Victoria - Well, welcome to week seven. Here we go, talking about personalized  planning and some really specific areas. So we're going to be teaching you  about some things as we go through what does it look like to plan individually for people with those differences. And so I'm going to let you listen to Barb, who is  an expert in the area of autism spectrum disorder. She's going to describe what  that is and how you can be planning for individuals for whom that's a description  of a lot of how they navigate life. So have a listen to Barb in this next video clip. 

Barb - many of these strategies work with a variety of individuals. So let's begin  our journey here into the land of autism spectrum disorder and some of those  personalized plans that congregations have found helpful. Heads up just  because we're including this sort of as part of the responsive design or the  personalized design program, please understand that many of these strategies  can simply be built in as a universal design strategy, and you wouldn't even  need a plan if you have some of these tools already built into your worship  service, or your children's ministry, youth ministry, just that heads up, I think, is  important. Just because a person might be diagnosed with autism spectrum  disorder does not necessarily mean you will need a personalized plan for this  individual as part of your congregational setting. You might, maybe not so it's an  option. But really want to talk a little bit about what is autism spectrum disorder,  and then spend a whole bunch of time giving you strategies to try heads up  before we enter into that. Remember this beautiful verse that I tied with the  puzzle piece. That puzzle piece of thinking about being knit together by God, we have to remember that no matter when we call out something like Autism  Spectrum Disorder or Down syndrome, again, here's a knitting pattern that God  has chosen to use with all gifts, with all areas of need. And so the bottom line is,  remember that individual is a gift to the community. That individual brings gifts to the community. And we want to spend some time understanding a little bit about  that, that gift, and it's up to the church to have a chance to open that gift, to see  who that person is, that God has sent to be part of your community. So as we  enter into that, I just have a couple of cautions for you as we think about autism  spectrum disorder. First of all, I want you to know that I can get you about as far  as Colorado in this particular event. If you know that I live in Michigan, and you  know some of the geography that might be part of the United States, you would  know that Colorado is a little bit more west of where I am. Colorado has some  mountains. So if I told you that I went to Colorado on my vacation, there are  some things that you could guess about my trip. I probably did see a mountain.  Maybe I spent time outdoors or built a fire, or went camping or, who knows, you  could know some things about my vacation, but you wouldn't really understand  about my vacation until I showed you my pictures from Colorado and I pulled out that rock I got off of a mountain called Pikes Peak, or whatever that may be,  then you would really understand about my vacation. So I'm just going to give 

you that heads up and warning. I'm going to talk about autism spectrum  disorder, but I'm going to only get you about as far as Colorado. You'll know  some things about autism, and you'll know some words that people use, some  of the differences and strategies, but you won't really know about you know that  individual, that's your job, that's your job to get to sit beside that person that God has sent to your community and learn to know about that person's gifts and  areas of need. So remember, get just about as far as Colorado on the topic of  autism, you get to be the one that goes deeper. The other warning that I will give you is that I'm going to make you all just a little bit dangerous. I'm going to tell  you about autism, and so here's your warning. I remember, in fact, I have the joy of going to many gatherings, learning about different areas of disability, and take all these notes, and then I run home and I say, Oh, honey, I know what you've  got. My poor husband, thankfully, he stayed with me. We've been married 30,  32, years. But it's one of those things again, where it's it's so tempting to say,  Oh, now I know about autism. I'm going to go and say to this parent or say to  this adult, hey, I know what you've got. Oh, please don't do that. In order to be  able to give that diagnosis, you need to have a lot of credentials behind your  name. You need to be a psychologist or a medical doctor. So if you're not one of  those two people, you can't go up to somebody and say, Hey, I know what  you've got but but hopefully what you learn can help inform the conversations  you can have, and especially the strategies that you can try in a church setting.  So please keep that in mind. Please do. Not go back to your church and say,  Hey, I know what your child has, or I know what you have. We simply cannot do  that. I've written a book on autism spectrum disorders, and I can't diagnose  anyone because I don't have the right credentials behind my name, but I can  certainly come up with strategies and ideas to try. So just keep that in mind as  we move through this I wanted to talk about six areas of difference that one  might notice in a person with autism spectrum disorder, and that's going to make up the first portion of this week. The other two portions are going to be talking  about very specific strategies that align with those six areas of difference. So  first of all, just a quick trip through a little bit of history. It used to be, actually, the  title for this slide used to be pervasive developmental disorders, and that was  sort of like the umbrella term. Then it moved people started, sort of informally,  using the term autism spectrum disorders. But there were several different  things that were under there, autism, Asperger's Syndrome, childhood  disintegrative disorder, rest disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, not  otherwise specified. There were different categories. Well, they changed the  psychologist changed their manual, and so now this is what that umbrella looks  like. It's Autism Spectrum Disorder, one you either have it or you don't. And  what's under there are a series of qualifications or differences, and I'm going to  pull out six things that are often related to autism spectrum disorder in order to  qualify for that for that designation. So wanted to go through each one as we 

