8,50 €
Dr. Temple Grandin’s pocket guide to older kids and young adults with autism!
Temple Grandin is a doctor of animal science, professor at Colorado State University, best-selling author, autism activist, and consultant on animal behavior. She also invented the “squeeze machine,” a device to calm the sensory systems of those on the autism spectrum. The subject of the award-winning 2010 biographical film Temple Grandin, she was listed in Time magazine among the world’s one hundred most influential people.
Have you ever wanted to get Temple’s ideas on growing up as an OLDER child with autism? Now you can. Here, in this handy reference book, Temple gives an overview of what it is like to grow up and get a career with autism, tells how she overcame certain issues, gives useful tips, then answers your questions in an easy to reference Q&A. This insightful book contains sections on:
• Building Social Skills
• Manners
• Eccentricity
• Video Games
• Thinking Types
• Education
• Bullying
• Employment Preparation
• Tips for Bosses
• And many others!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 64
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Temple Talks … about Autism and the Older Child
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Phone and Fax: 888·507·2193
Online: www.sensoryworld.com
Email: [email protected]
© 2016 Temple Grandin
Cover and interior design by John Yacio III
Cover photo © Rosalie Winard
Stock images courtesy of Depositphotos
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this product may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of Sensory World, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1935567646
Contents
Introduction
Temple Talks about Autism and the Older Child
Building Social Skills and Doing New Things
The Importance of Shared Interests
Manners
The Importance of Structure in Teaching Living Skills
Eccentricity Is OK
Video Games and Tablets
The Brain
Bottom-Up Thinking
Thinking in Pictures
Types of Thinking
How to Determine Thinking Types
Education
Build on Strengths
Bullying
Problems in Education
Preparation for Employment
Activities for Learning Adult Skills
Free Online Resources
Asperger’s and Autism in the Workplace
Right Jobs for the Right Kind of Thinking
Careers
Tips for Bosses
Is Genius an Abnormality?
Q&A
Questions and Answers with Temple
Author Bio
A Little More about Me
Awards
Autism, a developmental neurological disorder, has a very wide spectrum. When kids with autism get older, they tend to fall into three different groups: completely verbal, partially verbal, and non-verbal with no useful speech. In my case, I had no speech until age four and then I became completely verbal. The first group of children (completely verbal) are either socially awkward with no speech delay or socially awkward with speech delay and then achieve normal speech. The second group (less verbal) may become partially verbal and the third group (non-verbal) never learns to speak. Within the non-verbal group, some children learn to type independently and have normal intelligence, and others have very severe impairments.
All children on the autism spectrum can benefit from good teaching. In elementary school, I had dedicated and experienced teachers who provided a structured environment. My ability in art was always encouraged. Educators should work to develop a child’s areas of strength. Art class made school fun and art became the basis of my career designing livestock facilities.
My goal in this book is to lay out how best to transition an older child with autism into the adult world. Transitions are most effective when training for the next phase in life starts before a child graduates from high school. In my own case, learning to work started in my teen years. I had a seamstress job and I cleaned horse stalls. This taught me the discipline and responsibility of a job outside the home.
Building Social Skills and Doing New Things
Too many of today’s kids are becoming recluses in their rooms. A psychologist recently described this phenomenon very effectively: There is a tendency for the world of a kid on the autism spectrum to contract. However, we must work to expand their world.
At the age of 15, I had the chance to visit my aunt’s ranch. It was across the country and I was afraid to go. Mother gave me a choice: I could go for one week or stay for the whole summer. Not going was simply not an option. I went and it changed my life for the better. A whole world of opportunity and my future career opened up during that trip. So, as people, we have to expand our horizons; we have to stretch; we have to learn to be comfortable, and this has to start when we are still in school. I know a kid who was afraid to go to sleep-away camp, but his mom told him to go. When he got there, he absolutely loved it. I think we all have experiences like that. Once you stretch, you are glad you did. In both cases, the trip away was not a surprise. Surprises cause fear and panic. I was shown pictures of the ranch and had talked to my aunt, months before the trip.
The Importance of Shared Interests
I also emphasize the importance of social interactions based on shared interests: school, clubs, and activities. Parents often ask me about public versus private schools. I don’t have a pat answer because so much depends on the particular school and the particular child. For example, one kid can do really well at a particular school, while another will be miserable.
Activities like Future Farmers of America are wonderful; so are Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and maker community groups. Maker groups are really cool; people get together and make all kinds of stuff—3D printings, robots. What if you live in a rural area? Well, how about fixing old broken lawnmowers? There’s plenty of them and they’re generally free. This brings up something else for getting kids motivated.
You have to show kids interesting stuff to get them interested and today kids are not being shown enough interesting things. Recently, I gave a lecture in a college class and the students asked me how I became interested in my passions. The answer is simple: I was exposed to cattle when I was in high school. People don’t develop an interest in new things unless they are exposed to them. This is one reason why you have to get children out and try a lot of different activities.
Manners
Too many kids today don’t know basic skills such as how to shake hands or say please and thank you. The parents do the talking for them, and they are not doing their children any favors. This problem is especially evident on the mild end of the autism spectrum. For example, I went to a conference for the gifted and saw the same kind of geeky little kids that I see at autism conferences, but they were going down a really good path. Between the autism world and the gifted world, there is almost no communication but there are many commonalities; in fact, at the gifted conference social seminar, I thought, “Wait a minute; this sounds like an autism meeting.” The autism and gifted programs really should be communicating with each other.
When teaching these kids manners, instead of screaming no, give instructions. If I ate mashed potatoes with my hands, my mother wouldn’t scream no. She would say, “Use the fork.” She would simply give the instruction instead of screaming no. That’s the way to do it. All concepts are formed by specific examples. The concept of good table manners is learned by many specific examples where dining behavior is corrected. Over time, we learn how to act, and how not to act. Learning behavior over time is a very important concept.
The Importance of Structure in Teaching Living Skills
My 1950s upbringing really helped me with living skills. I went to college with a lot of people who would be labeled with autism or Asperger’s today and they all got and kept jobs. One reason they’re all employed is that in the 1950s and 1960s social skills were pounded into every single kid. We learned to take turns in conversations and activities and always to be on time. A college counselor told me that up to 70% of college students on the spectrum have time management problems these days. For me, time management was easy because I learned to be on time for dinner.