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If you or someone you know could benefit from the full training for The S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Approach (SM), you can take the course online. Just go to https://www.thesuccessapproach.org/online-course for registration and other details.
The S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Approach is a registered Service Mark protected under intellectual property law unless otherwise specified, all music, audio visual, and proprietary content shared in this podcast is property of AWEtism Productions, LLC and it’s sister agency Integrations Treatment Center. The use of this content is unlawful without the expressed written consent the proprietor.
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Connect with Success Podcast - Episode 5, Launch Date: May 12, 2021
With Dr. Rich Smith and Dr. Lynette Scotese-Wojtila
Subject:
Welcome to Connect with Success with Dr. Lynette Scotese-Wojtila where we help connect you with knowledge. Our mission is to lead you to a new and exciting way of understanding, responding to and helping all those with autism. We hope to expand your thinking about how to best serve these amazing people and how to support you in your daily struggles and celebrations.
Dr. Richard Smith
Welcome everyone to the fifth episode of Connect with Success, the podcast built around The SUCCESS ApproachSM and the person who coined it, Dr Lynette Scotese-Wojtila. Today's episode is very special because we're going to be presenting in the first of many sessions called “Successful Synthesis Sessions.” In these synthesis sessions, we will provide a review of key ideas, covered in the last three or four episodes that will help you kind of integrate or synthesize the information into something useful in a particular situation. So Lynette, what are some of the ideas that we're going to be revisiting today?
Dr. Lynette Scotese-Wojtila
Some of the ideas from Episode One through four, and that will include transdisciplinary care, and how we use it in The SUCCESS ApproachSM to really get to the meat of that neurodevelopmental model. And then from Episode Two, we're going to revisit readiness, very important topic, and how we identify readiness in the child or the adult, and what it looks like. And from three, we're going to revisit the idea of sense-making. And how human beings move through this really cool cycle that allows us to make meaningful contact with people, places and things. And the last thing we're going to try to lay around here, is the idea of a sensory systems and how efficient or proper sensory processing really allows us to function and thrive in the world. But when sensory issues plague some of our kiddos, they limit those children's ability to be adaptive and function within the world.
Dr. Smith
Great, and this is a wonderful way to kind of recap some of the greatest hits of the last three or four episodes so make sure you guys stick around as we head into today's message.
Welcome back to the segment called The Message here with Connect with Success and we're going to jump right into the pool and talk about the first episode, which was about building your team and how important it is to build a team around your individual with autism. So Lynette, what would you say were some of the key points from episode one, as we talk about building a team.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
Yeah, definitely the idea of transdisciplinary care, which kind of equates to a full team. And don't forget, it must, must, must include our wonderful parents and family. And these people, these professionals and family together, work to assess, plan for, and then treat and teach the child, which creates this unique web of support to fully facilitate the child's progress. And so we would say that this good team approach sort of results in listing the ingredients -- like if we're going to make a cake -- that kind of listing of ingredients that we're going to need to bake the just right cake and how much of what you need.
Dr. Smith
So we really have to identify the key points to making a good cake. In this analogy, and so we can't miss anything, so it really does take that village approach and transdisciplinary care.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That’s right. And when you have those ingredients, as defined by the team, what we want to do next in a transdisciplinary model is cross train and role release. So that's going to ensure proper blending or synthesizing of those ingredients. So this blending isn't entirely easy, it does take a lot of work, and while The SUCCESS ApproachSM, again, I will emphasize can beautifully be applied and effective for all children and adults with special needs, especially those with autism because that's what it was designed for, It's a little harder to say that about the adults who are actually providing services. And the reason is because not every adult has that orientation. Not every adult or family member even has that capacity to really collaborate. And it's because it takes specific skills.
So in 2001, I was asked to co-author a chapter in a book that the American Occupational Therapy Association published. One of the things really important about this book in this particular chapter was that it really highlighted the difference between transdisciplinary care and other models; and some of the skill sets that a team member would need to have to be a really good transdisciplinarian. And I just wanted to read that entry so we have an understanding of some of the skill sets, you can say.
So, some of the interpersonal skills that it takes to have successful collaboration as a transdisciplinary [team member] include:
Some methods are not. Some methods are very specific to a field, for example, the teacher would never want me to assess a child with an IQ test because I don't know anything about IQ tests and how to render them. And the same way. A special teacher would probably never want to do a therapeutic brushing program for a child or work with a child on the swing to integrate the sense of balance, and nor would it be appropriate. So we really want to understand our boundaries and our lines that we have to work within, but find those that are transferable and cross train and role release.
