The attributes of perspective taking (PT)

1. Recognizing the thoughtful presence of another person
   
2. Recognizing the individuality of another person
   
3. Recognizing that another person has his or her own personal set of emotions
   
4. Recognizing and responding to the fact that another person has his or her own set of desires and motives
   
5. Recognizing that another person his or her own personality
   
6. Having an intuitive desire to learn about other's interests and personal histories
   
7. Developing and using memory of a person to facilitate and sustain interpersonal relationships, as well as create a base of understanding about that person's potential actions.
   
8. Formulating language to inquire about another person's interests
   
9. Understanding social conventions surrounding specific environments
   
10. Understanding social conventions specific to social contexts
    
11. Staying aware of the shifting internal states of the communicative partner through eye contact
    

fra "Inside Out: What Makes the Person with Social Cognitive Deficits Tick?" af Michelle Garcia Winner

Temple Grandins inddeling af tænkning hos mennesker med autisme

1. Visual thinker mind. Thinks in pictures. Often poor at algebra; good at drawing.
   
2. Music and math mind. Thinks in patterns. Good at chess and engineering. Instantly sees the relationship between numbers that I do not see.
   
3. Verbal logic mind. Poor at drawing and good at memorizing facts or translating foreign languages.
   

Det er som skrevet Temple Grandins teori. Og citatet er hentet i "The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships" som hun har skrevet sammen med Sean Barron.

Success

"Define "success" by teaching people with ASD to adapt to the social world around them, while still retaining the essence of who they are, including their autism or Asperger's. Not all of autism is bad; capitalize on their talents and teach them to compensate for their deficiencies. Then happiness and fulfillment can be a common experience among us all.

Temple Grandin

Jeg har medtaget dette citat som en slags oplæg til diskussion. For mig rejser det ihvertfald et par spørgsmål, når den søde smag af de smukke ord har lagt sig. Hvad med de dårlige sider af autisme? Hvad med de såkaldt lavt fungerende? Hvad er essensen af hvem man er? Er de gode sider af autisme egentlig autisme? Hvordan skal man kompensere?

4 cornerstones of social awareness

1. Perspective-taking: the ability to "put ourselves in another person's shoes"; to understand that other people can have various viewpoints, emotions, and responses from our own. At an even more basic level is acknowledging that people exist and that they are sources of information to help us make sense of the world.
   
2. Felxible thinking: the ability to accept change, and be responsive to changing conditions and the environment; the ability of the mond to notice and process alternatives to that which is concrete and directly observable.
   
3. Positive self-esteem: a "can-do" attitude that develops through experiencing prior success and forms the basis for risk-taking in the child or adult. Self-esteem is built upon repeated achievements that start small and concrete and become less tangible and more complex. It is not built, however, upon receiving excessive praise for behaviors that are more expected than extraordinary, such as saying please or thank you.
   
4. Motivation: a sustained interest inexploring the world and working towards internal and external goals despite set-backs and delays. Often the best motivation is to use the child's fixation and broaden it out into other activities. If the child loves trains, then teach reading, math and writing with train-centered books, examples and activities. Play train-themed games to motivate social interaction.
   

fra "The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationhips" af Dr. Temple Grandin og Sean Barron, en bog jeg bliver mere og mere begejstret for jo længere jeg kommer i den. Den kan anbefales.

Livets skole

Temple Grandin er en succesfuld amerikansk kvinde indenfor autismespektret. Udover at have succes i sit arbejde med kvæg, er hun også en meget flittig forfatter af bøger om forskellige aspekter af autisme. Hun skriver bl.a.

"Neurotypical people have a "social sense" right from the time they're born. Their learning happens through observation, whereas for children and adults with ASD, learning only happens through direct experience."

Noget jeg har fundet ud af hjalp mig igennem de sværeste dage da mistanken om datterens autisme begyndte at tage form var at læse biografier af mennesker med autisme. Jeg har læst alt i den genre som jeg har kunnet finde på folkebiblioteket og det kongelige og det går igen at de der har skrevet deres biografier - udover naturligvis at være blandt de højt fungerende indenfor spektret - også er nået dertil ved at gå i livets skole. Altså ved at lære direkte af deres gode og dårlige erfaringer. Og især en masse dårlige. Det er bl.a. det der får mig til at konkludere at det ikke - for Katinkas vedkommende - vil være en god ide at anbringe hende i et beskyttet miljø hvor hendes chancer for at få disse erfaringer er kraftigt begrænsede. Hun skal ud i verden. Og så skal der - ideelt set - være nogle ved hendes side til at anspore hende til at tage chancer, til at trøste når det går galt og til at hjælpe hende til at forstå hvorfor det gik som det gik. Hvis nu min datter havde været fuld af angst, som nogle børn med autisme desværre er, er det ikke sikkert at det var det valg jeg ville træffe i første omgang.

Temple Grandin skriver endvidere:

"Figuring out how to be socially competent is a slow process of continuous improvement. There are no sudden breakthroughs, and there is no single "social skills program" that will make a child become socially aware. It's a team effort and the team changes as children become adults. However, through it all the person is the constant. Therefore, it is important that parents and teachers instill three important lessons in the mind of a child with ASD early-on:

1. Social learning never ends, and there are lots of opportunities to practice.
   
2. Our choices and our behaviours have consequences.
   
3. Each child is responsible for his own actions.
   

Without this understanding, as the child grows into an adult, he is apt to feel unable to control his own destiny, to affect his future, powerless over his actions. This fosters a sense of helplessness that drains whatever motivation the person may have to try (or try harder when needed) to be socially engaged.

A world where

Der er så mange små film om autisme på YouTube og rundt omkring på internettet. Nogle er informative andre er rørende. Og nogle får mig til at tænke i nye baner. Her er en ny en - en af de informative - for begyndere, altså.

Konkret tænkning

Datteren ligger i sengen med sin kjole på. Jeg vil hjælpe hende med at få den af og siger derfor: "sæt dig op" med det resultat at hun sætter sig og balancerer på sengegærdet. Da jeg protesterer svarer hun: "sæt dig op, ikke sæt dig ned".

The Ten Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships

1. Rules are not absolutte. They are situation-based and people-based.
   
2. Not everything is equally important in the grand scheme of things.
   
3. Everyone in the world makes mistakes, it doesn't have to ruin your day.
   
4. Honesty is different than diplomacy.
   
5. Being polite is appropriate in any situation.
   
6. Not everyone who is nice to me is my friend.
   
7. People act differently in public than they do in private.
   
8. Know when you're turning people off.
   
9. "Fitting in" is often tied to looking and sounding like you fit in.
   
10. People are responsible for their own behaviour.
    

Denne liste over uskrevne regler - som ikke kommer automatisk til mennesker med autisme - fandt jeg i "Unwritten rules of Social Relationships" af Temple Grandin og Sean Barron. Selv i overskriftform som her synes jeg det er nyttigt, så jeg glæder mig til at få tid til at dykke ned i bogen.