Sharing Of Autism & Various Intervention Focus From My Walk With Him

Every person with ASD(Autism Spectrum Disorder) is an individual, and like all individuals, has a unique personality and combination of characteristics. They share a set of defining features which can be grouped into 3 areas:-


A. social impairement
B. impairements in language, communication and play
C. repetitive and restrcited behavior


Those who fall into A group includes 4 possible symptoms:
1. non-verbal including eye contact and gesture
2. poor peer relationships
3. absent or reduce "joint attention"
4. impaired emotional reciprocity(tuning to others's emotions,sharing happy emotions, noticing and helping when others are distressed)


The Group B also has 4 possible symptoms:
1. delay in learning to speak
2. for those with enough language,impairments in ability to hold a conversation
3. a tendency to say the exact same thing again and again or talk about the same topics too much, or repeat what someone else says instead of answering them
4. pretend play which is absent altogether, or delayed for the child's age or repetitive

The Group C also has 4 possible symptoms:
1. preoccupation with certain topics or activities
2. strongly held routines or rituals or resistance to change in the environment
3. repetitive motor behaviors such as rocking, hand flapping or walking on tip toe
4. preoccupations with parts of objects, such as wheels on toy cars instead of the cars themselves.

Their sensory perception may also not optimumly calibrated like most neuro typical kids, which may hinder their cognitive and social learning, very often their brain cannot filter multiple inputs and one may frequently feels overloaded, disoriented and unsettled in his own skin. Hence what we may observe as socially inappropriate behaviors could be the outputs they try to regulate to block this overwhelming inputs that can comes form the surrounding environment.

My littler STAR is now in the 3rd years of EIP, I am thankful that with the right support from SpEd Team and good parent-teacher collaboration and empowerment, he is able to progress inch by inch from a concrete level of non verbal zero skill to where he is now verbally, opening up expressively and receptively in language and being more awareness to things and people around him, though still exhibit some autistic traits that may carry forward or transform from each stage of his learning journey. In the recent end of term Parent Communication Night, the principle again shared & reminded parents on the 5 critical area of autism intervention focus which can help the child to progress effectively in his on going learning journey.

1. Joint Attention & Social Engagement
Taking photos, having a family meal together and playing Wii or snake & ladder game or even improvise table tennis/bowling/basket ball game that he enjoys playing together are some of the rituals that we varies from time to time to promote joint attention, it can be within family members or with my sister family, his cousin. Reading social stories or story books with him before bedtime are other focus in our joint attention with him.

Social engagement in the form of creating opportunity for him to ask question like "where is mummy", "how are you", "who is next", "why are you sad/happy/angry", "can you help me", etc during our daily interaction with him, and promoting better impusle control & consciousness in turn taking, waiting & stop during our play times or activities with him. Trying every means to facilitating & teaching him the right approach of social behavior whenever opportunities allow, teach him to give praises and encouraging comments to another person such as "well done", "thank you" and have a nice day" may also help him gain confident to be socially engage with others. Lately, we have been bringing him to various location to explore different indoor playground/gym which he enjoy playing such as mega gym in Dowtnown East, Little Ozone in Orchid Country Club, Go Go Bambini in Dempsey Road and Kidz Amaze in Jurong Safra to let him broaden this interest for more social engagement outside home. With more teaching, trying and practise, we are hopeful to see some light to make him more spontaneous, gain more independent and be able to maintain this skill apply to other situation in similar context.

2) Imitation
We have make use of this focus to teach him from buckle seat belt, how to brush teeth, fold blanket, wear his clothes to recently watching educational DVD in exploring video modelling in singing song, expressive language and making action.

3) Intentional Communication
Making him expand his sentence in communicaton when/where ever possible:-

Eaxample 1: When after complete watching a DVD show, he will initially say "I don't want" and gesture to us pointing towards the player to signify turn off, we will then teach him to say his intend clearly "Mummy, I don't want to watch TV, please turn off", he has since developed this good habit of intentional communication in this area, next may varies by adding some attribute or change the way he can comunicate on the same intention.

Example 2: Whenever he ask for milk, he will usually shout from room "Ah ma/mummy I want milk" I will encourage him to go face to face to tell instead of shouting from the room. Sometimes when this is invain, I will teach him to relay his intentional communication through me instead to achieve same objective such as "Daddy, can you te and ll Ah ma I want milk, please?"

We have to anticipate less and make him work harder to intensify his communciation more intendly and also functionable.


4) Play
He like to play doll house, transports or even handy man. We had tried to buy House Building Blocks, Mutli-story Car Park and also Fitting toy set to elevate his imagination & improve his perceptual at pretend play.

5) Categorization
We make use of resource available or improvise to play memory game with him to make him match the same, to enable him comment "different", not the same" or "same", "matching" etc
During our daily life, when we roam around the shopping market, I will also teach him or ask him the items on display, which category they belongs such as "hot" or "cold", "dry" or "wet", fruits, vegetables, clothes, cutlery, stationary, toy etc... During his "work by myself stations, we may also create worksheet to make him find & match different items into different categories, in the form of task oriented we can also make him place physical objects into different category of shapes/ball/transport/animal etc...

My little STAR is such a joy now to work with as he grows and learns more skills in the above 5 autism focus area of intervention, moving forward slowly and surely. It may be difficult for young parents with child diagnose within the spectrum for a start in this steep learning curve, but things will slowly become better if we are willing to accept, learn & plan positive action and only to hope for the best outcome. Most of the time we get so caught up in the activity of being busy we frequently forget that our happiness is no contingent upon aspiring for the things we don't have, but rather of looking inside ourselves and being grateful for what we do have. A simple adjustment in perspective is the difference between a life of emptiness or a life of joy. he has become my joy of living.

Winners Statement:-

"The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or in defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment." ~Bruce Lee