Caregiver Responsiveness and The Importance of Time

Ruble PhD, Lisa; McDuffie PhD, Andrea; King MA, Andrea; Lorenz MA, Doug.
“Caregiver Responsiveness and Social Interaction Behaviors of Young Children
with Autism”. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education. November 2008. 28.3. .
158-170

Annotation:

Information within this resource is going to be an asset to me because it helps me understand a process that needs to be used when communicating with an autistic child. Not only a child, I suppose, but the adults as well that have the diagnosis of Autism.

With Autism, it affects the entire brain but to be specific, it affects the cerebellum, which is the area that controls speech, interaction, gives the people the ability to become stimulated and to pay attention. The amygdala, located within the temporal lobes that are positioned just above the ears on bilateral portions of the head, is the area that is responsible for aggression and emotion, which can explain the withdrawal and inability to understand the risks of a dangerous situation. So in other words, these portions of the brain are underdeveloped and that why their behaviors and communication are delayed.

After reading Ruble et al's research, knowing that we need to give these individuals time to process the information that was introduced to them makes sense. Giving them about 10 seconds before repeating the command again, gives them time to think about what they need to do. Just like a young child, we need to give them time to process the requests that family or even society make of them.