Autism skills | For children on the spectrum -one question often stands out — why is it so difficult for kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to learn a new skill and hold onto it? Many times, it can feel like we’re grappling in the dark, striving to connect the dots. In this blog, we turn on the light and explore this fascinating part of autism.
We believe that to tackle a problem, we must first understand it. Looking at five important scientific studies, we delve deep into why learning might be a tough ride for our kiddos with ASD. But we don’t stop at just understanding the why; we also focus on what we can do about it.
This blog walks you through practical, easy-to-follow techniques that can transform the way children with ASD learn. These strategies are not just theories – they are born from rigorous research and tested in real-life situations.
Remember, the aim is not only to teach but also to ensure these skills stick, becoming a natural part of our children’s lives. Together, let’s illuminate the path of learning for children with ASD. Join us on this journey, and discover the joy of making a real difference in your child’s educational experiences.
Why is it so tricky for kids with Autism to learn a new skill and hold onto it?
Overview of Autism Skills Learning Theories | Decoding the Science
Study 1: Neurocognitive Basis
In a study by Brown and colleagues (2012), it was suggested that individuals with autism may struggle with integrating past experiences into present behaviour, a process that is underpinned by Rapid Experience-dependent Plasticity (REP) in neurotypical individuals. This difficulty might result in shortcomings in creating generic memories, subsequently hindering a child’s ability to maintain and apply the learned skills and knowledge.
Study 2: Systemizing vs. Empathizing
Baron-Cohen’s (2009) work reflects on the ‘Extreme Male Brain Theory of Autism’, where he suggests that individuals with Autism exhibit an inclination towards ‘systemizing’ over ’empathizing‘, fostering an understanding of systems rather than emotions. This may impact their ability to absorb and retain social and emotional learning, leading to difficulties in applying these skills in varied contexts.
Study 3: Fragile Skills
Aiko and colleagues (2002) delve into the phenomena of “learned and lost” or “fragile” skills in autism, implying that any interruption or variation in the learning process might lead to the loss of previously acquired skills, accounting for difficulties in maintenance.
Study 4: Working Memory Deficits
Emerging research by Steele and colleagues (2007) discusses memory deficits in people with autism, emphasizing that weaknesses in working memory might be a critical factor driving their struggle in the retention and application of skills and knowledge.
Study 5: Deficits in Implicit Learning
Brown and colleagues (2010)5 emphasize deficits in implicit learning where individuals with autism display challenges in learning patterns or rules unless explicitly pointed out, thereby impacting their ability to retain and generalize skills over time and across settings.
Why is it so tricky for kids with Autism to learn a new skill and hold onto it?
Transforming Challenges into Strengths: Practical Steps
While grappling with these challenges might seem daunting, bridging scientific understanding and daily life practice brings several practical strategies.Let’s break it down:
1. Fostering Rapid Experience-dependent Plasticity (REP) | What’s that again?
Rapid Experience-dependent Plasticity (REP) is a term used in neuroscience to describe how experiences can rapidly alter the brain structure and its function, which further affects behavior. REP involves changes in neural circuits in response to experiences or learning.
What?
In other words: Within the world of autism, REP (Rapid Experience-dependent Plasticity) is crucial for using past experiences to guide current behavior. Some scientists think that people with autism may have a hard time with this step, which can lead to trouble with forming certain types of memories. This might affect a child’s ability to keep and use the skills and knowledge they’ve learned.
Within the context of autism, REP is fundamental for integrating past experiences into present behavior. Researchers have postulated that individuals with autism might struggle with this basic process, which can result in difficulties in creating generic memories that can impact a child’s ability to maintain and apply the learned skills and knowledge.
In conclusion, REP is a critical process underlying learning and memory systems, and a better understanding of it and its mechanisms can provide crucial insights into how individuals with autism learn and maintain skills over time. In light of REP, instilling a sense of routine and consistency in teaching can be beneficial.
As educators and caregivers, it’s essential and inspiring to know that we’re not just teaching skills—we’re shaping brains. Here are a few practical, REP-focused strategies that can bring about transformative outcomes:
- Experiential Learning: Incorporate hands-on experiences that are closely aligned with real-life scenarios. It could be as simple as a simulated supermarket visit while teaching the concept of money or a role-play session to understand social cues. These meaningful, relevant experiences can catalyze powerful REP outcomes, reshaping neural pathways, and leading to profound behavioral shifts.
