Do the staff at your child's school maximise opportunities for communication for him/her?

[sphil]

By which I mean, do they attempt to engage your child, interact and communicate with them in assemblies, play times, outings and other occasions outside the direct instruction of the classroom? DS2 (ASD with SLD) is only basically verbal - requests only, using single words, - but is VERY keen to interact and communicate, using eye contact, facial expressions and a few gestures. Time and time again I see staff fail to respond to these overtures, or only do so minimally. Is this common, in your experience?

My only worry with that, Sphil is that if gee only has to communicate with an expert communicator (you) who understands him whether his words are as clear as he can manage or not, then he could have little incentive to improve.

Something I try hard to do with DD1 is not to try and guess too much what she is saying. If I don't understand I say 'sorry, DD1, say it again...' because there is no point in me giving the impression that she is clear if in fact even I can't understand her.

I agree, and this is definitely a problem we have had already. When we were doing the Growing Minds course, they taught us 'shaping' - ie. prompting the correct pronunciation and gradually fading the prompt, then the next time starting with the least prompt and working up to a full prompt if needed. It worked very well -he went from 'dicker' to 'tickle' in two days -but like so many things, we've let it lapse because we understand him. This may be the wake up call I need to start it again - where ever he is in terms of school.

Okay this is going to be a long reply for which I apologise.

Your ds2 has very good communication. He is often used as an example of a severely autistic child who has limited tools with which to interact (so limited speech for example) but who is able to use what he has to interact in ways not typically expected of children with autism (eg teasing). When we do the research however, we never assess the child in isolation and a key point of our research is that the competence we see is co-constructed. In other words the way in which the co-participant in the interaction responds is key to the way in which the interaction progresses (and for the competence to be developed). You are an excellent co-participant (this is often commented on tbh in data sessions etc). To be fair to the school the times that ds2 shows particular competence and abilities is when the interaction is child led. And those opportunities will be more limited in school. He's also pretty cheeky/good at communicating in a jokey disruptive type way during table sessions. But the tolerance for that type of behaviour might be more limited in a unit classroom (they're pretty good at ds1,s school,- will take time out to laugh with him and have a joke, they didn't tolerate it at mainstream at all).

My fear for you if you home Ed for two years is that he'll go back into school still without effective communicative partners.

Am going tk post this now before the post disappears (don't trust iPad and then will write some suggestions in the next post).

Jimjams please don't apologise - you've made me feel happier than I have done for days! .

Must get Ds to school - will get back later

So thinking about ds1. His communication at school was always more limited than at home. I thinking part this was because so few people understood him. He got round this by having 'fixed' jokes that he would play out with particular people - but these were always the same - they had to be or he wouldn't be understood.

What has made a difference to him is being understood. So the talker. The big thing about the talker is that he would use it (he wouldn't use proloquo2go for example), and I think the reason he is so keen to use it is because a) it is quick and b) LAMP - for him - works and has made it incredibly easy to learn new vocab.

The first thing the talker has done for him is give him access to a hundreds of new words (that he already knows but has never been able to use). So for example 2 days ago the computer which is in it's last legs nearly died. I said that it needed tk be fixed. He went to bed. An hour later he appeared talker in hand and said 'new computer' I said no it would be fixed, and we found 'fixed' on the computer. Prior to the talker that conversation would have been impossible even with me. He could have come down and dragged me to the computer and pointd saying 'deedan' (computer) but he had no way of saying 'new' and it's not a word I was sure he understood.

That sort of effect is a hundred times larger everywhere else because I was the only person who really understood anything much at all prior to the talker. Respite are blown away by his communication now. And school send me all sorts of things in the home school book that he's told them that just couldn't have been communicated without a functioning 'voice'.

The second thing the talker is doing is teaching new vocab as he is finally actually using language rather than just being a passive recipient. Fixed is an example of that. And there are 1000's of words waiting for him.

So my advice would be to ring Verity and arrange an assessment! A kid standing next to you pressing buttons saying 'new office after christmas' can't be ignored (this refers to building works and is a favourite topic if conversation this week) - because he keeps saying it until he gets a response - and well without the talker that conversation wouldn't even have started. How on earth would he have communicated 'office'.? Incidentally no-one knew he understood 'office' - he read the building plans up on the wall - and has shown me exactly where everything is going. But well, without the talker we just would have had no idea, and no way to have that conversation.

It's also easier ime to get people to tune into the talker and respond to that, than to get them to learn individual idiosyncratic methods of communication - which are often context dependent.

Good luck! I did tell Verity about you so if you talk to her mention me and A. There may be other ways to make ds2 more understandable -his speech is a lot clearer than ds1's- but in ds1's case that was always his barrier to communicating - getting other people to tune in and understand him. Tbh it needs such a high level of involvement with him that I'm the only person who ever managed it - and with the talker I understand him a hundred times better.

I agree with Saintly.

