Is anyone doing HALO or Informative Pointing or anything similar with their non verbal child?

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

I am revisiting....... would be keen to swap ideas.....

Not heard of this, my nephew is non-verbal, cannot not press buttons. At 21 his mum has learned to understand him. Something we tried, but sadly did not work with C. Brought a parking sensor from Maplins set it to the lowest setting (min sensing distance) and printed a picture (food, toilet, tv) and set it above the sensor. The buzzer only goes off about 5ish cm from the sensor so had to be a deliberate hand moment in front of the sensor to set it off. We thought if it worked we could make it more elaborate...

That's creative! Shame it didn't work. Does your nephew have physical disabilities?

Some HALO video here - the second video with the non-verbal student.

Informative Pointing is v. similar.

The problem I have is that as soon as I sit down to do anything remotely like work with ds1 he completely refuses to engage or take part. He will choose between 2 options in social settings (and can even understand yes/no now - used it yesterday - 'do you want more pancakes yes or no' no). But if I try and do the Informative Pointing or Halo type exercises he just refuses.

MrsT, sorry to hijack.

dd1 is verbal, so we don't do informative pointing or similar, but she is exactly like your ds in that she willnot engage/co-operate.

She is untestable (despite, we think, not partic having learning difficulties) because she willnot comply with any testing at all. as soon as she gets wind of the fact that you are trying to ask or teach her something, she willnot co-operate, and will often deliberatley give the wrong answer,

eg, if asked ot label a picture of a sheep (knows it well, happy with it in all situations) she will say something like "it's not a cow" and burst out laughing.

yet she will sit, on her terms, and go through an entire picture dictionary labelling everhtng she can, or will happily chat to me about sheep in fields that she sees o the way to school (this morning, the sheep were apparently eating their cornflakes before resting, then getting ready for a swim )

it si jsut so frustrating.

yes, very frustrating. We were doing a reading writing program which ds1 was able to do. It was exactly at his level, but his compliance became worse and worse and then spilled out into non-tutoring sessions as well. I was coming out black and blue (literally). In the end I decided it was ridiculous and stopped. His general behaviours is much better now, but he does this sort of passive disengagement as soon as something work like is brought out. His eye contact and engagement is usually excellent. As soon as it looks like work it goes, he stares into space, his hands go limp and he just refuses to even look at the materials. He's somewhere else.

So frustrating. His teachers at school agree that they think he is a very capable but struggle to get him to engage in work (not surprised).

Yet, if it's something he likes he will bring me - for example and book- and go through and show me all sorts and work incredibly hard to try and get his point across.

that's exactly how dd1 used to be at school. we've put her in an ABA school for now, and she seems to be participating well, but we're not counting any chickens

she is currently on a charm offensive, and has succeeded in luring everyone in - I predict that within the next 3 weeks she'll start playing up... hopefully they've got a handle on it (consultant at school is the same as we've used for home programme for 2 years so is well versed in dd1's ways!)but I'm not holding my breath...

I bought Soma's manual.

It's good actually. Very good. Will review it on the blog soon.

Of all the approaches we've tried so far this does seem to be working well. She talks about needing to go very slowly (in the past I think I have rushed to try typing too early). I can't say I'm doing it exactly the way she would because it's hard to ensure you do that from a book, but we have had some success. I have found DS1 is good at circling answers from a choice of two. And he does better if the answers are kept on a sheet of paper rather than ripped off. And definitely better at circling the answer rather than touching it. She made me think a lot about his sensory perception (which likes most people with sever autism is probably completely bizarre) and presenting work in a way that counteracts that.

DS1 isn't objecting too much (not at all if I stick to things he wants to talk about).

I've re-joined HALO as well.

Anyone want to join in?

Great video here

Do you know about Talking Mats?

Low tech. intervention which can be amazingly effective. Not much video available of it unfortunately, but if you read the page I link to, there are links to two clips mear the bottom.

Yep, I know a bit about talking mats.

TBH - ds1 is very happy to communicate socially about his wants/needs/feelings/things that interest him -does it very well using choices and pen and paper, or a tapping system we have developed. That's all very natural and easy and it happens regularly and naturally throughout the day. And if he's saying something I don't understand will happily indicate to me what he's saying thought circling a written word or tapping the correct choice out of however many choices I give him.

He is not happy being taught anything though. Very, very very averse to any sort of teaching, instruction and I'm hoping that HALO will give him that.

How annoying, can't access those clips so don't really know what it is.
Is he averse to you in a pedagogical situation or others too? Obviously very common for kids to reject such a scenario with close family member.

Others too. Especially at home (home is home iykwim), but they have similar problems at school. They find it frustrating too. Interactive whiteboard has helped, he will do stuff on there that he wouldn't do elsewhere. And sometimes putting him with the older or more academically able children seems to help.

Halo is a teach ask style of teaching, where you start by using fixed choices in a teach ask format. So at the beginning you would start with something very easy like the days of the week, teach them then ask 'what day comes after Tuesday is it Wednesday (spell it out and write on a piece of paper) or apple (spell out and write on another sheet of paper). Hand the pen to the child who then circles the correct answer. It's been used to get children who have been previously thought of as being severely learning disabled doing age appropriate work. Slowly you move onto writing and typing as well. Obviously as the child becomes more confident and gets the idea you would move onto closer choice, Wednesday or thursday rather than Wednesday or apple for example.

