Social Brain in Autism, Dr.Klin.

While filling out this weeks data forms, here is some of the information I gleaned while listening to the 5^th  one of the Yale Autism Seminar:

Social Brain in Autism, Dr. Klin.

This lecture discusses research that demonstrates the difference of social focus of persons with autism compared to ‘typical’ adults. Dr. Klin shares research and talks about how watching people’s eye’s and making eye-contact means that one is thinking about that person. The importance of eye-contact, joint attention and focusing on eyes is presented. It explains that persons with autism often struggle with social awareness because they tend to focus on objects and other’s mouths when they are talking as opposed to looking and watching people’s eyes.

What I pulled out of this lecture is the importance of naturally increasing eye-contact, awareness of others and joint attention with the students we teach. We have both ABA activities and RDI (relationship development intervention) that we use to do this.

Some of these activities include: Peek-A-Boo (with hands, plain masks, cloth), Anticipation games (tickling, swinging (w/ eye-contact for ‘go’), certain toys (e.g. jack in the box), bubbles etc…) and gross motor games (dad’s are great at ‘rough housing’ but mom’s can do it too!) Follow the child’s lead and pause to see if they will look at you for more.