What Parents Should Know About "Pointing"
Iversen's son Dov was able to learn to communicate with "pointing," and through that means Iverson discovered a boy with significant skills - including the ability to read and do math at or above grade level. But Iversen warns that pointing may or may not work for every person with autism. Some, she notes, may in fact have mental retardation in addition to autism. Others may have underlying factors that make the method less successful.It's also important to remember that "pointing" has been received with skepticism for a reason. Not long ago, an approproach called "facilitated communication" was all the rage as a means of connecting with autistic youth. Teachers or parents would put their hands on the arms, shoulders or hands of autistic people, who would then type loving, insightful messages. While there are still those who believe that facllitated communication works, most researchers feel that what looked like messages from the autistic typer were actually caused by the "ouija board" effect. Unconsciously, the teacher or parent was helping the typist to write what they hoped to read. Today, The American Association on Mental Retardation, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association have all formally repudiated facilitated communication. While Iversen and Mukhopadhyay say that "pointing" is quite different from facilitated communication, the similarities are certainly evident.
Tips for "Pointing" on Your Own
If you do decide to try "pointing" on your own, Iversen will soon be providing an online manual and user group. Meanwhile, she offers parents and teachers a few specific tips:- The purpose of "pointing" is to practice joint (shared) attention and interaction. Joint attention is when two people attend to the same thing in the environment at the same time.
- To achieve joint attention, you may need to "outpace the stim." This means you may need to prompt your child very rapidly at first, to keep him engaged and connected.
- Teaching this technique can take a long time. Iversen recommends starting with quick, easy lessons that allow the child to, for example, choose from between two possible answers to a question.
- Since children (and adults) with profound autism may have negative self-images, Iversen recommends that teachers/parents use age-appropriate language and tone and avoid talking down to learners. She also recommends providing clear, realistic feedback (rather than simply saying "good job" after every effort).
- Iverson feels that keyboards can work as well as Soma's cardboard, but recommends turning the monitor away from the learner so that they're not distracted by the visual appearance of the letters they're typing. It's not a bad idea to start out with a QWERTY keyboard, which is, of course, the standard.
