Asperger's Conversations

Errorless modeling and social skills training using Audacity

I mentioned in a previous blog entry that I have been utilizing the free downloadable audio editing program, Audacity, to do errorless modeling in social skills programs for individuals with Asperger's and Autism.  Since I haven't completed a screencast (using Camtasia) demonstrating the process, I've decided instead to post the media files that walk you through the program.

My social skills programs involves four steps: 1) Use audacity to record teaching a target person how to do a particular social skill, such as "how to have a conversation."  Use verbal prompts at each step of teaching the skill 2) Use the audacity editing functions to delete all verbal prompts by the instructor 3) Play the final "prompt free" or "errorless"  audio program to the target person 4) Follow up with a Behavioral Test (BAT) to assess the effectiveness of the errorless modeling intervention.

Here's a run through that I did with a "typical" non-Asperger's/AD child.  The first audio file involves teaching the child how to have a conversation using verbal prompts.  The steps for "having a conversation" were taken from Goldstein's Skillstreaming program:

Download conversation1.mp3 (1min23secs)

In step two, I remove all prompts by the instructor, thereby leaving a much shorter "errorless" audiotape:

Download conversation1-Revised.mp3 (38secs)

The final step is a videotape (using my cheap webcam) of an independent conversation or "Behavioral Test" (BAT) to assess whether or not the child is able to complete all steps of the conversational program (e.g., greeting, small talk, big point, closing) without any verbal prompts by the instructor.  Using inexpensive technology in this manner for social skills training for a wide variety of children may have implications for "Individual Education Plans" or IEP's.

Albert Einstein & Asperger's

My friend Dave Yeiter of Keene, New Hampshire's Monadnock Developmental Services, sent me this quote by Albert Einstein:

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has
always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct
contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a
'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my
friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face
of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for
solitude..."

The conflict between crying out for justice and civil liberties does seem to conflict with  lack of connection to fellow human beings, doesn't it?  Yet many of the great civil liberterians (Franklin, Jefferson, Einstein) have been said to exhibit signs of such "disconnection."  Perhaps we would all be smart to consult individuals with Asperger's about their thoughts on the War in Iraq...

Path: Self-Directing life Goals for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

In today's podcast I speak with a young man named Aaron who recently completed something called "A Path."  Family and friends gathered one snowy afternoon to help Aaron articulate his short and long-term life goals and to pledge their support in helping him accomplish these goals.  Path leaders were mental health specialists Julie Cashin and Tim Cuningham of Keene, New Hampshire.

Click on the MP3 file below to hear today's podcast:

Download pathMP3.mp3 (4mins53secs)

Correction to B.U. Asperger's Comment

Lorraine Wolf, Ph.D., is the Clinical Director of Disability Services at Boston University.  She sent me a message recently alerting me to an error in a previous blog entry about special programs for individuals with Asperger's at her school.  Lorraine informed me that the program that has special charges for summer workshops and additional staff support are not pegged specifically for individuals with Asperger's, but instead are available for all students with disabilities.  She added that while there are specific programs for individuals with Asperger's, they are offered at no additional cost. 

I had retrieved that information from a "paper/text" version of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which does not make articles available for free on the web.  My comment to the Chronicle:  By insisting on high cost subscriptions for web access to your articles, you run the risk of trivializing this information.  If bloggers and others can't link to full text articles from your journal, these articles will simply fall out of the historical record.  I understand the Chronicle's need to make money by subscription, but after a month or two, all articles should be internet accessible at no cost so as to make a real contribution to the literature.

SpeechMatch in Quicktime

In my previous post I talked about teaching people with autism spectrum problems how to match the speech patterns of their conversational partners using a free downloadable audio editing software that I've been using for podcasting.  I posted a screencast in Windows Media and this moring, re-produced the 30 second clip as a quicktime file for you Mac folks:

Download speechmatchQT-R.mov

Special thanks to Jon Udell for teaching me how to create instructional screencasts.  I will post a more detailed screencast soon on using audacity for both SpeechMatch and for creating errorless modeling programs.  These technologies are especially helpful for developing clinical interventions for individuals with autism and Asperger's Syndrome.

SpeechMatch using Audacity

I have long been interested in capitalizing on psycholinguistic research from years ago (e.g., Joan Welkowitz, Stanley Feldstein and others) which showed that individuals who were more socially effective were able to match the patterns of sounds and silences of their conversational partners.  They measured certain parameters of speech, including how long people talk (called vocalizations) or how long they paused (pauses and switching pauses), or how loud they spoke (vocal intensity) and showed that people who were best able to "tune in" and match these elements of speech of others (called vocal congruence or "matching") were rated has exhibiting positive characteristics of interpersonal functioning, including the old standbys of empathy, warmth, and genuiness.

