questions as you begin to share focus include:
What is the person most interested in doing (e.g., objects, topics, movement)?
Does the person try to bring your attention to something he or she likes and, if so, what action is taken to accomplish that?
Are you able to bring the person’s attention to something you select?
How long can you share focus together?
Now that we are on the same topic, we can begin having fun together.
As Annie continues to stay regulated and READY to engage, she shares space and then focus with a skilled partner. The focus needs to be a tangible item that is of interest to Annie and one with a purpose or function. Annie needs to be able to easily understand what she is supposed to do with this item. Initially, hand-over-hand teaching is used with physical prompts to complete a visually structured task. For Annie, this is a “put on” or “put in” task that is durable and smooth to the touch. Her communication partner brings her attention to the pieces using exaggerated movements and helps orient her body to the activity. Four to seven pieces (e.g., blocks, rings, and tubes) may go into or on a stationary container (e.g., box, cone, bucket, and tube with a lid). The pieces of the task are structured so that Annie sees that the task will not go on forever, but rather has a clear end. Providing Annie with objects of high interest to hold in her hands, intermittently throughout the activity, increases the likelihood that she will share the focus again. Ideally, Annie will share the focus more frequently and for longer periods of time, thus increasing her ENGAGEMENT and teaching her that ENGAGEMENT with the people around her can have meaning and provide pleasure.
ENGAGEMENT
Shared Pleasure: Enjoying the Moment Together
Finally, the moment cannot be defined as ENGAGEMENT if there is no shared pleasure or enjoyment of the moment together. It is essential to be aware that each person shows pleasure in his own way, and for our learners with ASD, it can require careful observation to determine these cues. Prizant, Wetherby, Rubin, Laurent, and Rydell (2006) described social competence as “communication and playing with others in everyday activities and sharing joy and pleasure in social relationships” (p. 3).
We understand that cultures have their own languages, culture-specific behaviors, and social interaction styles. As described in the TEACCH model, teachers, therapists, and parents can function as “cross-cultural interpreters,” translating the social world around our friends with ASD and, therefore, expanding their options for learning (Mesibov & Shea, 2011). This in turn expands our options for sharing true pleasure together.
As you identify moments of pleasure for the people you work and live with, consider:
What nonverbal cues are associated with enjoyment for this person?
Who knows the person best and can help you to understand the person’s unique cues?
How and where can you observe the person to better understand how he or she shows happiness?
It is the synergy of shared space, shared focus, and shared pleasure in the context of a calm, alert state that defines the very special moments of ENGAGEMENT.
Shared pleasure can look different for everyone. Annie does not always laugh or smile when she is engaged. At times, her pleasure is expressed through a glance, a body gesture, or just an internal knowing that the skilled partner has connected with her. It can be brief or sustained. It looks different at pre-school than it does at home. Shared pleasure is a sense of being with another person. These moments of shared pleasure are what reinforce Annie to keep doing the very challenging work of “being social.” We know the desire is there; the challenge is to teach her the skills for ENGAGEMENT.
We have seen that ENGAGEMENT is the foundation of all social development and we have considered the four components of ENGAGEMENT: self-regulation, shared space, shared focus, and shared pleasure. These early components of “being social” need to be broken down into even smaller, measureable, meaningful sub-skills. A sub-skill for our purposes is a measurable, critical mini-skill that when combined with others can lead to proficiency in one of the components of ENGAGEMENT.
Measuring a small skill which comes so intuitively to others is a challenge. In this model, we will rate the sub-skills of ENGAGEMENT using a concrete dichotomy: YES, the learner is observed to use the skill in a social situation, or NO, the learner does not use the skill in a social situation.
As you can imagine, individuals will have specific times, places, and people that best allow them to demonstrate the sub-skills of ENGAGEMENT. Furthermore, if an individual is unable to self-regulate, it is important to recognize that the circumstance is not a teachable social moment and that self-regulation needs to be addressed. In contrast, if a person is self-regulated but having difficulty sharing space, focus, or pleasure, it is important to work in this area to succeed in moving up the steps to being social. The goal is to acquire a YES on all the sub-skills to make moving into the LOWER 4 more successful.
Critical Strategies to Enhance ENGAGEMENT
Shrink the space
Arranging a setting or environment to create boundaries often helps the learner feel comfortable, focus on the task at hand, and understand that he is with a social partner. For example, you can move to a corner of a room instead of the middle, sit as opposed to stand, or bring peers in on each side of the learner and use their bodies to build a “container,” a safe space, if you will, to help the learner realize we want him to share the space for a period of time.
Use motivating items or topics
Determining a person with ASD’s items of interest is one key to success. This can be done by asking family members, observing in different environments, presenting items that provide various sensory input, and respecting that each person has items and ideas that spark interest. This process can take patience. Is the person’s interest in the light rays moving in and out of his peripheral vision, is it a colored hanger and the way that it moves, is it the wind on his face when he runs, is it the car magazine, or the neighborhoods in Albuquerque, New Mexico? Is it the characters on Star Trek or the beat of certain music, or sink drains or Minecraft? Whatever it is, everyone has something that is motivating, and we need to find out what that is to support true social ENGAGEMENT (Grandin & Panek, 2014).
Limit the materials
The facilitator of the social interaction needs to be:
In control of when a preferred item is available
