"How I Learned to Use TEACCH Principles to Help My Child Learn"
by Colleen Glair-Gajewski
September 1st, 2002
The following is about how one comes to understand and use what TEACCH has to offer our children. As all of you know, autism can be difficult to understand, it is very easy to misunderstand and now that it is understood to be a spectrum disorder it can be more confusing! As a parent though, all I really want to know is what I can do to help my child. I think I’m finally past the "what will cure my child" dream, though I can’t deny the constant feelings of hope that life will someday be better for him, that are forever present in the "holding onto hope" part of my brain! What I have come to learn though, is that I can make life better for my child right now, today, by using, learning, modifying and using again what I personally have come to understand from what TEACCH has taught me.
When I first went to mothers groups at TEACCH and Lee Marcus, who facilitates the meetings, would bring up using schedules to address a variety of raised concerns regarding behaviors related to autism, I’d think to myself, "If it was that easy I wouldn’t be sitting here." When I later attended a presentation by a TEACCH therapist who said people with autism could be referred back to schedules and other visual supports, such as a memo from a clinic director stating a rule for example, as a means to prevent conflict, I thought to myself, "My child is not an idiot".
When I looked through the observation window at a TEACCH therapist writing down why we wear underpants after my child said he thought they were funny, I thought to myself, "I’m an idiot for not teaching my son why we wear underpants!" During the parent training sessions we received at TEACCH, the TEACCH therapist would listen to my husband and I spend each week going back and forth over what behaviors our child could control and what was willful behavior. When a suggestion a TEACCH therapist made was expressed at my child’s school, I heard from teachers that TEACCH’s techniques are unrealistic in the regular education setting and why doesn’t TEACCH come in here and do this and I thought to myself, "OH MY GOD, ANOTHER YEAR IS GOING TO GO BY AGAIN WITH MY CHILD NOT GETTING THE SUPPORT HE NEEDS", regardless of how textbook perfect his I.E.P. may have read, for those of you who were about to jump on that bandwagon.
During this same school year, I was helping my child write book reports and I thought the outline he was using was broken down very well for him, but TEACCH therapists told me I was doing too much for him and I needed to be careful he was learning what he needed to, by breaking his work down further. Now my ego is hurt because I thought I was doing such a great job, and I still didn’t know what they meant by breaking it down more, yet not having him become dependent! They recommended a book on language to me that essentially breaks language into its structural parts and I’m not talking grammar here, I’m talking about the basic structural communication foundation of language that people without autism completely take for granted.
Okay great, I read it, try to use it, it seems so Mickey Mouse to me, I think, "Have I forgotten to tell these people my child is not an idiot"? At school educators listen and try to apply what I have learned so far, but something still isn’t right, he still struggles so much with writing in so many respects. He yells, "Everyone keeps telling me to just do my best, then everyone says it’s not good enough". He’s right, my heart sinks because I don’t know what to tell him, I think, "Maybe we should try to find a way to just live a simple life, maybe live near the ocean, home school him, collect shells, he is a wonderful person to be with if you don’t have to teach him something"! I can’t wait for the summer, a reprieve for our family from the meaningless I.E.P. meeting statement of "he needs to be successful" knowing that he’s included successfully which is excellent but he has lost another year in learning how to be a successful learner.
I read more about autism; attend some local conferences and attend a meeting by a researcher in autism at a CHALU meeting. He spoke of a cognitive rigidity study done with mice. I think back on a TEACCH presentation on the characteristics of thinking in autism; difficulty sequencing information, difficulty-organizing information. I think of a research article I read that describes the way people with autism put information together. I think of the visual strength my child seems to have as well as other children in the area I have had the pleasure of spending time with by living here. I think to myself, "Maybe it’s this thinking or cognitive type rigidity that has been found, in combination with the difficulty in putting information together that causes the impairments in social learning, ability to use and understand language and hence the repetitive, restricted interests of people with autism". I think to myself, "Hey I’m not an idiot"!