DD1 can be an aytypical communicator, and tbh, I'm not even sure her SS realise it. That is because at home, she'll be very adventurous with her use of language, and we take the 'long way' to understanding her. She'll say 'long yoghurt' for Frube, or 'it pink and go weee' for slide, for example.

At school, I suspect that she sticks to safer topics where she can express herself. I know they find it hard to understand her at times, but then lots of adults in general who don't understand something simply fade it out until they reach a bit they do understand, don't they? That's why we can decipher some foreign conversations, because we can latch on to the central words, use the context we are in, and ignore the detail.

For example, I am in an on-line group with a multi-lingual make up. All members use English, some better than others, but there are around 8 or 9 different languages of origin. There was an argument in group, and one person was sticking up for a largely marginalised group within the group. It wasn't going down well, because the person in charge didn't want to hear it. One person got badly attacked and another then resorted to defend them, by using Swedish. Now, I've never heard Swedish, never read Swedish. But by the context, and the fact that I could decipher that 'unika' was 'unique' and some other words, I could tell that the person was saying 'you're attacking someone who is important to this group. I don't know what your agenda is, but I've got your card marked'.

It sounds like your DS's school haven't tuned in to your DS. In fact, it sounds like they haven't even reached the stage I illustrate above - they're not able or willing to pick through the 'white noise' of stuff they don't understand to find the gems of stuff they can understand.

So, you can either focus on the school, or your DS. In the long run, your best approach would be to focus on your DS.

Fantastic posts - thank you both. Your comments are really helping me to focus on what's important.
Jimjams - you are so right about the fixed routines - I'd never really thought about it before, but this is exactly what DS does at school. He knows there are certain people who he can ask for tickles because they understand what 'dicker' means and he is always very engaged with them as a result. He knows that his 1:1 sings him a particular Italian song, so will ask her for that (in Italian!!) but no-one else. I did contact Verity, but all the training was so far away [ wimp emoticon]. Will definitely have another look - A's progress has been so wonderful.
Lougle - you're right - they haven't tuned in ( except his 1:1s, but we're losing them). And I suspect if I repeated your foreign language analogy to them, they'd look a t me as if I was mad! I feel sometimes as if there's a wall up - they listen to me and nod their heads, but nothing gets assimilated. Eother because they're thinking 'interfering woman, why doesn't she let us get on with it?' behind the smiles and nods, or because they genuinely don't get it.
Focusing on my DS sounds like a good move to me!

Sorry Jimjams - a couple of questions about LAMP. Did you go to a training day first, or was your DS assessed? I know he had a trial of the Vantage - how did you organise that?

Oh I didn't mean go to LAMP training, I meant get Verity round to do a trial. I didn't have any LAMP training before the trial (it's not rocket science tbh - and Ds1 leads the way - I don't do much). Ds1's private SALT organised the training but you could just email Verity and ask her about it. Mention me . It's obviously best organised by an in-school SALT but ours couldn't get all that involved because of staff shortages so it's been organised quite separately, although she had some sessions with him. Although as it's a communication rather than education tool I think that's better anyway. I'm sort of nominally the organiser/co-ordinator but I don't do much.

Oh apparently I still haven't had proper LAMP training. Perhaps we could go together sometime!

Agh ds1's salt organises the trial. They give you training during the trial which is why I am getting confused.

Sphil I uploaded another video to the blog last night of ds1 with his talker yesterday. We'd been 'chatting' for about quarter of an hour before I grabbed the camera (and of course he then started to get a bit shouty). It's not the 'neatest' of interactions but I think it shows how it has allowed him to communicate more easily and widely.

I love the bit where he smiles before saying 'happy' - was he teasing you then? It is really great to watch. Can you change the American voice? DS doesn't respond to accents other than English at all!

It has loads of voices - we use that one because it's fast. They find the more natural sounding voices have a short time delay between pushing the button and getting the voice because of the processing power required and for LAMP it needs to be pretty much instantaneous with finishing the button pushing sequence. You may find ds doesn't mind the accent as after all he does't have to listen to it iyswim - it's his way of getting you to do what he wants.

The happy bit cracked me up. It is typical that he started shouting about the ruddy building works as soon as I started filming but without the talker that would have escalated considerably and I think he would have got stuck shouting about it. With the talker he was able to regulate himself and come back to earth.

Really think you should get Verity round for a trial

Went into school today and his teacher told me she loves it because she doesn't have to touch it. She said they never touch it in school (I think the SALT does sometimes for 1:1 sessions she sets up) - and the love that they don't need to - that ds1 is just totally independent with it. They were very wary of it initially as they thought it would take lots of man power and learning and be difficult to implement. But they've found it really easy.

Easy because they don't have to do anything!

It does sound ideal. Have emailed Verity!

Yay!

When I say 'they don't touch it' I mean they can use it in lessons etc but ds1 doesn't need any help, so it can just be used as a tool. They send me a note home if they want any vocab added.