Assistive Technology for Aspergers Children INST 5130 – Dr. Odin Jurkowski November 17, 2008...

Assistive Technology for Asperger’s

Children

Assistive Technology for Asperger’s

Children

INST 5130 – Dr. Odin JurkowskiNovember 17, 2008

Brandy Beardsley, Samuel Carel, Juanita Mummert & Janet Smith

Introduction: A Personal Experience

• Billy born 7/3/98• A “normal” baby

with the only problem being acid reflux

• Though by the time Billy was three, he quit talking and took many steps “back” in developmental areas.


• Due to many “wrong” diagnoses, Billy was on a variety of medications that made him look anorexic or like a “druggie” by July 2004.

• Some of these diagnoses included:– ADHD– ADD– Bi Polar– Schizophrenia

• Medications included (certainly not exhaustive) these stimulants:– Ritalin– Concerta– Adderall XR

• Behavior included:– Inability to sit still– Inability to make friends– Immature socially– “Talking” to “imaginary friends”

• Q. Why didn’t the medicine help and why did Billy turn psychotic by Christmas of 2004?


• A. WRONG DIAGNOSES!– Stimulants brought about real

psychosis– Asperger’s was being “ruled

out” although that was the most likely.

– It took Billy trying to kill, yes kill, his 5 month old sister, in a psychotic state, to finally look at the REAL picture.

– And, failing grades were becoming typical as the “lighter” side of the issue.

• December 22, 2004– Antipsychotic medication

Risperdal was finally startedCopyright Sears, 2006


• Summer/Fall 2004– Loving Billy was back.– But, what’s going on in school?

• Nothing is wrong with that boy! • He’s just “lazy.”• Still ruling out Asperger’s …

• Three and a half years later – After many failing grades and lowered self esteem

from school– After gaining horrid weight on the Risperdal and

being tried on other medications– After a mother fought day after day, tear after tear– After a 4th grade teacher sent Billy back over the

edge completely to psychosis last winter once he’d already shown signs of decomposing

– AND, ONLY AFTER another psychological evaluation confirming Asperger’s

– Billy was given an IEP in April 2008.• Q. What in the world took so long for this

boy to get help in school to be able to use his average IQ to the best of his ability?


• A. Billy’s Mom learned Billy should have had an IEP in 1st grade but the school board wouldn’t “allow it.”

• Still, today, November 10, 2008, Billy’s IEP is a complete “joke” as it’s almost identical to the worthless 504 Plan he’d had since the 1st grade.

• Our presentation will demonstrate what technological options schools and parents may have to help their children succeed not only in the present, but most importantly, for the rest of their lives.

What is Asperger’s Syndrome?

• Plain “book” definition – Diagnostic Criteria For 299.80 Asperger's Disorder– A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as

manifested by at least two of the following: • marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such

as: eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction

• failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level

• a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)

• lack of social or emotional reciprocity – B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of

behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

• encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus

• apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals

• stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)

• persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

Continued …


– C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning

– D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)

– E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood

– F. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia (Kirby, 2005)


• A more “personal” definition provided by the Mayo Clinic (2006):– Developmental disorder causing communication and socializing

issues– Part of the Autism Spectrum Disorders or Pervasive

Developmental Disorders– “Higher functioning” part of the “spectrum”

• 2 out of 10,000 children have Asperger’s with boys being 3-4 times more likely to have it– A child is diagnosed with Autism every 20 minutes

• NO cure, only treatment!• Possibly connected to genetics and abnormal

structures in the brain– Some suggest mercury containing vaccinations may also be the

cause.


• Symptoms provided by Mayo Clinic (2006):– Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without

noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject – Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye

contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures

– Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes

– Appearing not to understand, empathize with, or be sensitive to others' feelings

– Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor

– Speaking in a voice that is monotonous, rigid or unusually fast – Moving clumsily, with poor coordination – Having an odd posture or a rigid gait


• Other symptoms from personal experience:– Problems perceiving a situation– Traits close to those of psychosis– Low self esteem and/or depression– Issues processing information quickly

• Low grades in school• Extra time learning

– Needs Structure, Structure, Structure!


