination of direct, arbitrary and indirect methods of organization that is individually necessary for this particular child. The teacher's direct appeal and verbal instructions should be introduced very carefully, especially at the beginning of the examination. Great emphasis should be placed on the child’s indirect organization with the help of the environment, when the very structure of space, a tool, a toy provokes him to complete a task.

First of all, we usually give the child the opportunity to express himself in a situation that is well organized by the visual field - in non-verbal tasks of addition, correlation, sorting, construction, in which such a child can be successful. By joining this activity, the teacher can assess the child’s ability to imitate, use hints, accept other types of help, establish verbal interaction, and voluntarily follow the teacher’s instructions.

In the case of examining an autistic child with well-developed speech and a special intellectual orientation, such an involuntary structuring role can be played by the stereotypical interests of the child himself. A teacher often encounters a child’s stereotypical obsession with a certain topic (this could be a diagram of subway lines, or the design of a household electrical appliance, or a section of botany), when he, “saddled with his hobby,” without taking into account the interests of the interlocutor, returns to it again and again, utters one thing and the same thing, rejoices at the same things, asks the same questions, expects the same answers.

By using stereotypical interest to combine attention with the child, the teacher can gradually approach the exploration of the possibility of complicating the interaction. In these cases, it is important to both assess the intellectual level of the child’s stereotypical interest, the knowledge he has accumulated in line with this interest, and assess the interest in the interlocutor, the possibility of taking into account his reactions, the perception of new information - the possibility of organizing a dialogue.

To adequately assess a child’s capabilities, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between his achievements in spontaneous manifestations, stereotypical interests and the results obtained when attempting to arbitrarily organize such a child, in his actions at the request of the teacher. Results may vary enormously. Motorically dexterous in his spontaneous movements, such a child may have extreme difficulty repeating a movement when asked; Having spontaneously uttered a phrase clearly, he can demonstrate blurred, ungrammatical speech when necessary to answer the question posed. It's not that he doesn't want to, he really can't repeat his movements voluntarily.

The results obtained in a situation of arbitrary organization reflect the currently existing learning opportunities and social organization of the child. The child’s achievements in his spontaneous activity, in line with his stereotypical interests, give us information about possible directions of correctional work.

The difficulty of assessing correctional work with an autistic child also lies in the fact that he has difficulty transferring the developed skill to another situation, to interaction with another person. He cannot independently and freely use his knowledge and skills in real life. On the one hand, this means that, having practiced a skill in a school setting, the teacher must monitor how it transfers to other settings and, if necessary, carry out additional work at home. On the other hand, the teacher must carefully consider the parents’ information about what the child is capable of at home, and, if possible, organize special work to transfer the child’s useful skills to the school situation.

SPATIO-TEMPORAL ORIENTATION OF AN AUTIC CHILD AT SCHOOL

The difficulties of an autistic child in voluntarily organizing himself in space and time, the difficulty of an active dialogue with the world, the inability to feel confident in a situation whose development is unpredictable - all this makes necessary special work on organizing his life at school. It is necessary to help the child create a stable, adequate stereotype of school behavior.

Firstly, this concerns assistance in mastering the school space. The child’s confusion and anxiety are reduced if he clearly understands his main place of study, and what he should do in all other places of the school where he happens to be. As a rule, this requires special patient work. In some cases, it is possible to use a diagram or school plan. Maintaining consistency in the spatial organization of a child's life at school will help avoid many behavioral problems.

Secondly, such a child needs help in organizing himself in time. He needs to master a particularly clear and stable schedule for each current school day with its specific order of switching from one lesson to another, coming to school and leaving home, the order of these days in the school week, the rhythm of working days and vacations, holidays during the school year.

When planning the activities of such a child, it is necessary to remember his high mental satiety and slight physical exhaustion. Therefore, it is important for him to organize an individual, adapted rhythm of classes, the possibility of timely switching and rest. This can be done even in a classroom setting, by planning for such a child the opportunity to temporarily leave the general rhythm and listen to a certain text or piece of music using the player, and then return to general activities.

The deeper the child’s autistic maladjustment, the more extensive the assistance in mastering these schedules should be, the more detailed they should be worked out, the more specific and visual their forms should be. And in all cases, this should be personally addressed to the child, present in his diary, a separate notebook or hanging on the wall next to the child’s desk, and consist of symbols that are understandable to him - drawings, photographs or inscriptions.

It is necessary to take into account that such a child must be taught how to use the schedule. As a result of such work, self-organization can significantly improve, and “behavioral” problems associated with impulsivity, distractibility, and difficulty switching can decrease. New activities introduced as an addition and the development of a stable schedule will be more easily accepted by such a child, who usually rejects any attempts at change.

FEATURES OF ORGANIZING THE TEACHING PROCESS OF AN AUTIC CHILD

The difficulties of voluntary concentration, concentrating on joint activities, and imitation determine special tactics in organizing the learning process itself. In a randomly organized situation, everything is difficult for such a child: he is motorically awkward, does not grasp the pattern of movement as shown, has difficulty learning the sequence of necessary actions, “does not see” the working space of the page, and cannot distribute or coordinate his movements in it. He tries to answer as condensedly and echolically as possible, so as to only indicate the answer, and loses intelligence even in those areas where he acts successfully on his own. Such a child is practically incapable of overcoming difficulties. The slightest failure can provoke him to abandon further attempts to work.

On the one hand, here, as in working with a small child, with a preschooler, it is very important to make the most of the opportunity for involuntary learning, assimilation of new information, new skills in an optional situation, in a playful way, when a sample of a new skill, a new speech form, new knowledge is given the child exactly at the very necessary moment when he needs it. In this case, the child more often gets the opportunity to independently use what he has learned and can transfer the skill to another context.

Of course, basically such work should be organized at home, in a situation of extracurricular contacts with the child, and its techniques should be taught first of all to his relatives, those who are with him all the time. At the same time, its share can be large at school, not only during recess, but also in the classroom. This is especially true for teaching social behavior skills, communication with peers and adults: practicing the ability to make a request, ask a question, and answer a greeting or appeal yourself.

On the other hand, hard work is needed to develop the possibility of voluntary organization of such a child. We know that without voluntary organization the formal development of human higher mental functions is impossible. The question of how much we can teach an autistic child to actually learn is the question of how much we can overcome the distortion of his mental development. In order for an autistic child to have the opportunity to gradually master the learning situation, it must be as structured as possible.

With the child (with the help of a schedule), the sequence of preparation for the school day, for the lesson should be specially worked out, if necessary, a visual diagram of the organization of the workspace, a set of necessary educational materials, and the sequence of preparatory actions should be drawn up.