Dr. Smith
And it really speaks to building a team that you can trust, really having that communication because, I can come from the parent perspective and feeling just broken in some places where I didn't have people that I fully trusted with providing me a diagnosis or providing me with some insight as to how my child might be feeling to be able to relate to that and so building that team of people that you can trust really comes through loud and clear in that communication.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
And so probably a final key point to this transdisciplinary care that we talked about in episode one, is really related to neuro development. So for kids with autism and other special needs, we really want that team that we put together, to be very grounded in that all powerful, bottom-up approach on what I call in episode one a neuro developmental model. And then, if we do that, if we ground ourselves in neuro development, the individual's brain and body gets treated better and faster, than if the team were to adopt the more readily available top-down approach afforded through other intervention models that parents say, sort of drive the product or “drill the skill” into the child; and again in using The SUCCESS ApproachSM principles for literally a quarter of a century now here at Integrations Treatment Center, we have found that the far superior alternative to a top-down approach or a drill-the-skill kind of approach is one that strategically elicits the child's ability to process and master the baby steps of the skill, and thus arrive at the product, or produce the skill, such that the skill is acquired naturally and normally. And then it's going to generalize and it's going to stick. So it's far superior.
Dr. Smith
I love this idea of forming the team around the whole source. It starts with the basics of knowing your bench, and knowing who can perform what skills to help bring a holistic approach to your child with autism. And what really speaks to what you have said over and over again, you have to reach and teach the child and I think that brings us to the next topic in episode two, which is readiness.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right. So some of the key points that we want to revisit from episode two about readiness is that readiness is an observable state wherein the child is adequately prepared to meet the demands of the environment. So basically, they are ready to function and respond to what's going on around them.
Another key point is that readiness is something foundational to every human being. And it's dynamic, so it's going to fluctuate. It comes and goes. We are here in Cleveland, we have the wonderful Cleveland Opera and Orchestra, and if we're in some of those venues, and we can sit and attend, we are able to do that. But if our bladder is full, and the maitre d is starting to call to us. We're not going to be ready to listen to the rest of that performance. So that kind of leads me to say that readiness and skill are not the same thing, but readiness can and does impact performance of a skill, our ability to initiate or ability to complete a particular skill. They are definitely related. Another key thing that we talked about in episode two, is that readiness can be assessed. This is where parents really have the power. They are really empowered to know this. You can know when your child is ready. And the way that you do that, if you remember back to episode two, was to look at their eyes, and notice where they're directed. Notice their body position or alignment, relative to you, or what it is you're trying to introduce and listen to their voice. So this little mental checklist that we talked about, is really a nice little list for parents to say, “Is my child ready?” Let me look at these factors, eyes, body voice. Nope, you know what, he's scripting. His mind is somewhere else. It's on a memory that isn't about the here and now. He's scripting something from Snoopy that he saw. Okay, so I'm not going to introduce him to this task right now. I'm not going to expect him to perform right now because his mind is somewhere else. But what I can do is move myself into his vision and hold something at his eye level that I want him to engage to, because as he's scripting Snoopy’s Halloween episode or something that's salient to him from the past, you through his sensory systems are going to bring something that's more salient and eventually the eyes are going to win out, especially if you jingle whatever it is that you're giving him or you're showing him, so you kind of interrupt that process and you'll get his eyes back on you, and his voice will not script anymore. So these are the tools that you need
Dr. Smith
in Episode Two, you used the analogy of Rain Man and that scene with the necklace and so it's the same situation here, so make sure you head back to episode two if you missed that analogy. And that leads us to episode three, where we talked about sense-making. And where we can layer in how once we've processed what's going on, we move to the next step of trying to make sense of it all, and again, this is another natural human reaction. It's just a matter of how someone with autism processes it.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
I'm glad you actually said the word layering, Dr Smith, good word, because I want to sort of address that idea. So as many of you are starting to kind of understand here in Episode Five. In The Success Approach, ideas, or theories, build on each other and connect or complement the others. Similar to the way that we sort of lay the foundation for a house or a structure that you're building, we go from the ground up and we're adding each unique layer of support that culminates in this perfect structure that serves to contain and support our needs, and basically to help us thrive. So when it comes to building a foundation for our kids, we first need that good team that agrees to operate from that neurodevelopmental model. So we can discern those ingredients, and then use one of those core ingredients, which is the adult’s ability and effectiveness of being good at reading readiness. So that when we're presenting these things, the child has maximum benefit to actually take in and make sense of what it is that we're offering to them, or that we're wanting them to attend to. And so when we think about those two things being in place, a full team, neuro development, and -- boom -- readiness assessment, now it's about how we're going to have the child learn in our presence, how we're going to be impactful on the child.