More recently I have been successful in developing a kind of "biofeedback" program using a free downloadable audio editing program called Audacity.  I have been using this program, which I typically use for other purposes such as recording my podcasts, to provide VISUAL feedback of speech patterns to individuals with autism or Asperger's Syndrome.  The procedure is simple:

After turning on the recording function of audacity, I begin to speek (e.g, "I am going to walk the dog").  I then ask the person with autism/AS or NVLD to look at my pattern of speech and repeat my statement, making their pattern look just like mine.  In this way, I am teaching the person with autism/AS/NVLD to "talk like me."   To observe a trial with a 22 year old college student with HFA, observe the brief screencast below:

Download speechmatch.wmv

This screencast is in Windows Media and I will post this one and others in other formats (e.g., Quicktime) as soon as I get the chance to do so.

I have presented SpeechMatch at two recent meetings, including one on non-verbal learning disabilities and one on social anxiety and selective mutism.   The response has been very positive and I believe it will be of great interest to speech and language therapists and others working with individuals with autism spectrum problems.  I am embarking on a small study to examine, in greater detail, the effectiveness of this program and would appreciate your feedback.

The Biology of Anxiety

I spoke recently with friend and colleague, Laszlo Papp, MD, about his research in the biology of anxiety.  Laszlo has been doing some very interesting studies at Columbia University's Department of Psychiatry where he serves as Director of the Biological Studies Unit.  In Laszlo's biological challenge studies, people with anxiety disorders are given air to breathe that has been enriched with higher than normal levels of CO2.  At 5% CO2, persons with panic disorder tend to have panic attacks, while normal control subjects (non-panickers) do not.  Dr. Papp and colleagues (including Donald Klein and Jack Gorman) have viewed this is evidence of a biological underpinning of anxiety.  Subsequent studies by Ron Rapee or Larry Welkowitz (both psychologists) have shown that psychological factors, such as expectations, can affect panickers response to CO2 inhalation, thus bringing in to question a "purely biological" model of anxiety.

Click on the MP3 file below to hear this week's interview with Dr. Laszlo Papp:

Download PappOnPanic.mp3 (2.5MB; 7mins, 2secs)

I will also include an interview with a friend who has graciously consented speaking for a few minutes about her own panic attacks.  Click on the MP3 file below to hear her comments:

Download margiPanic.mp3

Counseling Asperger's and High Functioning Autism: Philosophical Dilemmas

With the permission of my students in the graduate certificate program at Antioch New England Graduate School, I recorded about 14 minutes of our discussion of philosophical dilemmas in treatment.  You be the judge, but I thought that these students (mostly educators, school counselors, and parents) were wary of models that pathologized children with AS/HFA and were moderately skeptical about the role of pharmacology.  They were concerned about medication side effects and expressed concerns about superficial understanding of the complexity of these individuals.

Click on the MP3 file below to hear this podcast:

Download antiochAdvClass.mp3 (16mins 5secs; 5.5MB)

Asperger's After College: One Year Follow-up

I bumped in to my former Keene State College student, Andy Sylvia, while teaching at the Asperger's Certificate Program at Antioch New England Graduate School last weekend.  I took some time out during our lunch break to catch up and see what life was like about one year after graduating college.  Does Asperger's still haunt Andy?  Does it help or hinder his career development?

Click on the MP3 link below to hear this week's podcast:

Download pr22_1yrFollowUp.mp3

Last word on the Keene Flood

blogger Jon Udell made a creative use of digitial technology, including google maps, screencasting, and video to create this tape of the Keene flood.  Its important to note that this was the most comprehensive coverage of the Keene flood posted on any website...at least as of Sunday:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/KeeneFlood.html

On a positive note, let's hope that local media begins to see local bloggers and others as an important source of information while we're in the throws of emergencies.  Apparently, WKBK radio (AM) did do a commendable job of opening up their phone lines to collect stories.  Many people online, though, can also contribute in a unique way...Local media can serve as a "conduit" of information that goes beyond the limitations of the number of available reporters and so on.

As Jon Udell put it in his mediacast, we should be grateful that this was not nearly as bad as the New Orleans flood...but it was certainly one we won't forget.