Sullivan Give Me a Voice

Helping children with Autism find their voice
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5791-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 188 Seiten

Do you have a loved one with Autism who is starting to use a mobile device or other form of augmentative communication? Has daily communication become a struggle? Would you like to learn concrete, time tested strategies to help them learn how to communicate and talk? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Give Me A Voice was written for you! Give Me A Voice provides a simple, step-by-step guide on how to harness the power of a tablet, smartphone or even picture icons to help your loved one find their voice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sullivan, Timothy

Leseproben

Introduction If you are reading this book, chances are very good that you and your loved one are currently in the midst of a crisis.  I can only imagine what it must feel like to not be able to communicate your thoughts, feelings and emotions and the toll this can take on families.  While there are currently many excellent books available that provide more in the way of moral support, this text was written to be the blueprint for a call to action. What follows in this book are step-by-step directions written in easy to read language that guide the reader through the process of helping a loved one find their voice. For the first time, Give Me A Voice provides a detailed guide how to use technology such as a tablet (iPad), smartphone or traditional picture exchange as a bridge toward verbal speech. Along with in depth chapters focusing on the teaching steps necessary to use technology as a bridge toward appropriate communication and verbal speech, Give Me A Voice provides additional supports such as a Frequently Asked Questions section, a detailed list of quick reference steps that will guide the reader through the entire learning process and an expanded glossary of terms used in the book. There is also our website (www.givemeavoice.net) that you will see referenced many times in this book that contains multiple helpful downloadable forms/visual aids, blog entries and a reader’s social forum that will allow for you to engage with other readers and share your experiences along your journey helping your loved one find their voice.  The journey in writing Give Me a Voice has been a long and amazing experience.  While this book has been in the back of my mind for some time, it was not until the day that my wife and I brought our first child back from the hospital that I finally started to put pen to paper.  I think that finally becoming a father—not knowing what the future would hold for my daughter—gave me the motivation I needed to give hope to other parents who may find themselves with a loved one who is in need of a voice.  Even if this book is able to just help one person find their voice, I will feel this project and book will have been worthwhile. From the very beginning of my time spent working with individuals who were not able to communicate, I imagined what it must feel like to not be able to communicate with those around me.  My experience started as a classroom aide at a school for children diagnosed with Autism and I instantly noticed that some of the students could not communicate with their teachers or fellow classmates.  Almost immediately, I started to treat these children differently from the other students who could talk.  I spoke around them as if they were not there.  I started to assume that I knew what they wanted even before they indicated anything to me.  I treated them like they were helpless.  In other words I became their VOICE.  And while I’ve gained many more experiences since those first few months, I now see that in order to improve the life of a loved one, it is essential to avoid becoming their voice and instead work toward giving them a voice.  During this time I also came to the then unpopular belief that non-verbal individuals have an inner landscape with thoughts, feelings, desires, and fears just like everyone else. This early belief of mine was further reinforced when I read autobiographical accounts such as Carly’s Voice and The Reason I Jump.  Once I read these books I knew there were millions of others out there who had these inner thoughts trapped inside. From there came the basis for Give Me a Voice. Many times clinicians and parents will think of augmentative and verbal communication as two different paths that one has to choose for a learner.  In other words, the learner either uses augmentative communication (iPad, picture exchange, etc.) or they are learning to talk.  No overlap.  However, Give Me A Voice focuses on how to use augmentative communication (iPad, picture exchange, etc.) while at the same time always prompting, shaping and reinforcing the use of verbal speech.  An augmentative communication system helps to provide a consistent visual aid that can be used to promote verbal language time and time again.  Throughout all chapters of this book, all teaching steps will have a section that focuses on promoting verbal speech.  Using this approach, your loved one is able to learn the power of communication and then harness that power in order to find their own verbal voice, all of which are hallmarks of the steps and lessons presented here in Give Me A Voice. The scientific basis for the teaching methods presented in Give Me A Voice are derived from the field of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). In contrast to some other treatment approaches, ABA seeks to modify the environment around an individual in order to promote the use of certain behaviors (in our case here that would be communication) and reduce the use of unwanted behaviors (e.g. crying, tantrums, aggression, etc.).  That broad definition seems easy enough to understand, but can be very difficult to actually put into practice.  I hope my book will help.  Each chapter of this text is written to empower you with an easy to use roadmap of how to modify your loved one’s current environment in order to teach and motivate them to gain a VOICE.  Some of the changes will be physical in nature but most changes will be things that you cannot see or touch. This book also will challenge you to ask questions like:  How motivated is your loved one to communicate?  Or what do you do when they really want to tell you something? In the field of ABA, most clinicians who write books tend to show off to their peers by using scientific vocabulary that many parents and other caregivers would never be able to decipher.  One of my main goals then was to find the right blend between science and common sense.  This book was written primarily to help parents who are attempting to help their loved one find their verbal voice. That meant that the language used in this book needed to be easy to read and I often scrapped scientific terms in favor of more common language.  I hope that I was able to strike a good balance while still being able to provide the information and concepts needed in order to help your loved one find their verbal voice. While this may not impress some clinicians in the audience, it should allow for the strategies and steps listed in this book to be easier to actually apply in the real world.  One important issue to discuss before we proceed is the common assumption that if a learner is taught to use picture exchange, or an iPad, they will never talk. In the past I have championed the vast amount of empirical research that refutes this assumption and asserts that augmentative communication can actually increase the chance that an individual will develop verbal speech.  However, I now realize that to fight against this natural human intuition is futile.  As you are teaching the use of augmentative communication, you will always wonder if you might be inhibiting verbal speech growth.  That is why throughout this book I emphasize that augmentative communication is a way to prompt and teach verbal language and is NOT meant to be a long-term communication solution.  Augmentative communication will allow your loved one to see how powerful augmentative communication can be for them and give a consistent platform to promote verbal speech production.  I also ask readers to keep in mind the perspective of your loved one when it comes to communication.  This can be challenging in many ways, considering that your loved one has not yet found their voice and is unable to express how they feel inside. Thankfully, through the dedication and hard work of parents and clinicians, there have been individuals who have found their voice after having it suppressed for many years.  These individuals share that they do not know why, but it is excruciatingly difficult for them to talk.  They want to talk but something is holding them back.  Viewing the issue through this lens, it becomes clear that these individuals need a BRIDGE to get from living without a voice or verbal language to a place where they are verbal or can use other methods to have a voice. In our case, that bridge would be all of the augmentative communication options that we will talk about in this book (iPad, picture exchange, etc.) and the instructions on how to cross the bridge are provided within the chapters that follow.  The first hand accounts of the struggles of non-verbal individuals also teaches us that we cannot be frustrated with the time that it takes for them to find their voice.  Since our learners find this task painful and hard, there will be progress and then setbacks and regression and then progress again.  I would stress patience and understanding above all else with your loved one as much as possible.  If they seem to be frustrated or overwhelmed with a task, give them space and move on.  Never insist on “following through” to the point of driving your loved one to a meltdown before you’re willing to stop.  When families and caregivers take this type of empathetic approach,...