I think what TEACCH means by structure is different than what typical educators mean by structure, which in my child’s case has sometimes translated into him getting very strict teachers, I think more to shape him up than to truly understand how to help him! I think TEACCH means visual structure, that the student can see because of their disability interfering with their ability to organize information. TEACHING THROUGH TALKING TAKES TOO MUCH PROCESSING FOR MANY OF THESE INDIVUALS. PICTURES/WRITING MEMOS/WORK SYSTEMS; ANY WAY OF PROVIDING VISUAL STRUCTURE WILL HELP SOMEONE WITH AUTISM LEARN THE ORDER OF THINGS AS WELL AS PROVIDE A WAY TO THOSE WORKING WITH THEM TO UNDERSTAND WHAT SOMEONE ALREADY KNOWS.
Carol Gray’s work with social stories is a visual framework for understanding language and social cues, which are the main deficits of autism. Catherine Faherty’s work in helping children understand what HFA is provides a visual, structured format for learning. Any content can be put in this format, the trick is using it, trying it and modifying it. Once I figured the why in a way that was meaningful for me, the matter of how was in no way as time consuming as I thought it would be. In fact, it is much less time consuming than all the meetings I have had, and discussions about what to do. It is actually quite simple. Now I consult with TEACCH if I get off track but I don’t believe this is Mickey Mouse, unrealistic to use or something that a regular educator couldn’t apply very easily. Now I actually enjoy refining visual supports that build on what my child knows. I have finally learned a way to help my child learn!
What follows is a description of how I have individualized TEACCH principles for my child’s education plan.
First, because I had never whole-heartedly followed through on the principles, my son wasn’t about to agree to just start using them. I began by taking some of the principles from the "Make it /Take it" program offered during ASNC training. As such, I bought a "Things to Do" pad at UNC bookstore and began to list for my son what he needed to do each day making sure to include things he likes to do. Additionally, I copied and laminated a few pictures I put on a ring to use in the car, with pictures and words with things like being quiet and let’s go home on them. As you can see from this article I express my thoughts a lot and I was quite surprised to find my son holding up the card that said be quiet on it, to me, while I was talking to him! As funny as this sounds, at the time I treated it seriously and learned the lesson that these systems not only help people with autism understand, but they can be used to help people without autism understand the needs of someone with autism.
Next, I set out to use what I had put together to help him work on a writing assignment. This was quite challenging as he kept getting out of his chair, kept putting things in his mouth and then began trying to negotiate how much he would have to do. At first I started to reassure him verbally, that did nothing but increase the frustration on both our parts. Then thinking visually, I wrote down what he needed to do. He stopped and read it and kept yelling he wouldn’t do that much work. I tried to get him to write his thoughts down but he wouldn’t. Which makes sense given the fact that the act of writing itself is very time consuming for him. He was willing to listen to what I was saying if I wrote it down. After we were finally able to truly understand each other through typical communication efforts, although modified due to his disability of course, he cried saying, "It’s to hard for me"! He had never before used this language to describe writing for him.
I responded back to him in writing saying, "Dad, Mom and your Teachers know how hard it is for you to write". He cried saying we didn’t and I continued to write that yes we did understand. Once he absorbed this information I then wrote "The things I have written down for you to do will make writing easier for you to do". No responses back from him. I wrote on a separate piece of paper, "Follow the writing directions I have written for you now". He asks when will he be done? Of course, because he does not know how to order or sequence things! I wrote back, "You will be done when you have done what I have written down for you to do". He followed the spelled out directions and finished the work, then asked if he could go play. The amount of time the conversation took place in writing was five minutes.
Next, I set up a homework system for him; I opened his book to the page that needed to be done and showed him how to check off assignments as completed on a memo pad. Between assignments I wrote the time and length of a break. One recent evening, my husband asked our son if he needed any help with his homework, to which he replied, "I don’t need it, I have this". Referring to HIS SCHEDULE! My husband has been easily able to follow through on this homework system adding ways for our child to further understand and feel confident in what he is learning during homework time.
Lastly, we have finally implemented a daily schedule on a dry erase board at our house. Our son thought he did not want or need it until I showed him. Dad and I follow a schedule and so must he. Thank God for cognitive rigidity sometimes! On a humorous note, one recent start of the school year morning, when we reminded our son to check what the daily schedule said he needed to be doing, he said, "I suppose if that schedule told me to jump off a bridge I’d have to do it". I wonder where he learned that! Thank you for letting me share what I have learned.
Colleen Glair-Gajewski
CMGlair@prodigy.net
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September 1st, 2002