Autism

We can all be more or less sociable, but we humans are indubitably social animals. We all have the need to communicate with others at certain moments, either to accept or to reject, to gain or to avoid.  Similarly, we tend to repeat experiences that were positive to us and try to avoid situations which produce negative feelings.  But many people do not allow themselves to experience positive interactions.

We have all heard about the triad of impairments in autism.

This triad is the way autism gets diagnosed.  Most autistic individuals struggle on this areas, certainly in the area of social interactions. However, within the realm of autism we seem to be dealing more with a square than a triangle, as we need to account for the sensory issues a huge percentage of autistic people have.  Autism is a behavioural based condition rooted in difficulties in the emotional, social- communication, cognitive and sensory domains. 

                                                            Social Development 

                                                            and Interaction                         Social

                                                                                                            communication

                                                            Rigidity

                                                            Imagination          Sensory

                                                                                            issues

The above model is based on what individuals cannot do or struggle to do, therefore the term impairments, which is rather negative and it seems to convey the very clear message of one being faulty!

Intensive interaction is based on the premise that an individual is not faulty nor broken and although the individual may struggle in some areas, they can certainly excel in many others, as it is the case for most autistic individuals I know.

 Intensive Interaction recognises the whole person and not focuses on which areas they may struggle with.

The triad model is therefore, old fashion and very negative for the person.  If we are to support a person’s emotional well-being, the starting point should not be based on what they cannot do but rather what they can do.  The social and emotional well-being is prior to any learning taking place as we need to be in an optimal metal state in order to being able to receipt and process any new learning.  Therefore, in order to learn new skills we need to be in a good place both mentally and physically.  In other words, if we suffer from toothache or a migraine, it will be almost impossible for us to focus on learning a new skill as the pain will take over our processing.

Although most behaviours do, not every action we undertake has a communicative intent.  Think about the sensory internal activities/noises and actions some individuals do.  These seem to have neither communicative intent, nor communicative value. Rather, they serve a function for that particular individual.  And of course, a particular behaviour may serve different functions. For example, to play with saliva may have a powerful visual or tactile effect on an individual (it could be a multidimensional visual, olphative -sense of smell-, tactile experience), who also may use this behaviour to avoid social interaction (people avoiding this person as s/he is playing with saliva).  Similarly, this behaviour could be a means of controlling his/her environment (by avoiding interactions with others and/or being in control of the flow of the saliva).  This person may not know effective and appropriate ways of communicating with others but s/he is certainly proficient in the use of saliva as a means of controlling his/her immediate environment, as well as providing gratified sensory multi-layered stimulation in some cases.  In other words, one behaviour may serve multiple functions.

In order to know and try to help a person, we need to analyse the way that person behaves and the possible functions that behaviour may serve for that particular individual:

It seems to be all about :

To get or avoid:  

•                     social interaction

control over environment

•                     sensory input

Most of these interactions seem to be communicative acts (although not all, as discussed before, as some acts may be entirely self-referential). On some occasions a person can suffer from ''sensory overload'' and needs to retreat to a 'comfortable place' where he or she feels secure (these could be special places, items, activities, gestures, repetitive behaviours, etcetera).

The understanding of certain behaviour comes through a thorough and comprehensive assessment which covers:

•                     biological

•                     psychological

•                     social

•                     environmental aspects

Sometimes a specific behaviour is intrinsically or internally rewarding, so that it becomes self-reinforced. That is, the behaviours are so rewarding that what happens around the individual is not nearly as important as their internal experience.

For example: spitting, the functions of this behaviour could be to avoid social interaction (learned behaviour), or simply sensory (visual, tactile, auditory, smell); and the meanings of this behaviour could also be various: to gain or avoid social interaction, self-regulation. All these seem to be related to social interaction (in order to gain or avoid) and sensory needs.

We need to help an individual who lacks in social skills or even in the fundamentals of the communication process to learn that communicating can be a rewarding and enjoyable end in itself.