WEBVTT

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♪ (swing music) ♪

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Attention skills are so important.
They're an integral part

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of how we get connected with people,
and the world around us,

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and how we learn.
So when they go wrong,

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things get difficult very quickly,
and in autism,

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they go wrong very frequently.

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How can it be?
But if we go back to basics,

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and ask ourselves, 
"Are our activities actually irresistible?

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Are they worthy of the child's attention?

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Are they so good they'd 
want to do them anyway?"

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And, again, if we're 
reflecting back to basics,

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we should remember that when 
children are having a good time,

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or when they anticipate having fun,
they will join in much more readily

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and you will get engagement
attached to good memories.

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But autism does make it more complicated.

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How can it be there's a child 
that can lie for 20 minutes,

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looking at the wheels on a train,
and yet when you want to show them

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something, you get only 
a fleeting moment?

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We tend to resort 
to typical styles of intervention.

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We give the child information,
and then we ask a question.

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The man is riding a bicycle.
What is he doing?

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It doesn't work with autism!
They can't see the point,

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and you need social skills 
in communication in order to comply.

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So things get confusing very quickly.
Not just for the child,

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but for us as well.
How can we find a way forward?

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I think we could think about 
the autism learning strengths

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instead of the things 
that are going wrong.

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These children are fantastically visual,
and that gives us a way forward,

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and they have amazing memories.
For things they value,

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for things they find interesting,
you will get the most passionate

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engagement and memories that potentially
are planted for life.

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What a wonderful thing to be 
so sure that you've given

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a child something that memorable.

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But we do need to be thinking 
about how we are going to create

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really good quality engagement.
I'm not talking about the fleeting look

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when they ran past it,
or the look that is prompted

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by somebody telling you, 
"Sitting! Looking!"

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Or the engagement 
that's is won through reward.

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We want spontaneous engagement.
But we should remember,

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attention skills develop.
We develop from being highly distractable,

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to being able to do two things at once
in a distracting environment.

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It happens over time.
But if we combine

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this developmental psychology
with good autism strategies,

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we can find an intervention
and move forward.

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And that's really where 
the Attention Autism Program came from.

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It is a four stage program
with incremental steps.

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First stage, the bucket.
Focus your attention.

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I've got something in my bucket,
in my bucket, in my bucket.

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I've got something in my bucket,
I wonder what it is.

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Oooh! Wow.

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♪ (music) ♪

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If we can offer a series of quick objects
coming out of a bucket,

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we can teach a child how to focus,
and then we can move on

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to the attention builder,
a fabulous activity!

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Great to watch from start to finish,
that lasts a little bit longer.

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And in this way, we can use hundreds
of different activities

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to plant these ideas, rehearse them,
and embed them as a skill for the child.

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We're looking really to get the child
focused and attentive

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for longer periods of time, but with 
lots and lots of lateral progression.

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Lots of different ways of doing it.
And then we add stage three,

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where we teach a child 
how to shift their attention.

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We use all the language of turn taking,
but it's possible for autistic children

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to learn this skill without ever 
necessarily understanding

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the social side of it.
So the child watches an activity,

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takes their turn, shifts their attention 
to their own participation,

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and then back to the group.
And in stage four, we add

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all the previous skills together,
and put in a transition.

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A child will watch a demonstration
as one of a group,

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collect their kit, 
take it to a group table,

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where they work with the rest 
of the group together,

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through to completion of whatever it is,
though it's the process

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rather than the end result
with these activities.

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And then they rejoin the group
so that we can celebrate what we've done.

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Shared good times make fantastic memories,
and this structure can provide

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a framework where we can nurture
social skills, communication,

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and thinking skills.
We aim for 20 minutes

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within six weeks
of the intervention starting.

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So where are we going to begin?
Let's start...

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Go visual, and let's be memorable.

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(laughter)

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Thank you very much, indeed.

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(applause)