I was approached by a student in architecture, Regina Chen, from The National University of  Singapore about the way people with autism perceive space.  Whilst I’m only one person with autism and every ‘autism fruit salad’ is a different combination, I have worked with 100s of people on the autism spectrum so felt I’d reply as best I could keeping that diversity in mind.  Here’s my replies:REGINA CHEN:

1. Do you think there are problems( problem in the teaching space and not teaching method) in current special schools?

DONNA WILLIAMS:

As set out in the book, Autism; An Inside Out Approach,  different people with autism have different classroom requirements.  Some can’t visually process cohesively when up close to other people or objects and process best when at a distance because otherwise things appear fragmented.  Others may have untreated short sightedness and need to sit up the front of the classroom or nearer to the activity.  Some people with autism experience overhead lighting as dramatically contributing to information overload, even to the point it triggers distress, behavioural challenges or contributes to loss of information processing on a range of sensory perceptual channels.  Those people might benefit from seating underneath a row of lights left turned off.  But others will have no problem with lighting, even prefer bright lighting so would be best seated underneath that lighting.

Some people with autism are highly vigilant, solitary by nature or have acute Exposure Anxiety and don’t cope well with being watched like a hawk, fixated on, overcontrolled by others or crowded into a social learning situation in close proximity to others.  These people will benefit from a ‘satellite’ style of layout and private work spaces.

Some people with autism require a quiet dark space to regularly take time out from all blah-blah and visual processing so a tent or large dark box may suit them for this.  Some require regular movement or rhythm to self regulate and manage impulse control, mood and anxiety challenges so a mini trampoline or cushion pile or hanging swing in a corner of the room could help.  Others won’t need this at all.  Some will require access to headphones to tune out the volume or tumbling auditory chaos which can come from a noisy classroom and need access to headphones or music to self-stabilise.

Some will have allergies to perfumes including deodorants which may make them disoriented or nauseas so require staff to not wear such things.  Some will be so face blind they will be unable to familiarise with staff unless they wear the same hair style and key colors or clothing they have come to identify them by. Some classrooms have acoustics which can cause room sounds to appear tumbled in with speech, minimising language processing.  Some classrooms have visual clutter everywhere of displays accumulated through the year and if someone can’t filter what they take in, this bombardment may contribute daily to reducing their information processing and orientation on a range of other levels.

Some children struggle to process information and manage the motor planning and muscle tone to sit in a chair for any length of time and work better when able to sit on the floor or walk about.  Some are content to move between two allocated chairs.  Many classrooms have everything inside of cupboards and those who can’t internally mentalise may be unable to draw upon the concepts of what they need unless they can see what they need.

REGINA CHEN:

2. Do you think the designed schools for autistic children are too rigid and uncreative, if yes, what kind of spaces do you fantasize? (attached is some comparison of spaces in school )

DONNA WILLIAMS:

I think classrooms are usually traditional and conventional.  Visit a Steiner classroom (sensory learning) or a Montessori classroom (hands on, tactile kinesthetic learning) or a Community School classroom (invidualised programs) or a Deaf-Blind classroom and you get a broader sense of just how narrow and traditional most of our special school classrooms are.  Ideal spaces?  Those which are adaptable to the needs of a wide range of autism ‘fruit salads’ and don’t rely on old or new stereotypes which presume one word equals one condition comparable for all with the same diagnosis.

REGINA CHEN:

3. I have seen your drawing through your website, is these drawing how you see the world or it is a re-interpretation of the surrounding world?
DONNA WILLIAMS:

Ah, some of my paintings and sculptures demonstrate things like Exposure Anxiety, kinesthetic learning, system’s thinking, meaning deafness, face blindness, visual perceptual fragmentation, lack of simultaneous processing of self and other, so, yes, they do represent sensory perception of the surrounding world but also the cognitive, social and emotional experience of it.  Because of this, teachers and psychologists have begun using my art as teaching and communication tools with children with autism.  I think this is sometimes a better bridge than the presumption that communication of understanding must be through words or touch.  Sometimes it is about confirming one has grasped an alternative ‘normality’ and art and music can be good mediums for that.

