978-1572305441

166 A MIND APART
moting more social interaction with adults and with other children. By
starting with the child’s interests and building on them, it is also possible
to promote more appropriate social and communication skills. For
example, many children with autism love to watch a top spin. The
enjoyment elicited by this activity can become a vehicle for social interaction:
An adult spins the top; several children can participate in the activity;
they can take turns spinning the top; the teacher or parent can
talk about the colors and can demonstrate pleasure as the top spins; the
teacher or parent can encourage the child to ask for help in spinning
and use words like “fast” and ”slow” to describe the speed of spin, and
so on. The child is motivated to participate, happy and excited. It is an
opportunity to enter the child’s world at his or her own level and to
bring the child up a developmental notch. This is incidental learning in
a natural environment, and it is a very effective form of teaching for
some children with ASD.
There was a time when Heather (the little girl with the bathing suit
from Chapter 2) was having a very hard time going to school. She put
up a lot of resistance from the moment she woke up all the way to the
schoolyard. She would dawdle getting dressed, stop and look at every
broken twig along the way, and then stand still before the school entrance,
refusing to go in. Once in the class, she would hide under the
desk and make a racket to force the teacher to send her to the principal’s
office, where she would be put in a “quiet” room for a while, then
forced back into the classroom or, if she was unruly, sent home. This
was becoming a real problem, with Heather being sent home more and
more often, which made it very difficult for her mother, the sole breadwinner,
to be available at work. At a school meeting, her mother suggested
that the teacher let Heather design Easter cards first thing in the
school day, as she loved greeting cards of every type. This was a highly
motivating activity for Heather at home, where she spent hours drawing
different kinds of cards, depending on the time of year. Perhaps, if she
were given an opportunity to draw cards, she would find it easier to go
to school in the morning and would arrive in a better mood and be
more attentive to learning.
So during the week, as soon as Heather woke up, her mother
would start telling her that at school she would be able to draw Easter
cards first thing before starting class. Heather looked at her mother
quizzically, not believing her good luck. Each day that week, Heather
worked in her private space, drawing all kinds of Easter cards, making
one for each child in the class and one for her teacher and principal.