think about the difference, differences in an individual with autism spectrum  disorder, first of all, a spectrum is a great word to use, because there's this band of how this difference might impact an individual. So social difference might  impact a person to this significant degree where you've you really try to avoid  social engagement. You're confused by that. You might act out being part of a  social area might bring a lot of stress. On the other hand, you might have an  individual who makes a lot of social errors or mistakes, and so reading that  social environment is challenging. So for example, let's just imagine that the  room where I'm standing in was used for a birthday party a few days ago, and  there were, you know, a group of people here, and they had the same thing sort  of in this space, but people were having a birthday party a person with autism  spectrum disorder, often the portion of the brain that makes social decisions is a  little bit larger. And so individuals take in a variety of factors. It could be the  number of lights on the ceiling or the patterns in the floor or the way the things  are set up. Could be a lot of different things. And so that person may choose to  walk in to this room, even though it says in use recording happening that person may choose to walk in and burst into the happy birthday song while we're doing  this recording, because that's how the room was used previously. So you see  individuals choose, often, something that would make some sense in terms of  their background or history, but doesn't always make sense within that context.  I'll never forget again the social cues that a particular student was missing one  day I was standing in front of my classroom door at Zeeland Christian school,  and that individual was down at the office, and there was quite a space between us. There were no busses running that day, so parents were picking up all of  their kids. Now, I had worked with his student for at least two years. I'm not  exactly sure what happened that day, why he chose this day to notice this about  me, but he was down by the office, and between us were probably 100 people,  children and parents all leaving the school, and he talked in a voice about like  this, which we'll talk about later. It's related to sensory differences. But he  spotted me, and in that voice, he says, Hey, Mrs. Newman, you must weigh at  least 400 pounds. It's like, Oh, my goodness, right there is this, this immediate.  Oh, but here's the deal. I didn't yell at him, although we did have a chat in my  office. We went to the side, and I showed him. I drew on a piece of paper where  I was, where he was, and I just drew an X in between there for 100 people that  were there. And I said, Did you know that when you said those words to me,  they fell into the ears of everybody who was in between us? He had no idea.  See, he wasn't talking to any of those individuals. He was talking to me and and  so. And then I said, you know, there are certain people that we can talk to them  about their weight and and we've sort of made some lists. And after I had  explained the social pieces that he had missed or misread, he looked at me and  he apologized. So again, it wasn't something. He had done wrong. It was  something that he had misread. And so often we need to explain those social 

pieces, because they're not readily apparent. Often to that person with ASD  pretty confident in that hallway, it's not going to happen again. Now, if you see  him at the grocery store, all bets are off. But in school, I don't believe that will be  repeated. So there's some kind of social difference when you're working with a  person with autism spectrum disorder. Another area of difference will be  language. Again. Could be that you have some individuals that might have  spoken some beginning words, but by about 18 months or so, those words have drained away verbally, that person may communicate a bit, but not much, or it  might be pictures, pointing to pictures or handing you a picture to let you know  what that person wants. On the other hand, you may have some people who  have incredible vocabularies. They have lots of words to speak, almost like a  professor, right? Many, many words, but often the difference is in that place  called being very literal in their understanding of words. So you can have  somebody who is very intent on running out the door and finding a window when somebody says, Oh my goodness, it's raining cats and dogs. They've never  seen that happen before. It could be a very literal experience. So again,  language can can be different. Also, language involves conversation, doesn't it?  It could be a person that is great in getting words out, but they're not able to  listen, calculate and figure out what they should respond in their next statement  to that person they are having a conversation with. So some differences in  language, and certainly, that spectrum comes into play depending on how that  difference impacts that individual. Another area of difference would just be these repetitive themes and behaviors. Now, again, on one end, it might be a certain  motion that a person makes, or I had a student once, we couldn't even think  about beginning to learn unless every single toy was where it needed to be in  the classroom. Not a bad perk for that year, but that was part of that repetitive  theme and behavior. On the other hand, you might have some individuals that  are very focused on a topic, VeggieTales, Star Trek, Episode 32 with guest  stars, you know, whatever that might be. So they're very much engaged in these repetitive themes and behaviors, and they want to talk at length about  something that's so important to them, you know, the geographical high points of a particular country, just very focused and often very knowledgeable in that area  of interest. Another area of difference would be this desire for routine. Please  don't change my schedule. Please don't even use that C word, because that is  so upsetting to me. So again, on one hand, you may have some people who  behaviorally are going to act out if something has changed, and on the other  hand, you may have some people who are really intent. You know, it says on the schedule, worship starts at 10 o'clock and it's 10:02 I guarantee you somebody's going to say, Excuse me, excuse me. It's 10:02 because you're not on schedule  and it's altered from the time that's listed. So again, that desire for routine is  huge. Another area that I think is important to highlight is that called perspective  taking ability. Basically that's the opportunity, or the idea that we can sort of jump