In the training itself, as well as in the examination situation, it is important to dose the use of verbal instructions and make maximum use of the child’s indirect organization in a structured manner.

space: marking a desk, page, visually indicating the direction of movement, including in the task moments when the educational material itself organizes the child’s actions - completing an action that has already begun, completing a missing part, sorting according to a pattern, etc. The sequence of operations should also be presented to the child visually .

Due to the difficulty of imitation and reformulation of the action scheme (offered to the child by demonstration), direct physical assistance in organizing the action becomes of great importance in learning: the adult begins to work with the child’s hands. Gradually, with the assimilation of the action pattern, physical assistance decreases and the role of verbal regulation increases.

For a normal child or a child with a simple mental retardation, it is possible and even fruitful to first master individual elements of the skill being practiced and then combine them into a whole meaningful action. Thus, the teacher leads the child to the skill of reading through mastering letters, working with syllables, achieving the ability to put syllables into words, words into phrases. A child learns to write by mastering the writing of individual elements of letters and only then the letters, words and phrases themselves. For a child with autistic development, this path may not be productive. For him, the easier path is not from the part to the whole, but from the whole to the elaboration of its parts.

This is his characteristic path of development. Of course, normally there are children whose knowledge of the world is more characterized by a movement from a part to a synthesis of the whole, and children who move from a whole image to its particulars. The autistic child represents the pathologically extreme variant here. For example, when such a child begins to acquire speech at an early age, he grasps it in whole blocks and uses them for a long time without changing, in the form in which he received it. He may ask for food or refuse to go for a walk using quotes from some children's poem.

If he first masters letters or syllables, then in the text he will stereotypically highlight only them. It will be very difficult to destroy this rigid attitude and attract his attention to the word. In the same way, a child can easily learn ordinal counting, a series of musical scales, but it will be very difficult for him to break this series and forever learned order and move on to counting operations and playing a musical melody.

Thus, it is necessary to take into account that when we teach something to an autistic child, we must immediately, without intermediate stages, give him a model ready for use: go to reading through practicing the global recognition of simple words, to writing through immediately mastering the writing of whole letters and words; teach arithmetic, starting immediately with the simplest counting operations.

Let us dwell specifically on the inability of an autistic child to overcome difficulties: at the slightest difficulty or uncertainty of success, he refuses to work. Failure can provoke the emergence of behavioral problems - worsening autism, manifestation of negativism, aggression, self-injury. We propose here the following pedagogical technique: first, the teacher helps the child complete a new task and creates in him the impression of success, the conviction that he can already do this. Only after this does the actual work of teaching a new skill begin, but it is presented as improving what the child can already do.

MEANINGFUL STRUCTURING OF A CHILD'S LIFE AT SCHOOL

The next important point that we must take into account when working with an autistic child is his difficulty in understanding the meaning of everything that happens around him. This is far from just a defect in his intellectual development. The reasons lie deeper; rather, we are dealing here with a disruption in the development of basal affective mechanisms that organize his orientation in the surrounding world, active, flexible adaptation in it. This disruption of the development of mechanisms of the basal affective sphere can hinder the development of the ability to understand the world and the realization of its intellectual capabilities. And even a formally intellectually normal autistic child must specially learn what ordinary and even most mentally retarded children are given “for free.”

In all tests assessing his mental development, an autistic child shows the worst results precisely in tasks assessing his understanding of social meanings. It is clear that such children demonstrate low competence in tests of social awareness, because they live in isolation and do not participate in common life. But tests confirm that the situation is more complicated and such children really find it difficult to understand the simplest meanings of life.

An autistic child may be even more successful than his normal counterpart, for example in making a meaningless geometric pattern. But a normal child immediately gains an advantage if the picture offered to him becomes meaningful - he begins to depict a “cat” or “cow”. Injecting meaning into a task does not improve an autistic child's performance. And at an older age, he can work perfectly with Cos cubes, but finds it difficult to compose a simple story in pictures.

Without special correctional work, autistic children may not notice the meaning of the events happening around them, unless, of course, they affect their stereotypical life ritual or violate it, in which case they always react negatively to them. They do not understand the meaning of ordinary children's games, they may be indifferent to losing and winning, they do not understand the feelings of other people, they do not take into account that others also think, feel, have their own interests, and in general are also living beings.

This does not mean that such a child is indifferent towards other people, does not enjoy contact with loved ones, and does not suffer from separation from them. Attachment to another person can exist and even be very strong, but it is, as a rule, still a very primitive symbiotic attachment for one’s own sake, as a condition for survival and maintaining a comfortable emotional well-being.

Developing the ability of an autistic child to adequately assess the meaning of what is happening and organize behavior in accordance with this meaning requires special work. The environment in which an autistic child lives and studies must have the most developed semantic structure. Of course, it must correspond to the child’s individual abilities to perceive these meanings (they must be determined by the psychologist working with the child).

This is probably important for every child. But for an autistic person this is especially important, as a necessary condition for his correctional education. Nothing should happen to him mechanically. The schedule is drawn up for him, first of all, in a meaningful, coherent manner, spoken out and discussed many times. Every action he takes is planned for something that will be very good; any action taken is also commented on and interpreted; then they return to it and it is evaluated again from the point of view of its meaning, benefit, and the joy that it brought to everyone.

Any skill is mastered meaningfully, for immediate practical use in life now or later, in the future, when the child grows up. Thus, you can learn to read from texts specially compiled for each child by his parents with a reminder of something personal, wishes, praise; learn to write - writing down a task, telling parents about what happened to the child at school; count - modeling situations of practical necessity to make a mathematical calculation.

Otherwise, such a child, even having acquired knowledge and mastered skills, will never have the opportunity to use them practically. This was formulated very accurately and sadly by one of the mothers who collaborated with us, who actively educated her child and successfully completed a mass school program with him. She said: “My son has learned everything that is required in the program, he has answered the examiner’s questions correctly, but it seems to me that we have put this knowledge in some kind of bag from which he will never get it out himself.” And the point is not that this child was studying in a complex mass school program. The same thing happens to those who study in an auxiliary school. Regardless of the level of their mental development, autistic children do not begin to practically use their achievements without special work.

Such children should receive help in realizing what they like and don’t like, what they are used to, what they want to change, what is good and what is bad, what other people expect from them, where are the boundaries

their capabilities. They can learn all this only by living in detail, empathizing with all the life situations that arise together with a close adult - a parent, a teacher.

