Rachel SiehsProfessor John BickfordSummer Internship 2008 Paper

Working at Variety Child Learning Center [“Variety”] has given me

insight into how devastating and severe autism and other pervasive developmental

disorders really are. Before I thought that Asperger’s children just had trouble interacting

socially with others, now, however I realize that it is more than just that. I realize now

that not only are these children suffering from their disorder, but their family’s lives are

greatly altered by it too. I can only imagine how devastating it is to learn your child

cannot function independently on his own and that his language barrier will prevent him

from doing so for the rest of his life. At schools like Variety, children and their families

are provided with programs that help and give support.

My internship at Variety has made me more confident in my psychology

knowledge and made me realize that I can work with children who are autistic (whether

through special education or becoming a behavior analysis). It also made me more

excited to learn about cognition and child psychology – since I now have witnessed

children with severe cognitive impairments. In Psych 100, I learned about many topics

psychology has to offer including learning, memory, language, emotions, personality,

development, and disorders. At Variety, I was able to put my academic knowledge to

good use.

Throughout my internship I was able to apply what I learned and put it to good

use. For example at Variety we use operant conditioning (a learning technique) which

teaches a child to associate behavior with a consequence. Positive reinforcers (such as

fruit snacks or a toy) increase the likelihood of a recurrence of the behavior (i.e.,

answering the question, giving appropriate eye contact) while positive punishment (such

as time out) decreases the likelihood of antisocial behavior (i.e., hitting another child or

teacher). Negative punishment also helps extinguish an abnormal behavior. For example,

if you have a child eating an inedible object (which the child find pleasant) by taking

away the pleasant and pairing it with a verbal response (i.e., “Don’t eat that”), the child

will then learn that the item he finds pleasant might not be so desired. The best way to

diminish undesired behaviors is to respond immediately. That reaction should be

reinforced right after the behavior (desired or undesired) for the best learning experience

to occur.

Autistic children also show signs of observational learning. By witnessing a friend

cry and get reinforced with a hug, a child watching learns that if he, too cries he will get a

hug. This also works, unfortunately, with anti-social behavior. For example, if a child

witnesses a friend getting hit and then sees reinforcement by a teacher, a child might

perceive the reinforcement as attention rather than punishment and might learn “If I hit

Johnny, I will get attention from the teacher.”

Autistic children have trouble comprehending and producing language and

therefore they have trouble communicating and interacting with people. Through

classroom activities such as independent learning time, 1:1 learning time and choosing

activities using the choice book, however, the children were able to work on building

there language skills, broadening their semantics, and learning how to use words to

categorize.

Many autistic children have trouble retrieving words or phrases from their long-

term memories. Even so, some children can recall explicit or declarative memories (such

as birthdays, weekend events, numbers, and letters) better than others, while other

children can recall implicit or non-declarative memories (such as habits and learned

tasks) better than others. However, the children’s memories were strengthened through

the use of a similar schedule every day, because memory retrieval that is better when the

same type of processing is used to retrieve material, due to transfer appropriate

processing.

Variety showed me that children (as well as autistic children) can be just as

emotionally unstable as adolescents or adults. A happy child one second can be a sad

child the next. However, because autistic children have a hard time focusing their

attention on people, it is difficult for them to understand other people and their moods or

emotions. Therefore, teachers at Variety try to point out emotional information, for

example, “Mary got hurt, look she’s crying. Poor Mary. Can you tell Mary, I’m sorry?”

and code feelings and reactions (i.e., “Ryan’s very angry at Joey for taking that ball. Tell

Joey, ‘Give me that ball.’”) Also, books around the classroom that describe emotions are

very useful in directing autistic children’s attention to their own and other’s emotions.

In a class of 9 you can observe an array of personalities. Some children’s

personalities are more active while others are more passive. Some children are more

impulsive than others. Some children rather be alone, while some children will talk to

anyone who will listen. Some of the children are very emotional and anxious, while

others seem to be catatonic. Most of the children seem to be very id-oriented and

regressed immensely when angry or upset.

Surprisingly, most of the children I observed at Variety seemed to be on the right

track of a 3-4 year old in cognitive developments, according to Piaget. The children were

definitely in the preoperational period, because they understood object permanence the

main focus of the sensorimotor period. However, Variety’s teachers are guiding their

children to understand words and actions, teaching their children how to play

symbolically and helping strengthen their language. The children also show egocentrism

and have a hard time taking another person’s point of view and have a hard time sharing.

At Variety we are strengthening the children’s moral development by showing

them what’s right and wrong through operational conditioning. Good behaviors are

rewarded and bad behaviors are punished. As for the children’s psychosocial

development, Erikson would probably say that the children are still trying to resolve

autonomy vs. doubt which happens around the age of 2, though they should be at the at

their proper life stage of initiative vs. guilt. For example, the children have trouble

choosing on their own activities and mimic other’s choices instead of relying on

themselves. They seek guidance and support from their caregiver and are not confident

in themselves to do things on their own. By working with them in school on making their

own choices (i.e., through choice book in snack and activities) and giving them proper

support and encouragement they need through independent learning time, the teachers at

Variety are helping the child gain the independence they need to reach the next

psychosocial development stage.

By working and observing with children with autism, I have increased my

knowledge in not only pervasive developmental disorders but also observed childhood

eating disorders (i.e., pica), tic disorders – including vocal, motor and verbal tics, and

anxiety disorders. Through my observations I saw how intense and distressing anxiety

can really be. I never realized that children could have anxiety and have it be so

impairing not only themselves but also to other people’s lives and their day-to-day

activities. I saw how compulsions in an OCD child could leave them restless if it was not

properly addressed.

I also learned what was done to treat these life-disrupting disorders. I learned how

to redirect anti-social behavior, taught relaxation techniques to an anxious child, used

positive and negative reinforcers, extinction and in some cases punishment. From using

these techniques and seeing their consequences, I learned to target undesired behaviors

and reduce them. I taught these children the appropriate eye contact and appropriate

responses to instructions. I helped the children socialize with one another and start to take

another person’s perspective. I guided them with a positive outlook and in a therapeutic

way.

My internship at Variety gave me the courage and confidence in myself to be a

great role model and teacher to autistic children. I learned that working with people one

on one is something I aspire to do most with my life. Variety Child Learning Center

made me realize how serious the affects autism has on children and families all across

American and around the world. However, there are a lot of things we can do to help

people cope with this psychological disorder. We can increase research in the how the

disease really originates and how to end the spread of autism; we can also increase

awareness of autism and continue to support schools that help treat autism, and give

support to families.