• The Basics– No “formal” test for diagnosing

• Various tests to assess speech, language and visual motor problems

• IQ and academic testing• Emotional, psychological and behavioral testing

– Asperger’s is often misdiagnosed because its “symptoms” are much like other mental illnesses.

– “Even worse, some children with undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome are labeled as willful or malicious troublemakers.” - Mayo Clinic Staff (2006)


• How to help and teach Asperger’s children by Mayo Clinic Staff (2006):– Social skills and communication training

• Much like a foreign language to teach but can be done– Cognitive behavior therapy

• Recognizing a tough situation– Interpretation– Obsessions– Meltdowns and/or angry outbursts

– No “exact” medication for Asperger’s – Can only treat the symptoms

• Hyperactivity• Depression• Psychosis

– Schools, as well as parents, must be aware of assistive technologies that have been shown to work in effectively teaching children with Asperger’s

Assistive Technologies• What are these?

– Rempel (2007): “products, devices or equipment, whether acquired commercially, modified or customized, that are used to maintain, increase or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.”

• Asperger’s normally requires visual, not auditory learning, as offered by Assistive Technologies.

Assistive Technologies and Asperger’s

• Assistive Technologies offer two features for Asperger’s:– Organization– Socializing


• Organizational– Asperger’s strong inclination to work within a

“literal” framework– Softwares to utilize

• Calendars• Task minders• Priorization programs

– Customized to personal needs– Used on personal technology units to allow for individual pace and

timeframe with a minimum of human “interference” present to complicate the process

– Handwriting• Slow speed, poor letter formation and need to “write down

exactly what they want to say” causes frustration• Technology allows Asperger’s students to do less handwriting

and turn in better quality work, without constant “erasing.” This adaptation removes many barriers for the successful completion of written and communication based tasks.

• Social– Difficulty “unscrambling” complex social cues from

body language, vocal tones, facial expressions, personal space, and slang language or gestures

– Visual Assistive technologies aid Asperger's children in understanding and integrating communication skills.

– Auditory delivery of information takes longer for the child to process.

• Allows Asperger’s children to relate through a “buffer zone” without a lot of face to face

• Older technologies also help– Headphones, with relaxing music or nature sounds, to muffle

extraneous auditory stimuli – Basic word processing equipment and programming helps avoid

extra visual stimuli which can cause distraction


• Emotion Recognition (Lacava, Baron-Cohen & Myles, 2007) in Asperger’s children:– MindReading: The Interactive Guide to Emotions™ software

for 10 weeks, testing included:• Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery for Children

– Six basic emotions such as happy, sad and surprised– Nine complex emotions like loving, embarrassed and jealous

• Child Feature-Based Auditory Task – Speech segments that Asperger’s children identified how the

speaker felt• Reading the Minds in Film Test-Children’s Version

– Asperger’s children decide how a target character feels in a short social scene from a children’s movie

• Mind Reading software used in the intervention– Many lessons including emotions library, learning center and game

zones• RESULTS: Asperger’s children IMPROVED on face and voice

emotion recognition for basic and complex emotions that were in the software, as well as for complex voice emotion recognition for emotions not included in MindReading.

Emotion Recognition and Asperger’s

Palm Handhelds and Asperger’s

• Special Education teacher Lynn Parsons (Butler, 2006)– Palm Handheld to motivate Asperger’s

children through an after school social skills class

• Colored screens for essays, pictures, stories, notes, videos and voice recordings

• Allows Asperger’s students to learn social skills with the others with Asperger’s on new features found

• Allows Asperger’s students to feel more in control with features such as the calendar and journaling their frustrations

• Draws Asperger’s students into more social conversations as they want to learn more features from each other

• Parsons uses as a social tool and has seen results!