into somebody else's head and figure out what they might be thinking or feeling.  So, you know, we do it all the time. If you're a leader and standing up in front of  a group of people, you're reading people's faces all the time. Oh, that. I bet  they're confused. Oh, they're smiling. They're with me, they're falling asleep. I  need to do something loud, whatever that could be, but, but we're always trying  to jump into people's head, engaged what they are thinking or feeling. There are a couple of things that are really difficult to do without good perspective taking  ability. One of those things is to get embarrassed. Bottom line, if I'm going to get  embarrassed, if I would all of a sudden burp right now I would get embarrassed,  because I would be jumping into your heads thinking, oh my goodness, why did  that woman drink a Diet Coke before she decided to do a presentation? You  know? So I would get embarrassed. But if I didn't have access to that  information, would I care? Probably not, and if it felt good, I'd probably do it a  couple more times. So again, the idea of getting embarrassed is a perspective  taking skill that sometimes can not be in place. Another interesting skill, although I'm not suggesting we teach it, is lying. Lying is a very high level perspective  taking ability skill. Not only do you need to alter your story, you need to alter your story in a way that impacts what that person thinks or feels about you. So I have often had to haul myself and kiddos out of a principal's office because the other  five students involved in an altercation or situation knew how to tell that lie that  got them out. Of trouble where this person is just unable to do that. I talked to a  parent. They had just bought this big bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and all the way on the floor to the child's bedroom are these wrappers and chocolate on this child's face, ending at the door to his bedroom. And the dad, without even  being upset, looks at that, looks at the child and said, looks like you found the  Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and have been eating them. And the child looks at  the dad and goes, No, seriously, unable to take in the fact that dad could see the wrappers. Dad could see the chocolate on the face, and that the bag was  missing. So again, it's some of those things where people have an inability to lie  or do it very poorly. That's part of perspective taking, I think another piece the  great story that I'll tell has to do with reading other people's body language or  facial expressions. So I'll often say, as a mom and a teacher, I've developed one of these. You know, I'm looking at you right now. You're taking too long of a  break by that computer. You better get back, right? I don't have to say anything,  but I now have the look, and I can throw that across a room. I can throw that  across a pretty large room, you know, depending right? But you're you have this  look, and without using any words at all, you are communicating to that person,  because they are able to hop into your head and say, Oh, that lady is upset with  me. I think I better stop doing what I'm doing. But if you don't have that ability, it  could happen the way it happened in a kindergarten class where there was a  teacher, and every time the teacher gave the book, this kindergarten student  would just break out into hilarious laughter. And this was really not working very 

well for this teacher or the student. We found out later, through much  investigation, that one of his favorite themes at this point was letters like, man, if  you're wearing a name tag, you got letters on your clothing somewhere. This  child was so excited because of the letters. We found out that every time the  teacher gave the look, the letter T appeared in the wrinkles in her forehead. And  he was absolutely delighted with that particular show, and thought it was terrific.  So again, perspective taking ability, it comes up all the time, and many times we  simply need to provide that perspective, as I did with that child. I gave that  perspective of, look, all of these people were hearing those words, and when I  could supply the perspective that person could make the decision then to say,  I'm sorry, Mrs. Newman, So in any event, the final thing is that of sensory  responses. And I really want to cover this in some amount of detail as we talk  through the next section, sensory differences are a part of so many individuals,  not only those with sense with autism spectrum disorder. They might be part of a person with attention deficit disorder. It could be part of an individual who just  has a sensory processing difference for whatever reason. I had mentioned  before that my colleague Tori White, who you'll hear from soon, happens to have Lyme disease. Boy, did her sensory responses change during that time or  balance and her ability to function, that was the system that got hit in her body  with with a huge intensity. So again, sensory responses are one of those things  that we're going to talk a bit more about as we get to that section, beginning in  the next segment. So again, these are some of those six differences. I guess I  would encourage you to think about your life and the people who are part of it.  Does this remind you of anybody that's part of your life or your situation? Again?  Autism Spectrum Disorder, pretty much has to be a slam dunk. You need to see  all of these things. I know I did a presentation once and somebody said, Oh, my  goodness, I I really do have a desire for routine. It's like, well, yeah, but you  don't have the other five things along with that so pretty much you're looking at  this package when you're thinking of those differences and how that's part of  that individual's life


Última modificación: lunes, 27 de abril de 2026, 09:18