- Patterned Repetitive Activities: REP thrives on repetition. Build routines that involve repeating patterns, such as rhythmic physical activities (jumping, clapping, etc.) or activities that encourage a sequence (building blocks, puzzle-solving, etc.). Over time, these repetitive activities can foster the desirable neural changes.
- Responsive and Adaptive Learning Environment: An environment that responsively changes based on the child’s needs can be highly effective for fostering REP. This might mean adjusting the tasks’ difficulty, pacing the learning materials, or even modulating the classroom’s sensory environment (lighting, noise levels, etc.).
- Teaching Through Play: Play-based learning can be a powerful REP tool. Through play, children naturally engage with their environment and learn from the experiences that the play scenarios provide. It provides a stress-free environment where students can learn and grow at their own pace.
Regular practice of a skill helps to form and strengthen neural pathways, enhancing the likelihood of retention.
2. Balancing Systemizing and Empathizing | That means ..
In response to Baron-Cohen’s theory, a dual approach to teaching could be employed. Harness the ‘systemizing’ inclination to teach ’empathizing’ skills.
Wait what was that?
Understandably, some learning theories can feel like you’re trying to decode a puzzle. So, let’s break down Baron-Cohen’s theory and the dual approach in a more approachable way.
Baron-Cohen proposed that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have a strong ‘systemizing’ predisposition. ‘Systemizing’ is the drive to analyze, understand, predict, control and create order in the systems around us. For example, a person might have a knack for figuring out how a tool works or enjoy categorizing things.
On the other hand, ’empathizing’ is the ability to understand other people’s feelings and respond appropriately. While ‘systemizing’ comes naturally to many with autism, ’empathizing’ might be more challenging.
Our goal here is to leverage the strengths—the ‘systemizing’ tendencies—to improve the areas that are challenging—’empathizing’ skills. This dual-approach is like using one’s talent in painting to comprehend the less familiar realm of music theory.
Imagine you are teaching a child with ASD about emotional expressions, which falls under empathizing skills. You could create a system or a ‘chart’ of different human faces expressing different emotions—happy, sad, angry, and so forth to tap into their systemizing strength. Then, when someone is happy, the child refers to the ‘chart’ or system in their mind, identifies the emotion, and responds accordingly.
In simpler terms, this dual approach is about using what the child is good at (systemizing) to help improve an area that’s a bit harder for them (empathizing). By understanding and applying this, we can create effective learning environments for children with ASD—like helping them learn the ‘language of emotions’ in a way they understand best.
Can you imagine the transformative potential this approach holds? Together, we take one step closer to unlocking the true talents of those on the autism spectrum, and help them navigate social situations in a more comfortable, enjoyable way. Essentially, Social stories, visual aids, and explicit instruction can be used to teach emotional understanding in systematic, structured ways.
3. Stabilizing Fragile Skills | Learning is “fragile”
Following the revelation of ‘fragile skills’, implementing consistent reinforcement when teaching is crucial. Include their favorite activities, rewards, or social praises effectively to motivate, maintain, and generalize the learning process.
The methodologies of teaching the unique learners (children with ASD), we find the concept of ‘fragile skills’ assuming a central role. The term ‘fragile skills’ refers to the phenomenon wherein a skill, once learned by a child with ASD, does not solidify itself into the habitual cognitive architecture as is typically seen. Think of ‘fragile skills’ as skills learned by children with ASD that might not stick around as expected. The child seems to grasp a skill one day but might unexpectedly struggle with it the next day. This is like having a bookmark that tends to slip out of the book — it’s there, but it needs something to hold it in place.
Here’s where the role of reinforcement kicks in. It acts as the much-needed anchor for these ‘fragile skills.’ Reinforcement is just a way of saying, ‘Do it again, and here’s something that’ll make you want to.’ Break down tasks into chunks and regularly revisit them, allowing the skill to move from being newly learned to becoming a well-engrained habit. Think of it like watering a plant, too little and it might not grow, but the right amount at the right times can help it bloom beautifully.
Try to tie these repetitions with the child’s favoured activities. For instance, if your child enjoys a specific song, use it as a fun incentive to drive learning. Complete a task successfully, and they get to dance to their favorite tune.
