One more thing you can do about stress

Perhaps you’re stressed. Perhaps you’ve tried all the tricks in your book to wind down. Sleep more, avoid sleep, eat comfort foods, avoid food, meditate, listen to music, exercise vigorously, go for a walk, do yoga, breathe more deeply (that can be a tough one), be out in nature, talk to people who “get it”, avoid people altogether because they don’t get it. Perhaps your list is a very long one, and perhaps it isn’t working. 

(image by ant_94)

Here’s one thing to try that may help, though I’m not making any promises. 

Interlace your fingers with your palms facing you. Rest your hands at your midline, in your lap, or on a table if you’d rather. Give yourself a moment. Ask yourself if you feel a bit more grounded. Perhaps your breathing will slow down. Maybe with the fingers interlaced, some of your old techniques will work better (meditation, music). Perhaps your challenge will not seem as unsolvable as it was. 

I hope you find it worth a try. 

Observing Behaviors to Gather Clues

HANDLE providers gather clues about a person’s function, whether efficient or not, by observing. So how do you gather clues successfully? The bottom line, I think, has to do with what questions you ask yourself while you observe. 

Whether In a classroom, at a family gathering, at a cafe, at a tennis match, wherever you choose to do your people-watching, if you ask yourself "Is this normal?" you likely won't come up with a lot of "Aha!"s. If, however, you ask yourself - How is that individual doing things, would everyone do it the same way, then you're on your way to discovery. 

Let's do a little exercise in detective work. I chose the image below (by Omar Chatriwala) because the dancing girls are all dressed the same, and all seem to be trying to do the same dance move. Now let's find some differences in their behaviors and wonder what we can learn from those differences. Give yourself a moment to just look. What do you notice? Remember this: There’s only so much you can learn from a photo. It takes a cluster of clues to lead to conclusions. But for an exercise, it’ll do.  

Let's number them, 1 through 6, starting on the left. 

• Look at #5. Her unhappy face may have caught your eye. Is that decoration on her head uncomfortable? Likely. Is she more sensitive to touch than the others? Possibly. It would be interesting to learn if she hates to have her hair brushed, or her face washed. 
• How about #2 and #3. Look at that eye contact. What’s notable for me is that they are capable of eye contact, which suggests that both of them have efficient eye teaming. What I don’t know is if their mirroring of one another is a correct dance step. If it is, then perhaps both of them are rather clear about right and left. If not, then likely one of them isn’t. 
• Do you notice something different about #3? Observe her right hand. It’s quite likely a wrong dance move, but at the moment I’m interested in her sensory experience. She's comfortable touching the highly textured belt. A person hypersensitive to touch would likely not have exposed a palm to so much stimulation.  
• Let's take a look at the feet. The dance step seems to call for a heel-to-toes stance, which numbers 4, 5 and 6 seem to be doing (#6 with ease, #4 a little compromised with her balance). #1, #2 and #3 are imprecise with their stance - but not taking chances with their balance. 
• How about #1? What's a bit more obvious, is that she's staring. Does she not trust herself to know the dance? Perhaps it's not in her muscle memory quite yet. Are you picking up the tension around her mouth? Try the hand movements and ask yourself if your mouth tenses up. Perhaps she's not quite capable of differentiating between moving what needs to move, and resting the rest. 

Again, a snapshot can only tell us so much, and it takes more observation to reach conclusions about which body-and-brain systems are functioning efficiently and which are not. I also expect that you may be picking up from this picture additional, or different information from what I did. Perhaps what you see would trigger questions for you. Take this curiosity with you to the classroom, to the family gathering, to the café. Or bring it to a HANDLE evaluation. 

About the HANDLE Screener Course

 Perhaps you've wondered what the HANDLE Screener course is all about. It's not just about adding something to your tool box.

 

What may be obvious, perhaps, is that it is a class in which you learn to be a provider of HANDLE services.

-          You do detective work: You learn to take a client through a series of tasks, observe how the tasks are done, and translate these observations into insights about the way the client's nervous system works.

-          You increase your repertoire of HANDLE Activities and get creative about developing variations that suit the needs of your clients

-          You learn to create a program for your client and how to teach it, explain it and follow up on it.

 

But that, as I said, is the more obvious piece.

 

What also happens in this class is that you learn to look at yourself differently. Each student gets to sit in the client's seat and be screened. Invariably, you learn something or a few things about yourself that you didn't know before. And then you start working through your own program, facing the challenges, noticing changes, wondering if you are still the same person if you gradually feel less impulsive, or better focused, or less anxious. If you've defined yourself as a person with this or that challenge, perhaps it's time to let that go.  

 

And you work, as best you can, on being very, very gentle - with yourself as well as with others, and practice non-judgment even when it's hard. You realize that HANDLE is not just about helping people learn better and feel better. It is an approach you can apply to other aspects of your life and to your relationships with other people.  