For this, a detailed emotional detailed commentary from an adult is very important: on the one hand, this is an emotional fixation by an adult of everything that happens to the child, what he sees, hears, feels, desires, and perhaps can remember in connection with what is happening; on the other hand, this is the infection of the child with the adult’s own orientation in what is happening, brought out, disautomatized. The teacher should be somewhat like an oriental singer who sings about what he sees, what he is experiencing now, and a mother who, while talking with her one-year-old child, also comments, comprehends, and colors the world around him.

In this case, the commentary should contain information about the adult’s own experiences, his assessments, concerns, doubts, and difficulties of choice, which make it possible to introduce the child into the inner world of another person. It is often useful to create a special general concern, a focus on helping someone else, perhaps a fellow practitioner, who needs it.

Here the question arises, especially for autistic children with significant mental retardation: to what extent are they able to understand such a detailed verbal commentary, is it not more useful for them to receive strictly dosed simple instructions.

In answering this question, we must distinguish between our own task of teaching a child a new skill and the task of the general semantic organization of behavior. In the first case, as we have already said, the learning situation should be organized as much as possible to help master the skill, and here, of course, the verbal instruction should be dosed and simplified, containing only the most essential instructions for action. In the second case, what is important to us is the child’s overall assimilation of the meaning of what is happening, and here the entire speech context with information that is given both through the word and through the prosodic characteristics of speech and, above all, its semantic stresses and intonations is important.

It is known that at an early age, the first identification of semantic units of speech, preceding their phonemic analysis, occurs through the development of intonation structure. When a mother talks to her baby, she first cares not about the child’s understanding of individual words, but about the clarity of intonation. Here, too, it is primarily important for us to convey to the child the general meaning of the situation, which means we need detailed, intonation-rich speech.

WHAT WE SHOULD DO WITH AN AUTIC CHILD

As already mentioned, an autistic child must be taught almost everything. He must learn not only everything that other children are taught at school, but also much more, what children with normal mental development learn themselves at an early age. It's important to him

the very introduction of it into the meanings of human life, into social life, the assimilation of the role of a “student”, the stereotype of school behavior, the gradual development of the possibility of voluntary interaction with other people.

All school subjects are important for him, but the emphasis in the presentation of educational material here in many cases should be slightly changed. Training programs must be individualized. This is due to both individual difficulties and the individual stereotypical interests of such children.

As we have already mentioned, the first interaction with such children can be built precisely on the basis of their stereotypical interests.

Stereotypical interests are often associated with the selective talent of such children. As already mentioned, it can manifest itself in special musicality, the ability to draw, counting operations, design, the ability to master foreign languages, and the accumulation of encyclopedic knowledge in certain areas.

Of course, these abilities manifest themselves in line with the spontaneous activity of such children. Voluntary interaction and learning here are also associated with enormous difficulties; it seems that the child at this time is deprived of all his abilities. Yet a flexible, patient teacher has a better chance of success here. If a child goes through a period of voluntary development of basic technical skills and emotional mastery of the meaning of the activity, individual talent, freedom, and originality of manifestations return to him.

Thus, the educational program of an autistic child should be developed individually and should be built on the basis of his selective interests and abilities. At the same time, there are common difficulties that determine the general emphasis of the work. So, for everyone, even for highly intelligent autistic children, mastering everyday self-care skills is a huge problem. Helplessness in the simplest everyday situations can provoke severe behavioral disorders: negativism, aggression, self-injury.

Of course, mastering the skills of everyday adaptation and self-care should take place mainly at home, but in this case the school should not remain aloof from this work. Moments of the school day when a child undresses and dresses, coming to and leaving school, changing clothes for physical education, and having breakfast in the cafeteria should be considered as learning situations. In accordance with this, they must be clearly pedagogically structured.

Work to improve everyday adaptation should take place in close cooperation with parents. What a child learns at school should be carried home, just as his achievements at home should be used at school. This does not happen by itself, because the autistic child, as we have already noted, rigidly associates the skill with the place and person with whom this skill was practiced. Therefore, if difficulties arise, to facilitate the transfer, temporary work with the skills of parents at school and a teacher at home is possible.

It is of great importance for a child to master the academic skills of reading, writing, and counting. These skills become new means of communication, new channels for obtaining information about the world and interacting with other people. As a rule, an autistic child is extremely proud of these achievements and worries if he encounters difficulties.

We have experience that such a child’s learning a foreign language can intensify his communication, stimulate the development of its forms, and include him in contacts with peers. When starting to learn a language, he finds himself in a more equal position with his classmates - they, too, can use only a few stereotypical forms of speech. And here the autistic child becomes more active, gets involved in practicing calls and dialogues, and more easily learns new speech forms.

Educational subjects that expand his knowledge about the world around him and other people are very important to him. In elementary school it is reading, natural history, history, then subjects in the humanities and natural sciences. Here, as elsewhere, he does not need formal knowledge, but its connection with his real personal life. If for a child with normal mental retardation such a connection with direct life experience is important to facilitate the understanding of abstract knowledge, then, on the contrary, the teacher’s understanding of the laws of the surrounding world, the world of other people, can stimulate adequate awareness and elaboration together with the child of his personal relationships with the world and people.

It seems to us that such a child’s studies in literature, first children’s, then classical, are especially important. What is needed is a slow, careful, emotionally rich mastery of the artistic images of people, circumstances, and logic of their lives contained in these books, awareness of their internal complexity, the ambiguity of internal and external manifestations, and relationships between people. This helps to improve understanding of oneself and others, reduces one-dimensional perception of the world, the desire to divide everything into black and white, and develops a sense of humor. It is clear how important all this is for the socialization of such a child and his emotional stabilization.

Physical exercise, as is known, can increase a child’s overall activity and relieve his pathological stress. Both are relevant. It is known that such a child in most cases experiences enormous difficulties at all levels of the organization of motor action: disturbances in tone, rhythm, coordination of movements, and their distribution in space. All these difficulties become especially obvious in the situation of a child’s arbitrary organization. He needs a special individual program of physical development, combining work techniques in a free, playful and clearly structured form.

With age, sports activities become increasingly valuable for such a child. It is here that he gets the opportunity to complicate his understanding of the meaning of what is happening, learn to understand what winning and losing are, to experience them adequately, persistently strive for victory and not lose heart in defeat, learn to interact with other children, and feel like a member of the team.

We want to emphasize that a physical education teacher can do an enormous amount for such a child, not only for his physical, but also for his emotional and personal development. You just need to remember that in physical education class such a child is perhaps in the most vulnerable position, most unfavorably different from his classmates, and can easily feel hopelessly incapable and become an object of ridicule. A good teacher, however, will find an opportunity to support him and create an atmosphere of sympathy and mutual assistance in the class.