• Stokes (n.d.):– The Mayer-Johnson software program, Boardmaker,

offers a 3,000 Picture Communication Symbol (PCS) library in either black/white or color, and can be accompanied by any written word/message. This program is extremely user friendly for adults and children. Symbols can be made in any size, and tend to be universally understood. They present a relatively clear, 'uncluttered' representation and remove any ambiguity, which can sometimes arise when using photographs, especially personally-made photographs, as in the following example.

Examples of Assistive Technologies and Asperger’s

Continued …

• A teacher took photographs of the various teachers that a child with autism encountered at school, in order to help him learn the names of his teachers. When reviewing the names of the teachers in the photographs, the child referred to the photograph of a particular teacher as "Mexico". Upon further review of this photo, the teacher realized that in the background, barely visible, was the corner of a map of Mexico. Although the teacher's face was the prominent feature in the photo, the child processed the minimally visible map as the most prominent feature and thus labeled the photograph according to this feature.


Continued …

• If a child prefers the color red, and the Picture Communication Symbol (PCS) for "lunch" has a red apple as well as a brown sandwich and orange juice, the child may only process the apple, as it contains his preferred color. The child may not even process the image, but attend only to the color red. Therefore, the PCS becomes non-meaningful to the child.


Continued …


• To teach a child, who is using photographs or objects as his visual representation system, to understand black/white line drawings, place a small black/white picture communication symbol in the corner of the various objects/photographs currently used by the child. Gradually increase the size of the picture communication symbol until it eventually covers up the entire photograph/object.

The Future for Asperger’s Children

• Blacher & Howell (2008):• Without proper social skills, Asperger’s

children may grow into depressed adults with low employment rates.

• Children have an 8 week training session they can utilize, which has shown an increase in proper social behavior and decrease in anti-social behavior.

• Looking to develop pro social skills classes for adults

The Future for Asperger’s Children

• It has been found though … (Mayor, 2008)– Individuals with Asperger Syndrome may

make the best Technology designers, programmers, and workers. These individuals thrive on directed analytical processes that are involved in the creation and use of technology. And, their focus isn’t broken by the need for involved human interaction.

REFERENCESBaker, Linda J. (2004). Asperger's Syndrome: intervening in

school, clinics and communities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Betts, Stacey W. & Dion E. (2007). Asperger Syndrome in the inclusive classroom: advice and strategies for teachers. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Blacher, J., & Howell, E. (2008, October). Becoming social: Interventions with youth who have high-functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Exceptional Parent, 38(10), 56-57.

Butler K. (2006, June). Palm handhelds touch students with autism. District Administration, 42, 19-21.

Continued …

REFERENCESKirby, B. L. (2005). What is asperger syndrome?. Retrieved

November 9, 2008 from University of Delaware, O.A.S.I.S. Web site: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html

Lacava, P., Golan, O., Baron-Cohen, S., & Myles, B. (2007, May). Using assistive technology to teach emotion recognition to students with Asperger Syndrome: A pilot study. Remedial & Special Education, 28(3), 174-181.

Mayo Clinic Staff (2006, November 17). Asperger's Syndrome. Retrieved November 11, 2008 from , Web site: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/aspergers-syndrome/DS00551

Mayor,Tracy (2008, May 5). IT'S Open Secret. Computerworld, vol 42 Issue 19, 22-27.

Continued …

http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html

Myles, Brenda S. (2005). Children and youth with Asperger Syndrome: strategies for success in inclusive settings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Prior, Margot (2003). Learning and behavior problems in Asperger Syndrome. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Rempel, Stacy (July, 2007). Assistive Technology and Autism. Educational Technology Program, Northern Arizona University. http://owenshouse.org/index.htm

Stewart, Kathryn (2002). Helping a child with nonverbal learning disorder or Asperger's Syndrome. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

Stokes, Susan. Assistive Technology For Children With Autism. Wisconsin Department of Instruction. http://www.specialed.us/autism/assist/asst10.htm

REFERENCES

http://owenshouse.org/index.htm

Assistive Technology for Aspergers Children INST 5130 – Dr. Odin Jurkowski November 17, 2008...

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