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Trevor 145
Trevor also showed more interest in the other children in day care.
He would sit with them on the rotating tire in the playground. The
more Trevor and the other children went to the playground together,
the more his teacher had an opportunity to intrude on his happiness
and get him to communicate his pleasure and enjoyment. She modeled,
“Is this fun? Are you having a good time?” At first Trevor would echo
these questions, but eventually he would spontaneously communicate
to his teacher what fun he was having on the swings: He would smile,
squeal with delight, say the word “fun,” and laugh with the other children.
At first this was pure verbal imitation, but soon it became part of
the routine on the swings, and eventually the words and the nonverbal
communications became spontaneous. By teaching some basic skills in
verbal imitation, in simple skills needed to construct a theory of mind
such as joint attention (where both adult and child pay attention to the
same object of interest) and eye contact, the teacher could start to shape
more developmentally appropriate behavior.
More and more, Trevor was able to fit in to the routine of the day
care and behave just like the other children. Once Trevor learned more
communication skills, both verbally and by using his pointing skills, his
frustration level decreased and he became less aggressive. He did not
have to resort to whacking his classmates to get them out of the way.
With an outstretched arm, he could tell them to leave the room when he
wanted to play with one of their toys. In addition, as his play skills improved,
the periods when he would rock in the corner, flick his fingers
in front of his eyes, and look autistic became farther apart. We never
had to design interventions to reduce these “autistic” behaviors; they
disappeared on their own as his social and communication skills improved
overall.
As these positive social relationships developed at day care, the
potential to use the other children in the class as “peer tutors” became
possible. Trevor’s teacher had to coach the other children on how to
interact with Trevor, how to let him take the lead, how to avoid fights,
how not to expect Trevor to share or take turns in play. But if they stuck
to simple games like chasing, tag, and tickling, the other children in the
class could have fun with him and they could play together. Soon
Trevor sought out his classmates and wanted to play tag with them.
Even more exciting was the fact that the other children were inviting
Trevor to play with them. Trevor seemed to be actually enjoying the social
interaction, even if it could be only at a relatively simple level.
Imaginative play with his peers was beyond him at this point. That