Labor, drawing, and singing lessons at a young age can also do a lot to help such a child adapt to school. First of all, it is in these lessons that an autistic child can get the first impressions that he is working together with everyone, and understand that his actions have a real result. This is very important to him.

Considering the clumsiness of such a child’s hands, we must select tasks for him so that he feels accomplished in them, so that the work is not particularly difficult, and the effect is bright. A special problem can be the impulsive actions of such a child, his destruction of the result of his own work - a sudden desire to tear up a drawing, etc. We will not interpret them here, we will only note that after a second the child usually bitterly regrets what he did. To prevent this from happening, the teacher should immediately after finishing the work take away the drawing or craft, put it in a safe place - on a shelf, hang it on the wall, but so that everyone can see it, and rejoice with the child in his success.

ORGANIZATION OF INTERACTION OF AN AUTIC CHILD WITH TEACHER AND CHILDREN

The socialization of such a child and his overcoming learning difficulties, of course, occurs on the basis of establishing emotional contact, a personal connection between the teacher and the child. It is precisely because the teacher already sees a “good student” in the child that he will try to live up to these ideas.

For such a child, personal relationships are most important. He may not perceive instructions given to the class frontally for a long time. This will gradually change, but it should not annoy the teacher at first. You just need to remember that such a child should sit next to him and, in addition to the general instructions, you need to contact him personally. Often one word, look, smile or touch is enough, and the child is included in the overall work.

It is advisable that the teacher creates a good reputation for the child in the eyes of his classmates. He is usually quite strange in his spontaneous manifestations, in difficult attempts to establish contact and can easily make a bad impression. During lessons, the teacher can demonstrate his strengths: serious knowledge, talent in certain areas, and emphasize his sympathy for him.

Informal contacts during recess should also be organized if possible. It is very important for such a child to have the opportunity to be around friendly peers, watch their games, listen to their conversations, try to understand their interests and relationships. You need to specifically talk to him and discuss emerging situations.

Later, it is very important to preserve for such a child the opportunity to participate in general excursions, organize concerts, class performances, festive evenings, and be present at general discussions, even if it is impossible to actively participate in them. Participation in hiking gives such a child a lot.

FROM CREATION OF A STEREOTYPE OF SCHOOL LIFE TO MORE FLEXIBLE FORMS OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Until now, we have been talking all the time about developing a socially adequate stereotype of school life. A stereotype in which the child would understand his role and feel confident, could foresee the development of events, would be armed with adequate ways to respond, understand what others expect from him, and could express his desires. This removes most of the behavioral problems and opens up the child’s opportunity to learn. At the same time, we understand that it is impossible to develop stereotypes for all occasions, and the slightest failure of the stereotype again makes such a child vulnerable.

We came to the conclusion that the path here lies not through breaking the stereotype of behavior, but through its development. The more detailed the stereotype of behavior is developed, the more options it includes: “if this is the case, then we will do this,” the more flexible the child’s behavior becomes.

Of course, we must take into account that such development of a life stereotype is a painstaking work of many years, mastering temporal-spatial, semantic relationships, mastering many useful skills.

For the most part, behavioral problems can be resolved with proper organization of the child’s life. However, he is not immune from them in the event of an unexpected break in the pattern of his life, inadequate demands, or even in case of special fatigue, asthenia, or somatic illness. They can manifest themselves as anxiety, the appearance of more severe stereotypical behavior, fears, special stereotypical movements, aggression and self-injury. You cannot fight fears and anxiety separately, forbid a child to sway or shake his arms, or explain to him that he is behaving inappropriately - this most likely simply will not help.

You can cope with this only if you understand that all of these are markers of the child’s general condition, how he copes with the situation. In this case, it is necessary to check the child’s physical condition, consult with the attending physician about the permissible loads and assess the adequacy of the requirements for the child, and whether he is provided with the stereotype of school life.

These, in our opinion, are the general features of the pedagogical approach to teaching an autistic child. Of course, all this should have been covered in more detail. An autistic child may have varying degrees of mental development disorders, different forms of maladjustment, and different learning problems. We identify four groups of such children, for whom different tasks, methods and content of learning are relevant. We hope to talk about them next time.

Today, one of the most effective ways to correct autism is the method of applied analysis, or ABA therapy. What it is? Let's find out in this article.

Behavioral correction of children with autism is very important. Its main task is to help a child with certain developmental disorders adapt to the environment and take the fullest participation in the life of society.

Autistic children - who are they?

It should be clearly understood that autistic children are not better or worse than other children, they are just different. A distinctive feature of such children is their “self-absorbed” look; they cannot find a connection with the outside world.

Attentive parents discover that their child is autistic when he is still very young. While ordinary babies gradually begin to recognize their mother (at about 2 months), a child with autism is absolutely indifferent to the outside world. Already a month after the birth of the baby, the mother can determine by crying what he wants: to play, to eat, he is cold, wet, and so on. This is impossible with an autistic child; his crying is usually inexpressive and monotonous.

At 1-2 years old, children with autism can pronounce their first words, but their use is devoid of any meaning. The child prefers to be alone. Remaining for some period without his mother or close relative, he does not show much concern.

Over time, the baby also does not demonstrate strong attachment to his parents and does not strive to communicate with peers.

The exact reasons for this condition have not yet been established. Scientists suggest that this condition appears due to disorders of brain development, chromosomal abnormalities, and gene mutations.

Despite the impression that autistic people don’t need anyone, such kids really need communication, they want to be understood, they just don’t know how to do it. The task of parents is to help such a child establish contact with the outside world. ABA therapy for autism is by far the most effective.

What makes it interesting and unique? ABA therapy - what is it? It is based on behavioral technologies and techniques that make it possible to study the influence of environmental factors on the behavior of an autistic person and change it, that is, manipulate these factors. The ABA therapy method has another name - behavior modification. The idea of ​​the ABA program is that any behavior has consequences, and when a child likes it, he will repeat these actions, but if he doesn’t like it, he won’t.

What does behavior modification do?

ABA therapy for autism is the basis of most programs that are aimed at treating this disorder in children. The value of behavioral therapy has been supported by numerous studies conducted over 30 years.

Experts and parents who have used a technique such as ABA therapy in classes with children leave the following reviews:

• communication skills improve;
• adaptation behavior is normalized;
• learning ability improves.

In addition, thanks to this program, the manifestations of behavioral deviations are significantly reduced. It has also been proven that the earlier courses of ABA therapy are started (preferably in preschool age), the more noticeable the results will be.

Scientists have developed various methods for correcting deviations that are used in ABA therapy. These methods are based on the principles of applied behavioral analysis.

