Sunday, July 13, 2014

Summer Reading, Eye Contact and Collaboration

Having 20 some years working with kids on the spectrum, I'm pretty much used to it all and have probably become a bit too jaded.  I recently went through a training with Ross Greene, you likely know of him, he wrote The Explosive Child which has been such a popular book for so many parents.  I went with minimal expectations having been through 32 years of continuing education and finding much of it to be minimally informative and rarely inspiring.  This was different.

Greene's focus is on Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (formerly Collaborative Problem Solving - it's a long story....)  One aspect of CPS Greene focuses on building the relationship with the child, a skill he quickly wants parents to learn so they can do what they need to with their kids without therapy.  There is a lot more to it and I plan to continue my study of CPS, but a couple of salient moments have already borne fruit in my sessions this week.

One HFA (high functioning autism) child and his mother came in with a(nother) fight, this one about his summer reading.  I put on my best Greene hat and delved into emphatically trying to hear, just hear and thus validate, "what's up" for him.  It was hard for him, and for me a bit.  Greene is clear that drilling down to a specific, a very specific problem is quite important.  So I drilled for specificity and the boy hung in there, squirming and citing his being "tired and hungry."  But we perservered and came up with a collaborative plan that I wasn't too sure of.  The next day I received a thankful text from mom stating that the boy had that night forged through what he said he would do within the next week.
Mom, who had already been through the book and Greene's DVD's with marginal success said she'd have to "reconsider" this whole "collaborative" thing in a more positive light.

So far so good.

I later met with a family new to me.  Another HFA child who could say little in response to my most doggedly "Greene" like questioning except "I'm confused."  He was a kid with classic lack of eye contact that so many HFA folks have.  Even though I was sitting 3 feet from him, tried to engage him with some of my notoriously bad humor (it's a great measure of where a kid's at - an eye roll or smirk can reveal a lot, but on this guy it went nowhere), he stared almost exclusively straight ahead avoiding making any but the most glancing eye contact.  So I went with "confused."  That's what Greene said to do, so I did it.  We were discussing it for a while, making what seemed like no great headway and then something quite odd happened.  He turned and gazed at me. Square on, right in the eyes, for a long time and held my gaze as I again said "So you're feeling confused..." to my many questions.  At that moment it seemed to go beyond eye contact.  It was human contact.  A visual confirmation that a relationship was building.  Now I'm not going to start down "the CPS solves cancer" route, but for a HFA kid to just engage me visually like that is pretty significant. I'm used to these kids not visually engaging me at all. Ever.

So, if you see me, prepare for more.  Re-read the book.  I'll help you with the rest.