Good Morning -I spent yesterday morning in a training for people working with people with Asperger's Syndrome (on the autism spectrum - kind of like Autism Lite). The full training is a two-week, all day experience for people who will actually be working with young adults with Asperger's at a new center that is opening in town. My department is participating in just some of the training days because we'll be collaborating some with this center.
I have both a brother and a nephew with Autism and say with all open-hearted sincerity that people with Autism are some of my absolute favorite people. I love the perspective. I love the clarity and conviction about what he or she wants to be doing in that moment, regardless of peer or social pressure to do some other thing.
I love the passion. My sister, the mother of the 6-yr old nephew with autism, told a story recently about his love of Bob Ross and his repeated declaration that, "Bob Ross is the best painter in the world." (The story came about because, during the PBS station's membership drive, they cut Bob for some other program and my nephew had a complete meltdown. So, yes, I understand that such passion comes with challenges. Luckily the local library had DVD's of Bob, so all was well in the end.)
I understand the challenges. I know how hard it must be to be so invested in an outcome and not know how to handle it when the situation results differently than one had hoped - there is no red crayon, your favorite pizza place is out of pepperoni, Bob is off the air for the morning. I understand and in no way diminish those challenges, all the while whole-heartedly celebrating the people and their approach to life.
But I don't want to talk today about people on the spectrum. I want to talk about people who work with people on the spectrum. The training I've been going to is also attended by Speech and Language Pathology students who are interested in working at Speech Therapists with this population once they graduate.
Yesterday and today the training is by two women from the Center for Social Thinking in California. Their program is based on the idea of working on social thinking rather than fixing a behavior. For instance, a lot of people on the spectrum struggle with eye contact, so they get IEP goals to improve eye contact, which is a behavior. These women argue that there is a thinking and feeling behind when we make eye contact that is what really needs to be learned.
They gave the example of a man with Asperger's who worked in a supervisory position in a large library. He was trying to date and kept getting the feedback that he was nice but that there was something creepy about his eyes. Through working with him, they realized that when he was on a date, he gave full, non-breaking eye contact to the women he was with because he had read that women like to feel like you're paying attention to them. He didn't understand the thinking and feelings behind eye contact and how to be nuanced about it. He had the behavior, but not the thinking.
It's a really interesting model and I'm enjoying the training - except for the times when the students let their own issues get in the way. At one point, we were talking about working with this population and a young woman said how she feels really uncomfortable when she doesn't get facial responses to what she's saying because she starts to think, "God, this person must think I'm so boring."
What? How is this suddenly about her? Does she have insecurities about being boring? Is she being boring in that moment? Regardless of the answers to those questions, the reason the person is not responding with facial expressions is because that's what his or her challenge area is. That's why the Speech Therapist is there in the first place, remember? (That or she really is boring, which is possible.) It's not about her.
In another example, one of the trainers told the story of a young man at a community college who wanted friends but consistently sat way in the back of the room, far from the rest of the group. This led to the conversation about how some people on the spectrum do want social engagement, but have had bad experiences trying in the past, or don't know how to make it happen. Sounds accurate for the man in the example.
Another student raised her hand and started talking about a parent who had been on a panel during a previous training and how she believes that the woman's son really does want to interact but that he doesn't know how so spends all day in his room on his computer while mom states that she is okay with it because she came to terms with his idea of what he needs.
This is a grossly watered down version of this young man's life. He works on computers at a local non-profit (social interaction), participates in a group that does reenactments (social interaction), and enjoys time in his room on his computer. He doesn't hang out with friends or express interest in a girlfriend, but isn't completely isolated.
The trainer picked right up on this and finished the woman's line of "stays in his room on the computer..." with "where he is doing virtual social interactions and imaginary scenarios because he really does want to relate but doesn't know how." This led to talk of people on the spectrum who take loads of anti-depressants because they are so depressed about not having social outlets.
This was more than I could take, so I raised my hand. Pointing to the diagram on the board of the little "x" representing the community college student who sat in the back of the room, I offered the idea (from my seat in the back of the room by the door) that, while it sounds like in her example the student did want to be social, there are plenty of people who choose to sit where the "x" is because that's what they want and it doesn't mean that they're tragically depressed or desperate or longing for anything. I added that the young man the student brought up is also participating in lots of different activities and seems to be quite content with how his life is going.
If they are suggesting that virtual contact via a computer is a sign of social longing and lack of understanding, then they better make room in their program for almost every teenager and young adult, because a good bit of their social interaction is virtual. They text, they IM, they facebook, they email - but no-one assumes that this means they are tragically lonely or depressed (but it could mean that).
When the student was grossly misrepresenting the son of the mom panelist from the other day, I could hear her own issues and fears so clearly in her voice. I could see her in times of loneliness, alone in her apartment, playing on line and desperate for some social interaction. She is so terrified of being alone that she assumes that everyone must be and that she just has to help these people get friends because not having friends (in her definition of "friends") is the absolute most tragic thing ever.
This got me thinking about the impact of taking all of these professional helpers (Speech therapists, social workers, teachers) who, while not necessarily scoring high on emotional intelligence, do structure their existence around their social interactions and emotional experiences, and putting them to work with people who don't prioritize social engagement high in their life or have a vastly different need for it. Helpers who haven't healed themselves first have a high potential of spewing their insecurities and fears of loneliness all over the person with whom they are working.
It can be a bad, bad mix. Just like a teen who gets pregnant so she has someone to love her, a professional who gets in this work so they get validation that they are a good person and they do matter and they are important because look at all the poor, poor people they've helped is setting everyone up for a hard time. It's bad boundaries, messy motivations, and really unfortunate.
I was charged up enough about this yesterday that I could see for a moment a new path opening up for me, one in which I worked more directly with people with Autism and Asperger's and did trainings for other people who worked with them on how it's not a defect to be introverted and that they need to check their own issues and heal thine own selves before they do damage.
We'll see.
(Oh - right. The Virgen. The background image is a result of a google search for "talking" and is from an art show of album covers that never were (this would be one for the Talking Heads). The rope is from the old clothesline and represents the bad, binding boundaries these unhealed helpers can have.)
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