Summary of Barry M. Prizant's Uniquely Human

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The first thing I noticed about Jesse was the fear and anxiety in his eyes. He was a boy with severe social anxiety, sensitivity to touch, and difficulty processing language. He also had a seizure disorder that was detected when he was a toddler.
#2 The traditional approach to diagnosing autism is to look for a combination of deficits, such as difficulty communicating, trouble developing relationships, and a restricted repertoire of interests and behaviors. But this approach treats the person as a problem to be solved rather than an individual to be understood.
#3 The main cause of emotional dysregulation in people with autism is their neurology. They are more vulnerable to emotional and physical challenges than others, and they have fewer innate coping strategies.
#4 It is important to consider all available clues and work to determine what is underlying or triggering a particular reaction. What is making the child dysregulated. Is it internal or external. Is it visible. Is it in the sensory realm.

Sujets

• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Autism spectrum
• Psychopathology

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669392255
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Barry M. Prizant's Uniquely Human
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first thing I noticed about Jesse was the fear and anxiety in his eyes. He was a boy with severe social anxiety, sensitivity to touch, and difficulty processing language. He also had a seizure disorder that was detected when he was a toddler.

#2

The traditional approach to diagnosing autism is to look for a combination of deficits, such as difficulty communicating, trouble developing relationships, and a restricted repertoire of interests and behaviors. But this approach treats the person as a problem to be solved rather than an individual to be understood.

#3

The main cause of emotional dysregulation in people with autism is their neurology. They are more vulnerable to emotional and physical challenges than others, and they have fewer innate coping strategies.

#4

It is important to consider all available clues and work to determine what is underlying or triggering a particular reaction. What is making the child dysregulated. Is it internal or external. Is it visible. Is it in the sensory realm.

#5

All humans have rituals and habits to help them regulate themselves. People with autism have many of these, but they are also often diagnosed with having deficits. But in reality, these are just strategies they use to feel better regulated emotionally.

#6

The term behavior is often used to describe children’s repetitive, self-stimulatory behavior. But these are actually strategies to cope with dysregulation. When an American psychiatrist named Leo Kanner first introduced the autism diagnosis in 1943, he noticed a striking trait among the children he described: they tended to be insistent on preserving sameness.

#7

Some children with autism find objects that help them self-regulate. For example, one boy would keep a particular black stone with him at all times, and when he lost it, his father was agonized. He eventually found a replacement.

#8

The presence and proximity of another person is often the key to emotional regulation for people with autism. They may echo spoken language, which has often been dismissed as autistic behavior, but it serves many functions for people with autism, including emotional regulation.

#9

Some people with autism not only repeat themselves, but they also dominate conversations, sharing great amounts of information about a favorite topic without considering the other person’s thoughts, feelings, or interests. This can be a sign of dysregulation.

#10

The deficit approach to treating autism is ineffective because it focuses on eliminating certain behaviors, which can actually make life more difficult for the person with autism. It is better to recognize the value of such behavior and teach other strategies to stay well regulated.

#11

When it comes to helping children cope with their feelings of dysregulation, the most important thing you can do is acknowledge and validate those feelings. Often, the most important things we can do to help are to acknowledge and validate the child’s feelings.

#12

The best way to support a person with autism is to pay attention to how you react to them. If a stranger tries to offer a child with autism a hug, the child might react defensively. But the same child might not mind a hug if he does the initiating.

#13

I learned that Jesse was defensive and scared, and that he lacked control over how he spent his time or what to expect. I helped develop a communication book for him to express himself by pointing to what he wanted or what he needed.

#14

The school that Jesse went to was able to help him because they focused on listening to him and his needs, instead of trying to change him. They gave him the tools to cope with his dysregulation, and he was able to control his own life.

#15

I learned that David, a four-year-old boy, had a fascination with textures and tactile sensations. He would pick tiny wool pills from my sweater and then the front, examine each ball up close, and roll it between his thumb and index finger.

#16

The experience of a child is not just the facts but also their feelings about those facts. If you are able to understand and interpret a child’s feelings, you can better understand their experience.

#17

Echolalia is one of the defining characteristics of autism. It is when a person with autism repeats words, phrases, or whole sentences, often ad infinitum. However, this behavior is not problematic. It is simply another autistic behavior.

#18

Some professionals have reinforced the idea that this type of communication is silly talk or video talk and have worked to arm parents with strategies to stop it. But I have long felt that this is wrong, and that professionals were misunderstanding echolalia.

#19

I was hired to work at the Buffalo Children’s Hospital Autism Program in 1975. I worked with five young boys who had autism, and observed their echolalia. I found that none of them was parroting meaningless words. They were communicating, and using echolalia for other purposes as well.

#20