Comments on: Unheard of? Think again. Interview with autistic teacher - Geraldine Robertson.

By: Jane Telfer

Jane Telfer — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:54:58 +0000

Wow, I am so pleased I found Donna’s site. Can’t stop reading. I am not on the AS but work with children who do, and all that I reading is so amazing and opening up new thoughts. Am recommending it to all I feel are interested. All the articles are written in such a positive tone. Not telling us what to do but giving insights as to some of the thoughts and feeling we may be unaware of in the people we are trying to help to get the best out of life. Thanks to Donna, your honesty and clarity of writing are great.

By: donna

donna — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:37:15 +0000

the thing about stims is there’s stims and there’s tics.
mirroring someone’s tics only makes them even more self conscious, invaded, and anxious so they tic more.

and with stims, its really about the role of stims in someone’s life.
stims need to be distinguised from addictions
if a stim is an addiction, it can get to a point where its no longer volitional
and ultimately can take up to 80% of their waking day and if that’s a 2 or 3 year old then bye bye any chance of development

for example I’ve worked with a few kids this highly addicted to head banging and groin rubbing and it’s just so terribly sad, in the end left to stim freely, it went to addictive proportions at the expense of ALL other occupations, communication, interaction… so we have to remember that addiction changes the approach.

stimming by volition, not addiction, is entirely different and many types of self stimulatory behaviours are really important to self calming, getting through info overload, forms of sensory perceptual exploration, part of social communication, expressions of anxiety and disconnection. So there’s many cases where some stimming should be understood and accepted within a diversity framework, but there are other cases where what is not a stim is labeled one or where addiction is mistakenly presumed to be volition.

Donna *)

By: Ettina

Ettina — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:26:50 +0000

“While I have never had a problem getting along with children, parents are often initially not able to relate to me. When they see their children happy, loved and learning, those barriers break down because their prime concern is the wellbeing of their children. I then develop excellent working relationships with most parents.”

I can relate to that. I’ve gotten better at relating to parents of autistics, mainly by meeting parents of disabled kids on the internet and getting to understand them better, but I’m still usually able to relate to their kid better than them. I managed to convince one parent to let her son stim partly by her watching us stim interactively. I volunteer with disabled kids, and I’m planning to make a career out of teaching autistics. One idea I have is to videotape the sessions if the parents can’t sit in, so they can watch how I relate to their child.