TASH p 2 autism and motor diff

[Guest guest]

Autism and Motor differences TASH notes Part 2

This leads to another very interesting line of research that Anne Donnellan

(U of Wisconsin) is doing, along with some others, (Martha O'Leary), on

motor differences in persons with autism. This can be accessed in part at

a site that I will have to post in our resource file.

This area is getting a lot of attention and there are several people who

are doing some groundbreaking work in understanding the underlying

differences. I am paying a lot more attention to the sensory stuff with

Ben as a result of thinking more about what they discussed.

Basically, that people with autism simply move differently from others;

years of studying everything from motor planning for walking to talking and

using small muscle tasks have many people across several disciplines

putitng together a body of research on this. Anne Donnellan's work is

supported by Greenspan and most recently a neurologist will be working with

Anne to study MRIs of those with and without autism to compare and

contrast.

The best part about talking to Anne D. is that she has been involved on a

personal level with many of these families for over 10 years. She is quite

passionate not just about the research stuff but about quality of life,

positive behavior supports, and circles of community supports for people

with disabilities.

A lot that I have been reading about lately around sensory issues made a

lot more sense after thinking about how all of these things work together.

It seems also that it is no coincidence that there are speech people who

work alongside the OTs in this area; the language part is quite intricately

tied in with all of the sensory motor issues. There are folks who are

continuing to be very creative around supporting those who are non-verbal.

I picked up on an undercurrent around raising the bar around our

expectations for people who were considered to be very delayed cognitively.

Solving or at least augmenting the communication piece and continuing to

tend to sensory needs, motor planning, etc., seems to be showing that

missed communication is certainly not the same as assuming that an

individual is too delayed to learn or understand new tasks. I spoke with

several adults who have autism; a few are in college, and some people made

remarkable changes (from self-injurious behaviors to none, and from

non-verbal to speaking) after they began sensory integration, augmentative

or facilitated communication, etc., as adults.

One great conversation I had with an artist, Barbara Moran, who has autism,

was around her interest (read OCD) in cathedrals, which she draws in many

variations. Barb was able to speak at length about her work, although she

wore an FM receiver headset throughout the day. It filtered background

noises for her. She had a tremendous vocabulary and was quite aware that

she is obsessed with cathedrals. When I told her about PB having autism,

she said to me, " What does he like? " I was stumped for a moment and then

realized she wanted to know if he had any obsessions. I told her about his

love of power drills, machines, opera, etc. She made this connection more

quickly than anyone I have ever met!

MB