With this technique, all complex skills for autistic people, such as communication, speech, creative play, the ability to look into the eyes, listen, and others, are divided into separate small action blocks. Each of them is then learned with the child separately. As a result, the blocks are connected into a single chain, which forms one complex action. An autism treatment specialist gives a task to a child with autism spectrum disorders during the learning process. If the child cannot cope with it on his own, the teacher gives him a hint, and then rewards the child for correct answers, while incorrect answers are ignored. This is what ABA therapy is based on. Training using this method consists of several stages.

Stage one: starting with something simple

One of the exercises in the program is “Language-comprehension”. The specialist gives the child a certain task or incentive, for example, asks him to raise his hand, immediately gives a hint (raises the child’s hand up), and then rewards the child for the correct answer. After making several joint attempts, the baby tries to perform the action without prompting. The specialist repeats the same phrase to the child again and expects him to independently answer correctly. If the baby answers correctly, without prompting, he receives a reward (he is praised, given something tasty, allowed to play, etc.). If the child does not give the correct answer, the task is repeated again using a hint. Then the baby again tries to do everything on his own. The exercise ends when the child is able to give the correct answer without prompting.

When 90% of the child’s independent answers to the specialist’s task are correct, a new stimulus is introduced, for example, they are asked to nod their head. It is important that the tasks are as different from each other as possible. The new task is worked out in a similar way.

Second stage: fixing the material

After the child has mastered the second task well - “nod your head”, the exercise is made more difficult. The learned actions are alternated in random order: “nod your head” - “raise your hand”, “raise your hand” - “raise your hand” - “nod your head” and so on. Tasks are considered mastered when in 90% of cases the child gives the correct answer when alternating the learned exercises. According to the same scheme, the third stimulus is introduced and practiced, and so on.

Third stage: generalize and consolidate

At this stage, the acquired skills are generalized. When the child has accumulated a sufficient number of mastered important stimuli (“take”, “give”, “come here”, etc.), attention is paid to generalization. Exercises begin to be carried out in unusual and unexpected places (on the street, in a store, in the bathroom). Then they alternate between people giving the child tasks (specialist, mother, father, grandfather, grandmother).

This is the final stage. At some point, the child not only masters the stimuli being practiced with him, but also begins to understand new tasks on his own; additional practice is no longer required. For example, they give him the task “close the door”, show him 1-2 times and that’s quite enough. If this works, it means that the program has been mastered, and ABA therapy sessions are no longer needed. The child begins to further absorb information from the environment, just as typically developing children who do not suffer from autism do.

What determines the effectiveness of correction of autism in a child?

To learn and sharpen dozens of actions and objects element by element, a lot of effort and time is required. It is believed that for children diagnosed with autism, ABA therapy will be most effective if at least 30-40 hours a week are devoted to classes using this technique. It is advisable to start training in such a program before the child turns 6 years old. ABA-tarpia is also effective for older children. But the sooner everything starts, the better the end result will be.

Advantages of this technique

ABA therapy is extremely effective for children with autism. Training is not just about repeating the desired behavior; a professional therapist helps the child transfer the correct model from one situation to another. The most important component in achieving success is the direct participation of parents in the ABA program.

Positive results appear quite quickly. According to research by the founder of this technique, Ivar Lovaas, about half of the children who received correction under the ABA program can study in a regular school. The condition and behavior improved in more than 90% of the children from the total number of those who received correction using this method.

ABA therapy makes it possible to consistently develop a child, socialize him and introduce him to society. In children with autism, stereotypes almost completely disappear. The ABA technique allows children who turned to correction late (5-6 years old) to master speech.

The program covers all areas of cognition: from the development of the conceptual apparatus to the formation and improvement of everyday self-service skills.

Unfortunately, ABA therapy cannot be used at the initial stage if a child with autism experiences fear of strangers. The program is quite tough and should be used carefully. Parents, both morally and physically, must be prepared for full dedication, the work is carried out constantly, the system of rewards and punishments is not violated. Interruptions or relaxation of work are not advisable, as this may affect the result. It is important to understand that the child is not trained, but trained - taught skills by repeating them many times. To work using this method, the child’s complete obedience is necessary, and sometimes achieving it can be quite difficult. It is very important to control classes in such a program, however, at home you should also try to organize a development system that would correspond to the correction plan.

The motivation of children diagnosed with autism is somewhat different from that of ordinary children. It is important to identify what the child may be interested in and will motivate him. Approval or reprimand is ineffective for autistic children; at the initial stage, praise can be combined with a real reward. Such kids cannot focus their attention on anything for a long time and are often distracted, so it is important to conduct classes in silence and divide tasks into small segments. Repetition compensates for slowness in learning; abstract concepts are explained in the simplest possible terms. After the child learns to communicate freely with the teacher one-on-one, you can offer him communication with two people and so gradually increase the number of people around him. In such children, observation skills are ineffective, so imitation is used. Self-stimulation - rocking, clapping your hands - interferes with proper learning. Autistic children do not distinguish between an essential and an unimportant stimulus; their reaction can sometimes be too pronounced or, conversely, very weak. To obtain information, they often rely on sight rather than hearing. Children who perceive information well by ear develop most successfully in the ABA program.

ABA therapy is perhaps the only method of correctional work with autistic children that causes so much controversy and discussion. Various dissatisfaction is caused either by outdated information or by unqualified ABA specialists, of whom there are quite a lot today, as this program is becoming more and more popular. The effectiveness of work directly depends on the qualifications of a specialist, so you need to choose him very carefully.

Global, syllable-by-letter and letter-by-letter reading

The work of teaching writing and reading to children suffering from early childhood autism is very difficult and lengthy. Replacing verbal abstract images with visual ones greatly facilitates the learning of an autistic child, so real objects, pictures, and printed words are used at all stages.

Teaching reading to children with ASD is carried out in three areas:

1. analytical-synthetic (letter-by-letter) reading;
2. syllable reading;
3. global reading.

The lesson can be structured according to the principle of alternating all three directions.

Teaching global reading allows the child to develop impressive speech and thinking before mastering pronunciation. In addition, global reading develops visual attention and memory. The essence of global reading is that a child can learn to recognize entire written words without isolating individual letters. When teaching global reading, it is necessary to observe gradualism and consistency. The words that we want to teach a child to read should denote objects, actions, and phenomena known to him. This type of reading can be introduced no earlier than the student is able to correlate an object and its image, select paired objects or pictures.