But not all rewards have to be material-based or activity-based. Simple reinforcers work wonders. A simple pat on the back or words of appreciation like ‘That’s amazing, well-done!’ serve as boosts of motivation that drive them to perform better, learn more, and hold onto the skills they acquire.
Remember, we are not only teaching the students with autism a particular skill, but we are also teaching their brains to hold onto this skill, shaping their neural pathways, and turning a single “aha” moment into a lasting imprint.
With children with ASD tending to hold particular interests, successful reinforcement often intersects personal preferences with the learned skills, crafting a learning landscape textured with familiarity and attention-grabbing delights. For example, if music resonates with the child, incorporating their favorite music after a successful skill demonstration can create an auditory reward, amplifying the joy of learning and reinforcing the stationary hold of these skills.
However, it is crucial to remember that the reinforcement schedule i.e., when and how you present reinforcements, is as important as the reinforcements themselves. Establish a consistent, tailored approach that respects individual preferences and needs, reinforcing the learning process in resonant, meaningful, and repeated measures. The goal is an active cognitive engagement that morphs the so-called ‘fragile skills’ into permanent cognitive fixtures.
4. Supporting Working Memory | A picture is worth a thousand words
Given memory deficits’ impact, providing visual supports, practical demonstrations, and breaking down complex tasks into smaller, simpler steps can dramatically aid children with autism to remember and retain skills/knowledge.
Let’s first acknowledge the power of visual supports in boosting memory. Just as a road sign guides the way for a traveler, visual aids can steer the learning course for a child with ASD. By creating a tangible imprint of abstract concepts, visual supports cater to the child’s holistic comprehension and recall. It’s akin to lighting up a dark room— everything makes much more sense when you can see it. Visual aids like diagrams, charts or simple pictorial cues can act as mental hooks, enhancing data retrieval and reinforcing the learning experience.
Next, we have practical demonstrations. Walking a child through a skill or concept in a hands-on, interactive manner can be an excellent way to make learning more captivating and memorable. Remember, we’re not simply addressing their minds; we’re reaching out to their innate curiosity and fostering their active participation in the learning process. Showing them “how it’s done” in a practical context scaffolds the knowledge, which in turn aids memory consolidation.
5. Strengthening Implicit Learning
Explicit teaching, clear instructions, and reinforcement strategies can help bridge deficits in implicit learning. As educators and parents, be the guide that points out the patterns and rules in an engaging, patient, and persevering manner.
Explicit Learning is a type of learning where someone actively and consciously tries to learn something. It often involves structured instructions, like in a classroom setting. For example, when a teacher explains a math formula, and you deliberately work on understanding and using that formula, you are explicitly learning.
Implicit Learning, on the other hand, is learning that happens without us consciously trying to learn. It often happens unconsciously through experiences and practice, and it’s more about ‘knowing how’ rather than ‘knowing that’. For example, learning to ride a bike or learning the grammar of a language by speaking it regularly are forms of implicit learning.
This transformative journey, from comprehension to substantial action, calls for a blend of academic rigor and compassionate understanding. By matching the stride of science with empathy, we stand to create an educational landscape ripe for progress, where children with ASD not just learn skills but effectively retain them, steering towards an enriched, independent life.
Bridge the gap, enable growth, and remember, that every challenge in autism provides an opportunity for an innovative solution. Our role, as involved caregivers and parents, lies in uniting our resources of knowledge, strategies, and passion, fostering their quest for lifelong learning, and encouraging their path towards an inclusively rewarding journey.
Sources:
- Brown, J. W., & Braver, T. S. (2012). A computational model of risk, conflict, and individual difference effects in the anterior cingulate cortex. Brain Research, 1428, 141–154.
- Baron-Cohen, S. (2009). Autism: The Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) Theory. The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience 2009: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156(1), 68–80.
- Aiko, Y. & Akira, W. (2002). Autistic children with a “Learned and Lost” developmental trajectory. Annual Report Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, 14, 80-81.
- Steele, S. D., Minshew, N. J., Luna, B., & Sweeney, J. A. (2007). Spatial working memory deficits in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(4), 605–612.
- Brown, J., Aczel, B., Jimenez, L., Kaufman, S. B., & Grant, K. P. (2010). Intact implicit learning in autism spectrum conditions. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(9), 1789–1812.
