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| AUTISM HOME |
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ask the expert |
autism library giveaway |
interactive resources |
new & forthcoming books |
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| Q&A with Dr. Christina Whalen (originally posted April 2009) |
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 Christina Whalen, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst specializing in autism and related disorders. She is one of the founders of TeachTown, and is President and Chief Science Officer of Jigsaw Learning, a merged company of TeachTown and Animated Speech Co. Dr. Whalen has more than 15 years of experience in research and clinical practice with children with autism and their families. She is the chair of the technology special interest group for the Association for Behavior Analysis. |
Q: What is the one thing you would say to a parent who has just found out his or her child has autism? A: First, take a month to do your research on interventions. It is tempting to dive into intervention because of the importance of early intervention, BUT, too often, it is too easy to jump into either what is available or what you hear first you should do. The problem with this is that not every intervention is effective, research-based, or right for every child with autism. If you immediately put your child into a treatment program without researching the possibilities and trying to figure out what might work best for your child, you have actually wasted more time than if you took the time in the beginning to research various interventions. After a month or so when you have figured out the best possible path for your child, get your child into a program as soon as possible and make sure to demand progress reports on a regular basis. Q: What inspired you to work with kids with autism? A: I fell in love with the very first child I worked with at UC San Diego. I also fell in love with the science, working with families, and seeing the wonderful path of progress during an effective intervention program. Q: What do you see as the next breakthrough for autism? Technology! |
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Read "Dr. Chris' Autism Journal" at www.drchris. teachtown.com. Learn more about TeachTown at web.teachtown.com. Learn more about Jigsaw Learning at www.jigsawlearning.com |
Q: What book have you read lately that you are excited about? A: Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen. I would recommend this book to anyone working in the field of education (not just special education), including parents, teachers, administrators, and clinicians. Q: What is the greatest obstacle you have overcome in your work? A: Effective implementation of interventions and maintaining quality over time. I have worked in several clinical and educational environments and the biggest problem I have seen over the years is that evidence-based practices are great in theory, but are often not implemented at the highest quality across all providers. In addition, drift is often a problem; providers lose course if there are not frequent checks on their fidelity of implementation. Q: What is the most rewarding experience you've had in working with a child with autism? A: TeachTown ... watching these kids, who often do not respond to other interventions, and how excited they get when they see TeachTown, and the progress they make over time. Never in my career have I had such wonderful feedback, and never have I had the opportunity to help so many children all over the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world. This is only possible with technology. |
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From the Ask the Expert page featuring answers* by Dr. Christina Whalen Q: Why do individuals with autism have the need to experience feelings, emotions, and pain through others? Why do they appear to obsess over the pain experienced by others in real life and in movies? I help a few of these individuals with activities of daily living. A: In many cases, people with autism need to have a visual representation of something before they can understand it, and it is difficult to have a visual representation of emotions within yourself. Seeing someone else experience an emotion in a movie or in real life gives them that visual representation and they may have trouble relating what they are seeing to what they are feeling themselves. Often, these obsessions come from the person trying to understand it and repetition helps. To work on this, set up lessons that use visuals to teach the child to identify emotions and others. For instance, have many, many pictures of people's faces with different emotions and have the child practice identifying basic emotions, then, create "scenes" because emotions often have context and have the child label the emotions and the reasons for those emotions. There are some DVDs, such as the DVD-ROM Mind Reading: The Interactive Guide to Emotions (Jessica Kingsley Ltd, 2003) and some computer programs, such as TeachTown: Basics (www.teachtown.com) that teach these skills that can be effective. You can have the child watch a segment of a movie, pause it, and discuss. You can also use pictures, make your own videos, and when possible, videotape the child himself experiencing an emotion and let him see it. Then, you can start moving into stories and books that deal with emotions. The more concrete and visual, the better; and then, you should advance these skills by making more abstract and less visual (i.e. books, stories, and real-life situations). |
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A: I am often asked this question by teachers, parents, and clinicians who are trying to understand if the skills being taught to the child are meaningful. In other words, will the child be able to use these skills in their natural environment, or ... Does the skill "generalize"? In order to measure generalization, you should not just "train and hope" for generalization to occur, but you must plan for it in your educational program and track the progress regularly. To do this, you need to create a data sheet and collect generalization data in various settings, with various materials, and with different people. It is important to plan for generalization by making sure you use many different examples in your intervention (e.g. not just a picture of an animal, but many pictures, real animals, toys, etc.), having different people work on the skill, and determining how this skill will be targeted at home, school, clinic, and in the community. See a sample generalization activity data sheet from Dr. Whalen's book Real Life, Real Progress. |
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*Please note that any information provided is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical or professional advice or care. Opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of Brookes Publishing, and links or references to third-party materials are provided for convenience only and no endorsement is implied. |
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