1. Reading Automated Engrams(child’s name, names of his loved ones, names of pets). It is convenient to use a family photo album as a teaching material, providing it with appropriate printed inscriptions. The inscriptions are duplicated on individual cards. The child learns to select the same words, then the captions to photographs or drawings in the album are closed. The student is required to “learn” from memory the required inscription on the card and place it on the picture. The closed word is opened and compared with the selected signature.

2. Reading words. Pictures are selected on all main lexical topics (toys, dishes, furniture, transport, domestic and wild animals, birds, insects, vegetables, fruits, clothing, food, flowers) and provided with captions.

A good place to start is with the topic "Toys". First, we take two signs with words different in spelling, for example “doll” and “ball”. You cannot take words that are similar in spelling, for example “bear”, “car”. We begin to put signs on toys or pictures ourselves, saying what is written on them. Then we invite the child to place the sign next to the desired picture or toy on his own.

After memorizing two signs, we begin to gradually add the next ones. The order of introducing new lexical topics is arbitrary, since we mainly focus on the child’s interest.

3. Understanding written instructions. Sentences are made that use different nouns and the same verb.

The topic of proposals could be as follows:

4. body diagram (“Show your nose”, “Show your eyes”, “Show your hands”, etc. - it’s convenient to work in front of a mirror here);
5. room plan (“Go to the door”, “Go to the window”, “Go to the closet”, etc.). By presenting the cards, we draw the child’s attention to the different spellings of the second words in sentences.

4. Reading sentences. Sentences are made for a series of plot pictures in which one character performs different actions:

You can use tablets to teach autistic people to read, also when studying colors, when determining size and quantity.

In order to compile a sufficient number of syllable tables, you need to know the main types of syllables:

6. open: consonant + vowel (pa, mo);
7. closed: vowel + consonant (ap, ohm).

The table can take one consonant letter in combination with different vowels (la, lo, lu...) or one vowel with different consonants (an, ak, ab...).

1. Reading syllabic tables from open syllables. Tables are made according to the lotto principle with paired pictures. The child selects a syllable on the small card and places it on the corresponding syllable on the large card. At the same time, the teacher clearly pronounces what is written, making sure that the child’s gaze at the moment of pronouncing is fixed on the adult’s lips.

2. Reading syllable tables composed of closed syllables. Plastic vowels and consonants are selected and placed on top of the written letters. Vowels are pronounced drawlingly, and the corresponding plastic letters move to the consonants, i.e. “go to visit them.”

3. Reading syllabic tables where letters are written at a considerable distance(10-15 cm) from each other. A thick thread or elastic band is smoothly stretched between the letters (elastic bands are usually more popular with children, but if its “clicking” scares the child, it is better to use a thread).

The child presses the tip of the elastic band, tied into a knot, with a finger or palm to the consonant letter, and with the other hand pulls the free end of the elastic band to the vowel letter. The teacher sounds the syllable: while the rubber band is stretching, a consonant sound is pronounced for a long time; when the rubber band clicks, a vowel is added (for example: “nnn-o”, “llll-a”).

Analytical-synthetic reading

First of all, we develop the skill of sound-letter analysis of the beginning of a word. The development of this skill requires a large number of exercises, so you need to produce a sufficient number of teaching aids so that the classes are not monotonous for the child.

1. On a large card with clear pictures (various lottos can be used), the child lays out small cards with the initial letters of the names of the pictures. First, we provide him with significant assistance: we clearly name the letters, holding the card so that the child sees the movements of the lips; with the other hand we show the picture on a large map. Continuing to pronounce the sound, we bring the letter closer to the child (so that he can track the movement of the letter with his eyes, you can use a piece of treat, as when working with paired pictures), then we give the card with the letter to the student (he eats the treat at the moment of transfer). Using the teacher’s hint in the form of a pointing gesture, the child places the letter on the corresponding picture. Over time, he must learn to independently arrange all the letters into the right pictures.

The reverse version of the game is possible: the initial letters of words are printed on a large card, indicating pictures on small cards.

2. Small cards with block letters are made(approximately 2x2 cm). In the corner they are stitched with a stapler using two or three paper clips. The child uses a magnet to “catch a fish,” that is, letters, and we clearly pronounce them. This exercise helps the child fix his gaze on the letter longer and allows him to expand the range of his voluntary actions.

3. We select pictures for certain sounds. On landscape sheets we print the letters chosen for study in large quantities. We place two letters in different corners of the table. The child lays out the pictures offered to him, the names of which begin with the sounds corresponding to the letters. Initially, you can support the child’s hands and help him find the right “house”. It is better to select pairs of letters that represent sounds that are as contrasting as possible.

4. When teaching autistic people to read, there must be a manual that the child can take at any time and view it the way he wants. Such a tool could be an alphabet album, in which we gradually sketch pictures of a certain sound. It is better to draw in such a way that the child sees the process of filling out the pages, while discussing and discussing the drawings with him. Since the album can quickly wear out, you don’t need to spend a lot of time on drawings and, if necessary, restore damaged pages.

When the child learns to hear the beginning of a word, work can begin to form a sound-letter analysis of the end of the word.

1. Pictures are drawn on a large map, the names of which end with a certain sound. Next to the picture there is a “window” with the last letter of the word written large. We highlight the end of the word with our voice, the child places the plastic letter on the one printed in the “window”.

Notes: for the exercise, you cannot use paired voiced consonants (B, V, G, 3, D, Zh), since they are deafened at the end and the sound does not coincide with the letter; You cannot use iotated vowels (Ya, E, Yo, Yu) since their sound also does not correspond to the letter designation.

2. Place the corresponding word under the picture. We pronounce it clearly, highlighting the last sound. The child finds the desired one among several plastic letters and places it on the last letter in the word..

Complex exercises

Exercises for teaching autistic people to read, combining elements of global and letter-by-letter reading, are very useful. Cards are made (convenient format - half a landscape sheet) with pictures and words corresponding to them. The words are printed in a font that is the same size as the height of the plastic letters. The child looks at the word under the picture and places the same plastic letters on top. The teacher reads the word clearly. Then the word assembled from the letters is moved from the card to the table, the name of the picture printed on paper is covered, and the child is asked to determine under which picture there is the same word as the one on his table. First, the child makes a choice from two cards, then from 3-4. When a choice is made, the word under the picture is revealed and compared with the example on the table.

— Does the neurodiversity paradigm contradict the idea that autistic children need to be taught something? After all, training suppresses their individuality.
This question was asked to me by a woman who works with autistic children. This question continues to surprise me, even though I have heard it more than once. Perhaps he surprises me because the answer has always been obvious to me:
- Of course not. After all, if a child is not taught household skills, he will never be able to live independently. If a child is not taught to speak or use alternative communication, he will be completely helpless because he will be deprived of communication with the outside world. If you do not teach a child to read, write, arithmetic and various sciences, then illiteracy and lack of education can greatly affect the quality of his life in the future.

