Different, make the world more beautiful.
You're just a different kid.
Good at discovery,
Patient companionship,
We believe in every child,
can emit brilliant light,
You too.
Interviewee ┃ Tang Xiaohong (Initiator of the "Aid Fund" of Beijing Women and Children's Development Foundation)
Written by Wu Ying
Unlike the mothers of autistic children we interviewed in the past, Tang Xiaohong is a person who can stay out of the matter.
She has a perfectly normal child and is not a researcher in the field of special education, but for several years, her "assistance fund" has devoted all her energy to the intervention and rehabilitation of autistic children, and she herself has traveled to all the advanced autistic children's institutions in the world, visiting many international experts on autistic children, and learning from Ms. Jude Ragan, a leader in the cause of autism education in the United Kingdom.
Ms. Jude met with Margaret Thatcher to propose that "autistic children also have the right to education" and founded the Queen Smill Special School for people aged 3 to 25 years old, a series of education systems, and served as the principal of several autistic schools, and she was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2011.
Tang Xiaohong said that Ms. Jude is not only a leader in serving autistic children, but also her own life mentor.
Because of her work relationship, Tang Xiaohong has been exposed to thousands of autistic families, but because of her "third-party" identity, she can independently and objectively view the autistic children's group and their intervention and rehabilitation.
In the interview, she did not want to talk about her persistence and hardship in engaging in this public welfare undertaking, but most urgently wanted to share with us how to look at autistic children and some specific ways to really help autistic children.
Children with autism, first and foremost children
We often describe autistic children as "children from the stars", but in fact, they are not "aliens", much less aliens, they are like children in every family, first and foremost children.
This is the concept that Tang Xiaohong would like to share with us most about how to look at children with autism.
An ordinary child will be noisy and lose his temper, and so will autistic children; some ordinary children do not like to talk, and so will children with autism...
In Tang Xiaohong's view, autistic children only have an internal cognitive level that does not match the external age and body, and may be a 10-year-old body with a child with a cognitive level of only 2 years old, but they are still children.
She believes that only by looking at the group of autistic children with such a concept can ordinary people be more tolerant of them, and more importantly, parents of autistic children can also put aside anxiety and calm down to accompany their children to grow.
"Raising an ordinary child to grow up is not something that can be done in a year or two, it requires parents to pay great patience, and the parents of autistic children can not be in a hurry, they should put down unreasonable expectations, and accompany and guide more patiently." This is what Tang Xiaohong wants to say to the parents of autistic children.
Language is not the only way to communicate
Tang Xiaohong mentioned that many parents of autistic children are most anxious about wanting their children to call their parents and talk. But in fact, for a child with autism, it doesn't matter how much he can say, what matters is to let him learn to "speak" functional language.
The so-called functional language is a language that can express its own needs, but this language is not necessarily "said", it may be an action, or just a look.
Autistic children often have external emotional loss of control and other manifestations, in fact, from his inner anxiety, and these anxieties are because he can not express his needs, needs are of course difficult to understand and meet.
With functional language, children with autism can learn to express their needs, which in turn can be met. When the emotional problems of autistic children are reduced, they can also be more focused and progressive in knowledge learning and social learning.
Tang Xiaohong gave us an example, for example, when an autistic child feels thirsty, he does not necessarily have to say "I am thirsty" and "I want to drink water", if he can hand the cup to the parent, or pick up a picture that shows that he wants to drink water, he has mastered the functional language.
The goal of enabling autistic children to master functional language is an attempt by Tang Xiaohong and her "assistance fund" in the model of the education system for autistic children.
The sensory system method is not equal to sensory system training
At the same time, the education system for autistic children that Tang Xiaohong tried to build also emphasizes the use of sensory integration methods.
But Tang Xiaohong especially hopes to tell more parents of autistic children through us: the intervention method of sensory system is not the so-called same sensory system training for all children, but first understand the different sensory channel characteristics of each child.
In fact, not only autistic children, ordinary children also have great differences in feelings, such as some children love to read comic books that fit with pictures and texts, and some children can't understand such books, because the latter can't handle this kind of graphic and text blending information, but if you show such children books with only text and no pictures, his dyslexia disappears.
Once there is a situation of information processing difficulties, it will trigger the child's anxiety, autistic children's anxiety will be more obvious, therefore, before using the sensory system method to intervene, it is necessary to observe and analyze the sensory characteristics of each child, and on this basis, provide the child with a sensory system intervention program, so as to reduce the child's anxiety, rather than increasing his sense of confusion and overload of information.
In addition, talking about how to reduce the anxiety of autistic children, Tang Xiaohong also specifically reminded that whether it is at home or in places such as autistic children's rehabilitation centers, they should minimize the interference with autistic children in the environmental setting.
Perhaps the environment with rich colors and decorations is more popular with ordinary children, but the single environment of solid colors and cool colors is obviously more suitable for autistic children with poor information processing ability and easy anxiety.
True integration is not "the same"
In recent years, society has attached great importance to paying attention to children with autism, and the concept of "integrated education" has also been widely used in schools and kindergartens.
But Tang Xiaohong told us that in the European and American schools she visited with autistic children, successful integrated education is not to let autistic children and all children take exactly the same class, and the school life is exactly the same, but will set up a special autistic children's center, autistic children can freely choose the classes they are interested in to attend with ordinary children, but if they encounter classes that he does not accept, he can return to the center to do what he wants to do.
In this way, it can reduce the anxiety of autistic children in classes they do not like, and will not affect the normal classes of other children.
She believes that this may be the real integration of education, the purpose of integration is not to require autistic children to become like ordinary children, but to allow them to be different and provide help according to their needs. This kind of integrated education is also truly inclusive.
The special talent of children with autism is not only in painting
Tang Xiaohong also shared with us a feeling she had when she joined the European Autism Association.
At that time, in addition to researchers and special educators, judges, prosecutors, police, etc. who participated in this conference, the first sentence of the president of the association at the beginning was, "Everyone here, don't think that autism is far away from you, it is possible that every one of you here is a person on the autism spectrum, because you are the elite in various fields." This is the current view of the autism spectrum in Europe and the United States - some people with special talents may be people on the autism spectrum.
Many scholars also believe that because of his unique ability to concentrate and has the characteristics of no distraction, it is possible to show amazing talent in some aspects, as long as he is good at discovery and proper guidance, it is possible to help children show this talent.
Painting, on the other hand, may be just one of the most easily discovered talents and potentials of children with autism.
Of course, this is not to say that all autistic children are geniuses, which is the same as the reason why we ordinary people can not all achieve fame in the end, but Tang Xiaohong believes that for families with autistic children, it is better to have hope for the future than to feel that the future is dark.
Method Recommendation: PECS - Image Exchange AC System
It is a method of using pictorial markings to teach functional nonverbal communication in children with autism.
What autistic children need most is to help them reduce anxiety, which can make them emotionally stable, so that they can learn knowledge, life skills, and more easily accept external information.
Pictorial functional nonverbal communication is to explain the goals and order of daily life and learning to autistic children through some pictures, so that they understand the meaning of time, etc., and also allow autistic caregivers to ensure that they give the child what they ask for in a few seconds, so that communication can minimize the inherent anxiety of autistic children.
In fact, this PECS-image mode can not only be used to help children with autism, but also widely used in the lives of preschool children.
For example, we can put the day's life arrangement on the wall of the home in the form of pictures: get up when the sun rises, get dressed, brush your teeth, and then go to kindergarten, and when the sun is about to go down, Grandma waits at the kindergarten door to pick him up... When the arrangement of the day is visualized, the child will also experience a sense of order and increase the sense of security.
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