 

Another thing that happens is that you make new friends. HANDLE seems to draw people you can enjoy hanging out with, learning from and collaborating with.

 

Screener Courses, HANDLE's Level 3, have been structured in different ways. They all involve in-class modules and some online work, as well homework. They all involve student clinics, in which students (under supervision) work with clients from the community (ages 5 and up, including adults). Taking HANDLE courses Levels 1 and 2 (Introduction and Basics) or a combination of both is a prerequisite. Being accepted to the course is also a requirement.

You can find more information on the HANDLE Institute's website, www.handle.org, as well as on my events page.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is three times more prevalent than autism

 

The Center for Disease Control estimates that up to one out of 20 (that’s 5%) Americans suffers from the effects of exposure to alcohol in utero.

A recent research in 4 communities estimated that the numbers are on average about 6.5 percent. 

One of twenty is a lot of people. It can be any of your students or clients or friends and loved ones.  

There is no amount of alcohol that is considered safe for a fetus. The consequences are very broad, and may include, among other things,  

• Poor memory
• Poor reasoning, judgment, organization and planning skills
• Difficulties with attention, hyperactivity
• Learning disabilities, difficulty in school (often with math)
• Speech and language delays
• Poor coordination
• Impulsivity
• Anxiety

The list is longer, but I specifically wanted to touch on those elements that HANDLE can address. My colleagues and I have worked with people with FASD and we’ve seen improvements. Sometimes dramatic ones.

How do we address these elements? Gently, respectfully, non-judgmentally, and with an individually tailored home program of movement activities. Specifically, activities that address interhemispheric integration are an important component.  

Other supports need to be in place, such as regular routines, physical and mental health care, understanding that learning from consequences doesn’t really work, advocacy, watching out for bullies, addressing the learning disabilities and making accommodations as needed in the school curriculum. One of my favorite resources is www.FASDNorCal.org.

“I don’t want to be touched. Please don’t touch me.”

I saw this online. Perhaps you've seen it too. A 10 year old boy with autism returned to his school in Florida for a standardized test in April, six months after having being suspended for hitting and kicking a paraprofessional, leaving scratches and marks. Police officers handcuffed him and took him to spend the night in juvenile hall. He was charged with felony battery.

You can read more on CNN here and watch the video here.

I don’t know this child, but this incident gave me a lot to think about.

1. “I don’t want to be touched. Please don’t touch me.” Here’s a child who has learned – possibly with much effort – to advocate for himself. He’s aware of his sensitivity and he can politely ask others to be considerate and not assault him. And then he’s handcuffed and escorted to the police car. What does he learn from this? Perhaps helplessness. Perhaps that explaining doesn’t do any good, and that fighting back is his only recourse. It doesn’t surprise me that back in November he hit and kicked when the paraprofessional attempted to remove him from the classroom.  
2. Why else would a 10 year old boy with autism attack a teacher? If not self-protection from a perceived threat, perhaps he was suffering sensory overwhelm (which is often easier to prevent than to recover from), or low blood sugar levels.
3. Would penalties make a difference in his outbursts? Hmmm, now that he’s traumatized, I doubt he’d be dealing more effectively with his environment and the people in it.
4. Is the solution moving him to a different school? Maybe. I looked up his school, Okeechobee Achievement Academy. The following is an excerpt from the message from the principal: “Our teachers’ use a wide variety of researched based methods including; Behavioral Tools, peer coaching, autism training, counseling and community partnerships to help each student realize their potential.  It is hard work that requires lots of the three Ps;  patience, persistence, and perseverance. Our mission is to provide our students a positive, stimulating, and safe learning environment that promotes the development of individual responsibility, acceptable social skills, and academic growth. Upon returning to their former schools, our students will be able to make appropriate decisions and experience success in completing their education.” I don’t care to comment on the language imprecisions. What I learned here, however, is that this is a school in which children (probably problematic ones) spend a while, in hope that behavioral tools, peer coaching, autism training and counseling will help them behave better. 10-year-old Johnny, apparently, “had been given plenty of opportunities to change his behavior and has not.” Well, with all due respect to the good people offering coaching and counseling, this often doesn’t work as well as one would hope. It’s been my experience that when the problems are physiological or neurodevelopmental in the first place, they may need to be addressed as such.  
5. Is the solution home schooling? Perhaps, but I can tell you about my friends who feel unsupported, isolated and financially strapped when there isn’t a school that meets their children’s needs.
6. I have to step back and ask the bigger question: what if he weren’t autistic at all? Is a 10 year old mature enough to realize the wrongfulness of his conduct? Is he able to act accordingly? Is he able to understand the legal process he is subjected to and his legal rights? He isn’t, and he won’t be for years.

Please share your thoughts.