Talking to a Prodigy

In high school, I had the opportunity to play a game of chess with a prodigy. He was around five- or six- years old (maybe a bit younger or older), and was an extraordinary player. He won the game easily. After the game, we had a long discussion where he was able to explain very advanced technical aspects of the game. Later, his dad came by, and he immediately jumped into conversations about little kid things like going to the park to play and watching cartoons. A few months later, I saw him on public television giving his thoughts on the live broadcast of the Chess World Championships.

This was long before I had ever heard of ABA, but I remember thinking how incredible it was that this child’s incredible knowledge of the game allowed him to engage on a deep level much beyond his current age, yet he still had “little kid” interests, too. He probably had typical social skills for a child his age (or at least one who was a chess prodigy). But he could engage with adults for long periods of time, and hold their interest in a meaningful way, because of the chess skills that he had developed.

I believe for many children with autism, this is our best shot to developing meaningful conversations and friendships. Although typical social skills programs can be very helpful, they often do not lead to friendships. It is hard because the process of developing a deep interest will likely not lead to immediate benefits, but in the long run, the procedure seems promising.

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.

Who is the Hot Girl with Johnny?

Years ago, I was working with a first-grader in an inclusion classroom. The student made fantastic progress with a 1-1 aide in the classroom. He had great reductions in problem behaviors, increases in appropriate behaviors, and was doing well on a variety of programming. For context, he had mostly completed Level 2 of the VB-MAPP.

But one area where the team still had significant concerns was his ability to socially interact with peers. There was a variety of programming in place for these skills, but he didn’t quite have the ability to keep up when his peers were talking at snack or recess.

A common tactic employed in this situation is to first determine what the other kids are talking about, and then teach our students to talk about the same things. Well, one of the little FIRST GRADE BOYS was saying things like, “Who is the hot girl with Johnny?”  when talking about the paraprofessional working with Johnny. That was a long way from the types of conversational exchanges that we were working on like, “I have chips for snack.” “What TV shows do you like?” The gap was obviously large, but a bit hard to quantify.

Although data looked good on increasing peer interactions, those interactions were (obviously) still awkward, and did not lead to meaningful friendships with peers. This is another situation, where it might look good in the short-term, but the results are not very meaningful towards improving anyone’s life in the long-term.

In my view, the solution to this problem is to focus on developing a deep interest. Friendships are usually based on having at least one similar interest that both people like to talk about. When you have at least a few appropriate things that you know a lot about, it becomes possible to find “your people.” This goes a long way towards helping children with autism develop meaningful friendships.

Don’t worry so much if they aren’t interacting with peers a lot. The goal isn’t to make the child popular. The goal isn’t to make the data look good to meet arbitrary criteria in the goals. There is a big difference between one meaningful friendship and zero meaningful friendships. The way to go from zero friends to one friend is to develop at least one skill, interest, or activity that is deep enough that it becomes possible to find others that like to talk about and participate in that activity.

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.

He Never Does This in Real Life

There are a number of reasons why a child does not use a skill in real life which he has supposedly “mastered” in therapy. I have previously argued that one commonly overlooked reason is that the skill wasn’t fluent enough to be useful. I think that is true, but I’ve discovered it can sometimes lead us to think too narrowly about how good someone has to be at a particular skill in order for it to be useful.

When I was in high school, I entered the New York State High School Championship in Chess and won 1st place. I have a trophy and everything. Now, to put my achievement in perspective, there was a masters level division, but I didn’t compete in that division. There was also a Class A Players (Experts) division, but I didn’t compete in that division either. Same with Class B, C, and D. I won first place in the E division.

To summarize, out of all the kids in the state who were the worst players on their respective teams, I won first place. My high school didn’t even have a team or a coach. I was self-motivated and went as the only representative from my school. Now, by any objective standard, I wasn’t a very good player. Isn’t it unusual to be self-motivated when you aren’t very good at a skill? Still, all of us E-division players had an enjoyable hobby.

In my view, the key factor that allows E-division-level players to enjoy chess is that our skills are “good enough.” If we struggled to remember how the pieces moved, or didn’t understand the basics of strategy, we would be bored to death. It actually takes a fair amount of practice to get to the minimal level necessary for the game to be interesting. Now, more than 35 years later, I even have a high appreciation of dramatic TV shows about chess due to my understanding of the game.

Sometimes, we give up teaching skills too easily. We tried teaching him drawing, bike riding, robotics, or Connect Four, and he didn’t like it. Sure, maybe the child just doesn’t like that activity. But there is a fairly high probability that he or she just didn’t learn enough skills to appreciate why the activity is interesting.

We often teach skills to fairly low levels and expect them to generalize. That rarely works. You need to teach skills to the “good enough” level to be useful, which will be more likely to lead to the child developing a natural interest in the activity that will persist over time. It is easy to be discouraged looking at the high levels of skill that the other children have, and to think this will be impossible. Remembering that the child doesn’t have to be great, just good enough that the activity is fun, is often more than enough for the child to use skills outside of therapy.

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to Poogi.