The neurodiversity paradigm is based on the fact that there is no one correct way of functioning of the brain and nervous system, and that not all deviations from the average and generally accepted norm are pathological. The neurodiversity paradigm speaks of equality for autistic people. Equality for autistic people does not mean that autistic people should be helpless, that they should have no connection with the outside world, that they should not be able to live independently, and that they should have a lower quality of life than non-autistic people. So the neurodiversity paradigm is more likely contradicts the idea that autistic children do not need to be taught anything, or that one must very quickly give up trying to teach something to an autistic child.

The problem is not with the neurodiversity paradigm, but with the fact that when teaching an autistic child, many parents, teachers and professionals try to suppress his personality. And this approach is used so often that in the minds of teachers and specialists, one has become inseparable from the other. How and why does this happen?
Why have I never heard the mother of an ordinary neurotypical girl afraid to teach her daughter to tie her shoelaces, speak or read because it could allegedly deprive her of her individuality?

When a mother teaches her neurotypical child to speak, read, or tie shoelaces, and if the child does not master these skills quickly, the mother begins to use special teaching methods.
When a mother tries to teach exactly the same skills to her autistic child, and he does not master them right away, then in order to teach him, the mother turns to a psychiatrist or therapist and uses therapy.

Therapy, in contrast to teaching methods, assumes that there is some extremely undesirable deviation from the norm, some kind of disease that needs to be cured.
So what kind of disease do doctors want to cure if a child cannot learn to speak or tie his shoelaces? No matter how absurd it may sound, if a child is autistic, then that “disease” turns out to be autism.
Very often, teaching a child necessary or highly desirable skills for life, the same ones that are taught to neurotypical children, is called “autism therapy.”

Obviously, having learned these skills, the child will not cease to be autistic. There is a myth that autistic children's brains become less "autistic" after they are trained through "therapy." Of course, this is not true. If I teach you to shake your hands and arrange objects in a row, it won't make your neurotypical brain autistic. Another thing is that the brain “evolves”, and in adults it works differently than in children. This extends to autistic people as well, so that over time many children actually become “less autistic” if we consider the functioning of an autistic child’s brain to be the norm for autism. Then what does “autism therapy” change and on what basis can autistic children experience it?

Autism “therapy” can affect a child's behavior, making that behavior less autistic. Through therapy, it is possible to teach an autistic child to pretend to be normal, and parents often “purchase” this “pretend training” in a “bundle” with teaching useful skills, such as mastering alternative communication.

Often, teaching an autistic child how to communicate is considered successful only if the autistic child learns to make eye contact like a neurotypical, move like a neurotypical, talk like a neurotypical, in general, if he can pretend to be neurotypical.

During “therapy,” they try to “cure” behavior that is natural for an autistic person, such as stimming, as well as the child’s own desires and aspirations (for example, an autistic child may be forced to give up his “obsessive” interest in dinosaurs or watch his favorite cartoons because they “do not correspond to age"). Therapists have been trained to perceive anything unusual in a child as pathological, even if this unusual thing poses absolutely no danger. This training-therapy is really suppresses individuality child and can provoke in the child distrust of others, self-hatred, perception of his natural needs and peculiarities of his perception as something wrong, depression, suicidal thoughts, inability to choose a favorite activity in the future, because in the past all the aspirations of this child were suppressed by parents and therapists. Even if the child does not hate himself or the significant part of his personality that autism is, it is very likely that such training will cause him serious psychological trauma. If he, despite the fact that all the people around him consider his way of thinking, his interests and his natural behavior as something undesirable, is able to maintain his self-esteem, most likely “training” will have a negative impact on his perception of other people. It can cause severe social phobia, misanthropy in a child, or form in him ideas about autistic superiority and neurotypical people as extremely vile, dangerous and inferior people.

So, the harm of educational therapy based on “rewriting” the child’s personality is clear. Then why do parents of autistic children choose such “therapy” for their children and try to make the autistic child conform to the dominant idea of ​​the norm?

The fact is that most parents of autistic children believe that their child can live a full life only if he can behave like a neurotypical person.
But copying neurotypical behavior is not the only method for autistic people to adapt to the dominant neuronormative culture.
How else can autistic people adapt to life in a society designed for neurotypicals?
Basically, now we are talking about social skills, but what are they?

This question was answered very accurately by Nick Walker, an autistic activist and one of the leading American ideologues of the neurodiversity paradigm: “When teaching autistic children or working with autistic people, the term “social skills” is used, which usually means “the ability to comply with the dominant norms of social interaction in society.” " But leaving, continuing to behave in a natural way, is also a “social skill.” Changing social reality by fighting for the right to be who you are is also a “social skill.”

So, there are three main methods that an autistic person can use to interact with society in general and with their neurotypical acquaintances in particular.
This is a method of self-advocacy - based on these very attempts to change public perceptions of the norm, or at least defend your right to behave in a natural way for yourself, a method of avoiding unfavorable situations, and the method of “adjusting to society”, the same one that experts most often talk about on autism issues.
None of these methods are “more difficult” or “easier” - more often than not, an autistic person has a tendency to engage in certain behaviors and if, for example, you find it easier to pretend to be like the people around you, your child may find it easier and more comfortable to assert their rights.
None of these methods are “better” or “worse” than the other. Preferring one method over another is as normal as the fact that some people prefer to write with their right hand and others with their left.
None of these methods contradict the neurodiversity paradigm.
All these methods need to be developed - one child should learn to defend his rights, another should learn to appear normal, and a third should avoid unfavorable situations.

So, now let's look at these methods in more detail:

1) The method of adjusting to dominant norms or the method of imitation.
This method is just as consistent with the neurodiversity paradigm as the other two. After all, if you copy someone or try to adjust your behavior to someone else’s standards, this does not mean that you recognize his superiority. For example, to be an actor, you don't have to think that the characters you play are better than you. And in order to “adapt” to the client while working with him, the marketing specialist does not have to think about the client’s superiority.

As the autistic guy Arken Iskalkin wrote in his article “I want to be normal”: “Now I no longer believe that I need to become normal, because there is no norm. And I wouldn’t completely break myself either. But to be able to professionally and programmatically recreate the behavior of a neurotypical person when needed is something that an autistic person really needs now, and this is what would be best to focus on. Moreover, this is often necessary to repel the attacks of ableists who, under pressure, impose their dogmas, which destroy the self-esteem of autistic people.”
As you can see, in this case, attuning is simply a convenient tool for interacting with other people and in no way pathologizes the way autistics think or implies that the way autistics think is wrong.