It's independent from the beginning, - you might hold up pieces of paper or a letterboard at the beginning but you don't physically support arms etc - or if you do you don't for very long. And you would work towards the child working with the paper or letterboard flat on the table and with no physical support. It's been developed for use with severely autistic non-verbal kids. Informative pointing is more or less the same, but political differences mean they've sort of gone their separate ways. There may be more emphasis on typing with IP, although I'm not sure, that just may reflect the different ways they've been written about.

DS1 is able to use the technique to talk about choices, (what he wants to do, where he wants to go, what he wants to eat), interests (why he likes something, what he likes- and he understands 'something else' as well as a choice which is useful when you are guessing) and feelings (he hit his head because he was cross not because he was sad). He's lying down because he's poorly not because he's tired (that was the first time I used it, - he was very clear in his choice, and threw up 30 minutes later- the only time I've ever been pleased to have a child of mine throw up!) In fact he likes doing it for these sorts of things. When he's next going to respite, what he wants to take with him, what he wants to watch on YouTube, which beach he wants to go to etc etc. He does best with a plain A4 pad and choices written either side. He then circles pretty well. He does even better with tapping (so I say the choices and tap different spots on the table or nearby wall or floor, he taps the spot that corresponds to his choice) although I am trying to do more circling that tapping slowly (think it's easier and more accurate for teaching).

But as soon as I try and teach with it - whoosh - he's off! Or freezes. I think he is terrified actually, he gets very anxious. It's something that has developed gradually over the last few years (aversion to teaching). I've only been trying a couple of days though. And we have had some answers (correct ones too).

That sounds very interesting.
I'll get my technician (aka dh) to have a fiddle with computer when he gets home.

When used skillfully, Talking Mats can do something similar.I know of a case where used very successfully with someone with severe LD to give police vital information about abuse suffered in the home.

I presume you have tried token reinforcement systems re 'work' (daft question probably-I think you said you found it hard identifying powerful enough reinforcers?)

Yes, reinforcement is always a problem. Although doing a 'first this then favourite thing' can work. But not if he's really aversive.

Halo does have quite a lot of ideas about the sensory and motor processing issues, and the flight response (which I am beginning to think these extreme reactions are), so I have some ideas of things to try.

Actually generally chatting about his favourite regular topics then slipping in 2 teach-ask questions did work at the weekend - although the response instantly slowed, it did come and very deliberately and confidently eventually, so it may be a case of just introducing the style very slowly.

Using tapping or circling over the last 6 months or whatever ds1's back and forth interactions (with me in particular as I use it the most) have increased a lot, and it corresponds to an increase in his understanding which has been recognised and commented on by everyone - especially school, so I think it has helped enormously anyway. If it can be applied to teaching as well it will be very helpful in increasing literacy.

I do keep meaning to find out more about Talking Mats. I read about them a while ago in Communication Matters and thought they looked interesting then.

aversive? averse to the idea.

The other useful thing is that if I don't give an acceptable choice ds1 just doesn't answer at all and won't until I produce the correct one (or 'something else').

It does make communication quite flexible, if sometimes lengthy.

Lots of interesting research in JABA on high demand versus low demand tasks and slipping the latter into former (all response effort stuff).
Link to Talking Mats resource pack with dvd
Your SALTs may have a copy to lend you.Unfortunatley, if it's the one I've got, it's a bit grim-women in early 90s Laura Ashley sitting in what looks like a hospital waiting room with different service users.

They really need to market themselves better.

So for example at one stage today ds1 came up to me and said 'nanee nanee nanee' whilst pointing at the computer. nanne could be a million things but it was easily sorted with 'are you saying:
'respite' (tap one spot) 'tamar bridge' or 'bromley' these are of course guesses based on the things I know he likes on the computer, as soon as I said Bromley his hand was touching the spot.

He still uses PECS of course, and rushes off and finds his own reference objects, or drags me to something to show me, and signs etc, this is just another resource. The tapping is not Halo or IP - it's something we've made up together, but has similarities I think- enough to be useful.

oh and of course there's Carly Fleischmann. You will be interested in her story because her father talks a lot about ABA. I initially heard about her through the IP community. I'm interested in her description of her body not working properly because it's pretty much identical to those others who have severe autism, have remained non-verbal but have learned to type independently. I read Lucy Blackman's book when ds1 was 5 and it made me understand a lot more about the nature of his problems. I was lucky- I think Lucy and ds1 are actually very similar - both very compulsive for example. She learned language when she was 13, and she learned as she learned to type. Which is occurs to me as I type this is interesting because ds1's understanding is definitely increasing as he participates more in conversations (now he has a method that works for him). His behaviour is still all over the place though (as was/is Lucy's!)

oh thanks for the link.

DS1 has his annual review soon, I will ask about talking mats then.

For him the key really is getting a means for him to be able to engage in back and forth interaction. He has wanted to for a long time, and tries hard.

oh he produced his first ever 2 word verbal phrase the other day ('nee narn' = tree gone - pointing at the empty spot at the end of the road- and it had indeed gone).

lol @ grin early 90's Laura Ashley woman

grim even - I'm off to bed!