Building Reasoning and Problem-Solving Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Janice Nathan

Author:Janice Nathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784503901
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2018-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 9.6 Contrasting animals with different attributes

I then ask Billy to give me another example of how cows and dogs are different. Since this is effortful for Billy, I watch for signs of either physical dysregulation or a precursor of dysregulation, guessing. Guessing often occurs as a problem-solving strategy intended to reduce stress—getting me to stop asking questions that tax his brain, rather than pausing and reflecting, pulling up previously learned knowledge, and so on. When I hear guessing or see signs of dysregulation, I quickly interject, “Do you need help?” Then I wait for him to tell me, “Miss Janice, I need help,” and then I help him.

These activities also offer opportunities for a child to learn new vocabulary or concepts, in addition to retrieving previously learned knowledge. For example, when looking for differences in pictures of dogs and cows a child might say, “Cows and dogs have different feet.” At that point, I explain,

“We don’t say cows have feet; we say cows have [pause] ‘hooves.’ What do we call [point to ‘foot’] of a dog? [Child responds, ‘paws.’] That’s right! A dog has [paws]. What other animal has paws? [Child: ‘a cat.’] That’s right; cats and dogs both have paws. And they’re both pets!”

A lot is going on in the interaction above. I am helping Billy begin to develop a mental framework for cognitive categorization (how things are the same and how things are different), which is essential for problem-solving. For him to do this, he must use many elements of the Thinking in Speech model of problem-solving:

• He’s being required to pull up previously learned knowledge.

• He is having to pause and reflect.

• He is making choices.

• He is developing in-depth vocabulary knowledge.

• He is asking for help.

Sometimes these interactions can lead in unexpected directions. As an example, a child and I were talking about the differences between cows and dogs. When I asked if dogs give milk, the child responded, “Well, technically they do?” I used this to work on his thinking about language, and in particular, a deeper understanding of word meaning. In English, one can infer from the sentences “A cow gives milk,” and “A goat gives milk,” that the two animals are used for supplying milk to people. The sentences “A dog gives milk,” and “A hamster gives milk,” sound odd because they imply that we use these animals to supply us with milk, which our previously learned knowledge tells us they do not. I responded,

“Yes, technically1 they do, but ‘giving milk’ has a special meaning.”

Then before he responded, I stated,

“Do we get milk from dogs?”

My tone is important when asking these questions. I am not trying to correct the child, rather I am helping him to think about a deeper, more abstract meaning of “giving milk”: giving milk is something we associate with cows, and not with dogs.

A category framework provides the child with the ability to manipulate new information in similar and different contexts: that is, to think about information, rather than just collect and remember new information without a meaningful conceptual understanding.

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