Dr. Smith
In education they call that scaffolding. And actually the online training program for The Success Approach is based on a scaffolding model. So we start with step one, work your way up. If for some reason you can't make a path one or two or three, where the misunderstanding was at, and start to build over again from there.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
It’s going back in time and redoing the baby steps so your solid structure is the outcome of your efforts. And that's just like therapy as well, which I'm glad that you bring up the idea of scaffolding. In this case, on how our class. One theory builds on the next so the parent or the teacher, or whoever takes the class, has the beautiful advantage of evolving to a solid plan. Nothing happens fast, if it's done well, so you really have to build slowly and the more theories, the more you can kind of stack your deck or build your house, or that child when everyone's doing the same thing, guess who benefits? And guess who progresses fast, right?
So in this episode three, you might have heard me talk a lot about sense making. So sense making is basically the same thing as comprehension or learning, and sense making is the outcome of a process, so it's an end product. And it's the centerpiece of one of the concepts unique to Gestalt theory, that's from the field of psychology and Gestalt theory is truly one of the key theories of The Success Approach that makes it work so well. I mean it is the secret sauce, in my mind. And Gestalt theory actually is the hallmark theory of my doctoral research. And so I spent a lot of time and intimate research on Gestalt theory. And what's so cool about it is that it provides us the schematic, the circular schematic, that was created and recreated by many Gestalt theorists, over time, that helps us conceptualize a circular process through which our brains travel, as we experience sense-making. And this circular process starts with none other than sensation, and it moves them through other various cycle parts and kind of comes to contact. So there are steps I am leaving out in between, but we go from experiencing sensation to moving through this cycle of making contact and therefore understanding or wrapping our brain around, whatever it is that we came in contact with. And it's kind of an automatic process we don't often talk about it, but it is part of my research so I wanted to read something from my doctoral Capstone, that I think would be helpful to kind of explain what some of the theorists talk about or what they mean by the circular process that results in sense making.
So this is a quote from my Capstone project:
“According to Gestalt theory, to achieve proper sense-making, one must go through several steps of the Gestalt cycle of experience without getting stuck.” (This is based on one of the schematics by Zinger 1977. Normal movement through the Gestalt cycle of experience begins at the top of the schematic, again this is a circular schematic, starting with sensation, and in sensation, individuals take in a multitude of sensory input or impulses, derived from both themselves and from the environment. Once that happens, the person moves through a few steps in this circular process, very well known Gestalt theorists and they arrive at “Contact” and contact is a flexible and meaningful connection of the self, with or or to the environment, things or people. So when contact is successful, meaning is made, resulting in concept formation or an idea or ideation.
Dr. Smith
And so we all go through this, and relating those experiences to any past or previous life experiences that we've gone through and how we bring it back to making sense of things going forward.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right. And what's so exciting about this idea is we're figuring out, not just what the world is all about and what we're about, but the relationship between all those things. So when a baby is thirsty, and over and over and over again the mommy introduces a bottle or a sippy cup eventually they associate relief with that cup; so thirst is tied to -- and quenching of the thirst -- is tied to this source. And that can only happen because the child, eventually or I should say the child initially experienced the sensation, and therefore, needed something the mother responded to and came in contact with the quench and the baby is not seeking out a hammer. That's not the association for thirst, it's very distinctly a fluid source. And so it's very natural, it happens, thousands and thousands and thousands of times a day, I'm quite sure most of us, but for kids on the spectrum, like we talked about in episode three, they get stuck. They get stuck somewhere on the cycle. And so they don't perceive the bottle, or they don't detect the thirst. These are the things that plague families, and really make us wonder how to help children on the spectrum to actually make contact with, and therefore derive meaning from, their world.
And then the last episode that we presented with Ellen winning occupational therapist, par excellence, was the topic of sensory integration. And some of the key things for sensory integration are, again, sort of understanding this process, this subconscious, subcortical quite literally, subcortical process that kind of happens at the brainstem, you know the primitive parts of the brain, where information comes into the sensory system, and gets processed and interpreted and sort of utilized for function.
And we kind of talk about it as almost a reflexive sort of thing, because it is brain STEMmy, so to speak. We're not thinking about that accidental scratchy sound at the window at night and consciously, putting meaning to it. It's a quick reaction -- “Is that a robber? Or is that a raccoon?” And it’s fast!
Dr. Rich Smith
right, and some of them really do get stuck in that processing piece, and trying to assess their environments all around them. And us unwillingly doing things could just be kind of pushing them into that loop.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right, and it's stuff that we don't even realize. So when we're talking about the sensory systems, another key point is these children don't often inhibit. They can't turn off, or turn down, the sensory impulses, or the sensory perception, and so it might be that something that we perceive every day, like the humming of a refrigerator, that is quiet background noise for us is unfortunately salient for that child. And that's what's in their consciousness; they can't suppress it, or they can't inhibit it. And it's because autism affects the sensory processing. That's a really important part of the DSM FIVE now, that there are sensory symptoms that can go along with the disorder, and that helps diagnosticians to make the right call.