According to statistics autistic girls and women use the tuning method more often than autistic guys. Some autistic girls use this method at an early age, noticing their differences. In order to fit into a group or meet adult norms, they copy the behavior of their neurotypical peers. Neurotypical children often repeat the actions of other children and adults involuntarily, with little or no awareness of it, while autistic girls often consciously copy the behavior of others. This often becomes an obstacle to the correct diagnosis of autism, because the “adjustment” prevents parents of autistic girls from discovering that their daughters have communication problems.

For many autistic people (regardless of gender), conforming to neurotypical norms and copying the behavior of other people is almost impossible, especially in childhood and adolescence. Many autistic people can copy other people's behavior, but this requires too much emotional strength from them. This “life of a scout,” in which it is necessary to constantly play some role and adapt to someone, can cause serious mental problems. This is probably one of the reasons that autistic women are more likely than autistic guys to have co-occurring mental health diagnoses such as clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Therefore, if your child cannot copy the behavior of neurotypical people, or if this is difficult for him, do not require this of him under any circumstances.

At the same time, there are many autistic people for whom the method of adjustment and/or copying is the most convenient, simple and safe way to interact in society. If you think that your child may be one of these autistic people, do not interfere with his desire to copy other people and, if possible - depending on the desire and strength of the child himself - develop this skill. However, avoid the temptation to force your child to always copy behavior that is not necessary for him to appear “normal” and make sure that the desire to copy other people is not caused by low self-esteem.
If it really is a matter of self-esteem, then do not forbid your child to copy other people, but do your best to help him develop self-confidence and a positive autistic identity.

2) Method of avoiding unfavorable situations.
Those who choose this method behave in a natural way most of the time, but try to avoid situations in which their strange behavior could harm them.
This method is most often (but not always) chosen by those autistic people who do not have “high goals” associated with working with people. Indeed, not all people want to earn a lot of money, have the most expensive car, become a television star or the president of the country. And that's completely normal. Even if your child dreams of working in a low-paying job where he will receive exactly what he needs in order to provide himself with only the bare necessities, this is normal. I hope you will not deny that happiness is more important than prestige and money.

Perhaps your avoidant child dreams of success, but hopes to achieve success, for example, by using his technical or economic knowledge and communicating with a very limited number of people. And the experience of some scientists from Silicon Valley shows that this is possible.

Also, at certain periods of their lives, autistic people, even those whose life plans are directly related to working with people, use the “avoidance” method in order to avoid stress and emotional burnout. This method may be a necessary refuge and how long this refuge will be needed can only be known by the autistic person.
The avoidance method is not a sign of laziness, weak will, or desertion. It's often a coping mechanism or a handy strategy for saving time and energy that can be spent on simpler, more interesting, and more productive things than dealing with unpleasant and strange people.
Avoiding unnecessary social interaction is not so easy, and it is as much an art as learning to play the role of another person or adapting to people.

3) Method of self-advocacy.
Those who use this method try to be themselves no matter what. They explain to others the peculiarities of their behavior, defend their rights in a situation where they believe that they are being discriminated against because they behaved strangely (for example, when applying for a job). In a broader sense, this method can be called the method of activism, because those who choose it often prefer to change the system than to change themselves. These people are fighting ableism in the broadest sense of the word - from unwitting ableism among their acquaintances, to advocating for the interests of people with disabilities at the state level. The activism of these people can be based both on the neurodiversity paradigm, when they claim the equality of autistic and neurotypical neurotypes, and on the pathology paradigm, when they explain their behavior as a disease and look for a way to “cure” and “prevent” autism.

Unlike those who try to imitate other people, proponents of the “method of activism” try to get other people to accept them exclusively for who they are. Unlike those who prefer to avoid problematic situations, activists often rush into action themselves, for example, taking part in conferences of parents whose views obviously contradict theirs.

It is this way of interacting with society that one most often hears about from supporters of the neurodiversity paradigm, because the vast majority of them are self-advocates or even activists. It is this method, as the simplest and most convenient for myself, that I most often write about.
At the same time, as I wrote above, I do not claim that this method will be the easiest for your child, but such a possibility exists. You may not be aware of this now, just as my parents and the parents of many other autistic self-advocates were not aware of it at the time.
Perhaps, in order to discover their abilities for activism and self-advocacy, the child must have information about the possibilities of using this method and how it works, and perhaps he needs to get rid of related problems or become more self-confident.

Or perhaps self-advocacy and activism are simply not his path.

Conclusion.
So, there are three main ways that autistic people interact with society. Most autistic people find one of these methods easier and more convenient than the other two.
Additionally, the vast majority of autistic adults use all three methods in their daily lives.
For example, I prefer the method of self-advocacy, but when I have little time, when I am tired, I cannot explain to people the reason for my behavior. Sometimes I can't do this simply because it becomes difficult for me to formulate thoughts in words. In such cases, I try to avoid any interaction with other people or at least those situations in which I have to explain to other people what I am doing.
Sometimes, such as during job interviews or important conferences, I try to look people in the eyes to appear more “normal.” Yes, I really advocate changing the system and believe that I do not have to adapt to others. And I don't want to do this. But changes in public consciousness will have to wait a long time, and I need the result now.

What I called “three methods” is a rather arbitrary combination that I made based on my experience, the experience of my autistic friends and the experience of authors of books and articles on the topic of autism. In fact, there are thousands of similar strategies. For example, I combined autistic behavior under favorable circumstances into one method, and avoidance of social interaction under unfavorable circumstances, calling it the “avoidance” method. But an autistic person may behave autistically most of the time, and at the same time use adjustment and imitation in all “unfavorable” and difficult situations. Essentially, each combination is a distinct strategy, and each autistic person has their own unique strategy for interacting with society, which may change over time.

But I did not write this article in order to embrace the immensity and describe all the possible ways autistic people interact with society. I wrote it to make you understand that these ways of interacting are, in fact, tools, and they may or may not contradict the neurodiversity paradigm. They contradict the neurodiversity paradigm only when you try to justify the use of one of the methods as a “flaw” of the autistic neurotype, or when you try to impose on your child a way of interacting with society that is unnatural for him.

The fact that all three methods can be useful in life does not mean that a child should master them all at the same time. Most often this is practically impossible, and too intensive training will lead to the deterioration of existing skills. It is best to inform the child about all three methods and allow him to choose the method that is most convenient for him and help him develop his talents.
Most likely, he will be able to take something from other methods at a later age if he considers it necessary in his life.