REGINA CHEN:

4.The current program that are used in most school are teaching methods such as T.E.A.C.H.  etc. I was thinking of streaming down this methods into specific talents area such art ,  music, maths, computer etc. Thereby, creating different spaces such as studios instead of classroom for this children. Do you think this is applicable, or you have further suggestion?

DONNA WILLIAMS:

I think it can be applicable to those who are solitary learners, have Exposure Anxiety, require more individualised programes, deal with high levels of sensory perceptual chaos or are more naturally geared for autonomy.  But it would be a mistake to project that onto ALL people with autism.  The real issue is CHOICE and stopping marketeers from brainwashing service providers into believing only ‘their product’ is the ‘right one with autism’.  Because there is no one autism, therefore no ‘right one product’.

REGINA CHEN:

5.Do you think that whatever we are teaching the autistic children now are something we try to imposed on them, I mean they may know exactly what they want for a spaces or in their own world, but we sort of force them out to accommodate to the normal world?

DONNA WILLIAMS:

I think there’s definitely a lot of presumption of total pathology projected onto people with autism and that some of what appears most ‘pathological’ is a natural response to a foreign and inflexible system that inadvertently blocks or sabotages the development of healthy adaptations based directly on the challenges the person themselves is tackling daily.  I do think many of the alternatives are not even explored, particularly if they don’t have big money markets pushing them out there.  For example, an Indirectly Confrontational Approach is cost free, yet because there’s no money in it, nobody pushes it big time at the schools or special ed graduates etc.  RDI (Relationships Development Intervention) is about individualised programs, or Floortime and is something people can intuitively pick up, so it’s not as marketted as things like ABA, Option, PECS, TEACCH, LOVAAS, or any of the other big money spinners. I create invidualised programs for families, but in the 50s and 60s families had to come up with such things themselves.  They watched their autistic child, learned the systems, trialled things, adapted them, kept what worked, built on it.  Today parents are often taught helplessness and lead to believe someone else will bring some one sized fits all answer in a neat purchasable box for them, and that just impoverishes and disempowers so many families.  When I see these practices being pushed into Third World countries I get even more annoyed.

REGINA CHEN:

6.If you were the designer, what kind of spaces will you want to design for yourself, as a autistic child or adult?  e.g. if you have blurry images, distortion in seeing or other visual thinking ( you may want to sketch or draw something which you like.)

DONNA WILLIAMS

Let’s throw out the Visual Thinking presumption.  It’s a new stereotype and the stats are that 60-65% of non-autistic people think visually so there’s nothing particularly autistic about it.  As someone with visual agnosias who grew up with visual perceptual fragmentation I am no more a visual thinker than someone blind from birth.  If I could internally mentalise visually I wouldn’t have half the executive function challenges I have.  So, MY world.  Mine is a world of pattern, theme, feel, a place of rote, of musical learning.  It’s a kinesthetic world, a place of movement, felt forms and textures, a place in which the sound of an object gives it more meaning than the sight of it.  My hands are my eyes and ears and without gesture and objects words become confetti.  It’s a world of systems and categories, of circuits and space.   My classroom is a deaf-blind one, with splashes of Montessori and enough Steiner to feel being a sensate isn’t something ‘less’.  My classroom is a hands on discovery learning space with opportunities for solitary learning yet access to spy on the social learners, to take their patterns and repeat them in my own world until I’m ready to explore projecting them back in the external world.  My classroom has low lighting, space to move, no confinement to chairs, no perfumes and good acoustics so blah is not only reduced but doesn’t tumble about in the echo.  My classroom has tunes which start up on a timer to indicate transitions.  It has allocated spaces for different categories of activity.  It has cupboards with the ability to see what’s inside.  It has words on all objects to link language to action in my kinesthetic world.  It has activities which are demonstrated to the object, not to the person, in small doses, non-invasively, without expectation of immediate participation or feedback.  It is a place where my achievements are acknowledged in a low key manner, allowed to be my own, not flag waved unless and until I felt socially ready to do so. It is a place where my activities are non-invasively and seemlessly morphed into their sensory extensions not quashed as innappropriate or bizarre.  It is a place where my personal fruit salad is understood and not lost within a label and in which my personhood is never in the shadow of nor confused with my diagnosis.  But that’s just MY classroom, and every person with autism would have their own varients.  We should never forget that.

Warmly,

Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.

author, lecturer and autism consultant

http://www.donnawilliams.net