[THREAD]
If you are teaching autistic children, you must not teach them an oversimplified lie like that if someone smiles, it means they are happy. If you do, you're basically gaslighting them.
You can teach them that smiling is often a sign that someone may be happy.
If you are teaching autistic children, you must not teach them an oversimplified lie like that if someone smiles, it means they are happy. If you do, you're basically gaslighting them.
You can teach them that smiling is often a sign that someone may be happy.
You can also say that the smiley emoticon is used to indicate that someone is pleased with something.
If you are going to try to make them smile for the camera or smile when greeting people, you really need to sort out the rationale for those things in your own head before you embark on such a mission.
In fact, workshop this with a few people. Include some autistic people in the conversation. Ask whether one should smile in these situations, and if so, why.
A core feature of being autistic is enquiry, i.e. searching for understanding; asking WHY.
Just because some autistic people don't ask out loud doesn't mean they are not wondering about the why.
Just because some autistic people don't ask out loud doesn't mean they are not wondering about the why.
The whying can be a good thing. It can lead to learning, solving and inventing. Autistic people can be quite disabled, so honing traits like this can be useful for everyone. #optimiseautism
ABA, PBS and PECS is designed to kill the why and focus on the what.
De facto, it also shifts focus to the who: who must I please by doing what, to get relief.
And then there's how much: how much of this must I do before I get a break or reward.
De facto, it also shifts focus to the who: who must I please by doing what, to get relief.
And then there's how much: how much of this must I do before I get a break or reward.
The how is underemphasised too, or it's messy, because most autism therapists are unaware of the obstacles to execution, so their way of teaching gets the how wrong.
This thread provides an example of how some therapists teach autistic children to overcome apraxia, without understanding the real problem.
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1389681002637889542?s=19
Much of autism therapy is why-starved. An analogy, albeit an obscure one, springs to mind from the work of @ChanatLucine on malnutrition among Westernised people who aren't necessarily poor.
Therapies like ABA are like an expensive diet which leaves you malnourished and leads to a complex cascade of sickness, fueled by industries focused on the what but not on the why.
Feel free to respond to this thread with your favourite disparaging stories about robots designed to teach autistic children about emotions.
Also, this seminal masterpiece on autism and reading emotions belongs in this thread (and in every learning programme designed to rehabilitate old-school autism therapists, teachers, diagnosticians, researchers, etc.).
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1319218329442275329
And this! This thread needs to be on the curriculum for autism professionals.
https://twitter.com/autistictic/status/1401589347523215365?s=19
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