Dr. Rich Smith
I mean we see it a lot in our students in classrooms. We see it with our own children, as we're going through just this, constant overstimulation, and it's them trying to make sense of everything all at once.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right. And sometimes it's the opposite. It's under processing. So you know, “lights on nobody home” kind of thing. When you look at your child, they're not quite perceiving that there's a fire alarm. They're not quite perceiving that there's an ant crawling on them. They're not perceiving that there is the smell of dinner being ready. And so they're not getting cues from the environment like the rest of us, and therefore their behavior is reflecting that.
Dr. Rich Smith
And you bring up a good point about the behavior, because sometimes in order for them to cope, their coping mechanism might be something verbally not acceptable in a particular public setting, and it's just misconstrued as misbehavior, but it's really the stem trying to cope with that overload.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right. Oftentimes it looks disruptive to the naked eye. So if a child is irritated by the tag in their shirt, they may have to pace, to tolerate, or cope with that load -- that tactile load. What that looks like, maybe to a teacher or to a principal or to a nanny or to a grandma or to a bus driver or somebody, that the child's disengaged, or worse yet, being disrespectful. That it becomes sort of this attribute, this personality type, and not at all. Is the child disrespectful?
Dr. Rich Smith
Labeled as defiant.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
Yeah, that's right. And so these adjectives come into our description of these kids that really couldn't be any farther from the truth, which is kind of sad I think takes a toll on parents. You know parents see the beauty, and parents see the uniqueness and the strengths in their child, and the beauty, really, again. And when you hear some of these terms it’s like wow that I don't consider my kid aloof, like, “What is everyone seeing?”, Or defiant. I don't see that, you know, I see him troubled, I see him distracted. I see his nervous system on fire. You know those are very different ways of describing a child than deliberate, or class clown, or something else more negative.
Dr. Rich Smith
Yeah just helping them process that, those expectations in that environment, because we want them to act a particular way. It's really them trying to make sense of their environment because in these institutions, they expect behavior in a certain way, but it may not be clear for the person on the spectrum to operate that way.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
That's right. Even things like clapping, you know that's kind of a given norm, when you're at a performance and a group -- large or small -- and something is completed on stage for instance, the audience usually responds with a clap, or you know, an applause. That is sometimes not as tolerable to someone who has sound sensitivity.
I know people on the spectrum, instead of applauding, when they speak, for instance, this happens a lot at the Autism Society of America's conferences that we frequent, and are often lecturing at, they will have the person with autism identify early on for their audience as they speak, that instead of clapping they appreciate standing, or even clicking, you know, to show that they appreciate the information shared.
Dr. Smith
To soften that auditory cue that might be triggering.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
Yeah, to meet that social expectation of gratitude at the end of the nice presentation.
Dr. Smith
Wow, what a great tip there.
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
So our challenge for this episode. Today listeners, I invite you all to revisit your own ability, and your team's ability, to do three things:
Dr. Smith
As we wrap up this first Successful Synthesis Session, and we will have many more as our goal is to give you a recap of what we talked about on this podcast every five episodes or so, to give us a time to process The SUCCESS Approach and how it can impact our lives and the community of autism, and we've really only begun to scratch the surface so that right, Lynette,
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
Absolutely, much more to come.
Dr. Smith
What are some of the takeaways from this episode?
Dr. Scotese-Wojtila
Be a team player, who respects how the brain drives human development.
Help your child get ready for making sense of his world, and be sure he has proper contact with the idea he is learning. So the concept is learned, naturally, and normally.
Be an advocate for your child's sensory needs, so she can be her best version of herself at all times.
And above everything, expect success.
Dr. Lynette Scotese-Wojtila
We hope that you learned something today to help you on your journey with autism. We'll share more on our next Connect with Success Podcast.
Until then, expect success!
Dr. Richard Smith
The S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Approach (SM) is a registered service mark protected under intellectual property law. Unless otherwise specified, all music audio visual and proprietary content shared in this podcast is property of AWEtism Productions, LLC, and its sister agency Integrations Treatment Center (Wickliffe, Ohio). Use of this content is unlawful without the express written consent of the aforementioned agency.
For more information about The Success Approach, please go to our website at www.thesuccessapproach.org.
Want to help your child and your whole family using The SUCCESS Approach? Check out our online course: https://www.thesuccessapproach.org/online-course
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