Book report, part 2: The Science of Consequences and autism
I hope the first essay about Susan Schneider’s The Science of Consequences — dealing with the ostrich effect — doesn’t turn out to be a spoiler for this one. I wasn’t reading the book for my day job, yet there were many cross-overs.
That’s always nice.
At the end of the book, Schneider shows how we might solve problems on a grand scale with consequences (global warming, overcoming prejudice) and, as I was reading that, it occurred to me that many parents of kids with autism — especially the young parents — don’t realize the power of consequences.
Ivar Lovaas had put together a program of consequences (they called it Early Intensive Behavioral Treatment) that raised the IQ of kids with autism, on average, by 20 points back in the 1980s, not long before Sam was first diagnosed. We helped bring his program to Sacramento, even though we didn’t understand it very well and Sam would never directly benefit from it.
Back then, we couldn’t see how learning to imitate, or learning to pick up a red block, or learning to talk in increasingly longer and more complex ways was going to help Sam in a substantive way. He had autism. We thought that this kind of work wasn’t a cure, it was a way to adapt. Why would any parent think that applied behavioral techniques could make substantive changes in the brain of their child with autism?
But, as I have seen and learned, they can.
Schneider doesn’t set out to show us that in the book. In fact, she doesn’t tackle autism until the final chapters and its quite a brief passage. But, by then, I understood what she was laying out — how consequences have shaped the world.
The book is a review of the scientific literature for the lay reader. Schneider helps us understand the concepts of reinforcers and the variety of behaviors they can shape, including complicated ones. She helps us understand how negative consequences aren’t always, and how positive consequences can be negative.
She shows us that genetics are affected by consequences, and almost in real time, not just through evolution. And while scientists have long known that an enriched, language-filled upbringing is best for young children, they have also determined that enrichment later in life can make up for a young life that missed out. What parent of a kid with autism wouldn’t find hope in that science?
I actually got more out of the chapter on “Thinking and Communicating” and its implications for autism, than I did on the autism section. To wit:
“Simply listening to language is clearly not enough to pick it up. Interactions — and the consequences that necessarily go with them — are critical. For example, a hearing child raised by deaf parents spent most of his time at home. The TV was kept on for him on the theory that this exposure to spoken language would suffice for his language development. By age three, he had readily learned the sign language that his parents used but could not understand or speak English. There had been no consequences for learning English, but there had been plenty for learning sign language.” (p. 151)
So, turn off the TV and create a rich environment for your child.
There are social elements in all language, and Schneider helps us see how that plays out. Requests, for example, benefit the speaker, while descriptors benefit the listener.
I know. Duh.
Bear with me.
When you are putting together a program to help a child with autism learn language, you have to be able to harness scores of facts like that, because as Schneider writes, “understanding what’s happening and why, and taking advantage of all the positive consequences available” (p. 241) is what you need to make that change. As she cautions us, “the basics seem like simple common sense but are not as easy to do as they sound.”
Just ask any parent of a kid with autism.
Sam’s showmanship at Chisholm Challenge
Sam’s equitation ride at Chisholm Challenge
Sam’s trail ride at Chisholm Challenge
Pay it forward awards
From Texas Parent to Parent:
The TxP2P Paying It Forward Awards recognize the best in Family Support for families of children with disabilities, chronic illness or special health care needs. There are two categories: Parent Support Category (support provided by another parent or family member of a child with a disability) and Family Support Category (support provided from professional, service provider or anyone other than another parent). The winning stories will receive a trophy and free registrations to the TxP2P Annual Parent Conference for the winner and the parent who nominated them. First and second runners-up will receive a gift card.
- Write a one-page story about Family Support and include a photograph of your family or child (500 words or less)
- Complete Nomination Form* or attach information onto your story or email
- Mail or email your entry no later than April 1st, 2013
- You will hear from us if your story is a finalist by April 15th and it will be posted on the website for on-line voting that will begin April 22nd
- We will contact you by June 6th if you are one of the two winners or runners-up
- We will announce the winners at the conference on Friday July 26th.
You can submit your nomination online.
“My spaghetti”
I cannot think of a recipe I prepare more inconsistently than a pot of spaghetti, yet it is the comfort food of choice when Michael and Paige come home. The recipe is so simple that when Sam and I want spaghetti, he’s in charge of cooking that night.
Prepare a 1 lb package — unless you have a 12 oz package or a 20 oz package — of whole wheat spaghetti or linguine to the directions on the box. Meanwhile, brown a pound of Italian sausage (turkey, pork, no brand preference, but often buy Owens). Pour off any excess grease before adding a jar of spaghetti sauce (we have no brand preference and often buy whatever is on sale — when Emeril’s Vodka sauce was being discontinued, we ate like kings) and heat until its bubbling. At this point, I have been known to add the last of a leftover can of tomatoes or half a zucchini chopped really fine. You get the drift. Drain the noodles and stir them in. Serve with lots of grated parmesan on top.
Somehow it turns out the same every time.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #220
Peggy: Did you have some breakfast?
Michael (stopping in after an early morning dental appointment): Yeah. I found the spaghetti.
Peggy: Spaghetti?
Michael: There’s nothing like your spaghetti.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #219
Paige: I’m playing Spider Solitaire. It’s like solitaire on steroids.
Peggy: Is that better than regular steroids?
Book Report, Part 1: the spectrum of the ostrich effect and Promised Land
Most days my writing life feels split, by day reporting on local government affairs — which means lots of time on shale energy impacts here at Barnett Shale ground zero and the new adventures in hydraulic fracturing — and by night, pondering the richness of family life when it is touched by developmental disability.
But sometimes the two writing worlds collide in unexpected ways.
Currently, I’m reading Susan Schneider’s new book, The Science of Consequences: how they affect genes, change the brain and impact our world.
The book is a marvelous literature review for the lay reader. Everything, and I do mean everything, you want to know about the principles of learning from consequences seems to be in this book. Learning from consequences — applied behavior analysis — is huge in the autism world. I do plan on another post that will delve into that later. But for now, I’m enjoying the ride, getting my mind blown at least once per chapter; for example, in “The Dark Side of Consequences,” learning that positive consequences can be negative and negative consequences really aren’t.
Oh, snap!
So, I’m up to page 129, deep in the chapter “Observing and Attending,” and Schneider elegantly lays out the “ostrich effect.” As in, the opposite of what the former mayor of Dish, Calvin Tillman, has offered as a personal tagline: “once you know, you can’t not know.” Or, as in Promised Land, that electrifying moment when someone or something jerks your pretty little head out of the sand and your old wise heart starts pounding, knowing, readying, because what you choose next absolutely defines who you are.
Schneider highlights a whole body of behavioral research that shows people often prefer to look the other way rather than confront bad news. She writes, “We could hope that we humans would be wiser and more willing to take the potential disappointments of observing when it’s in our own best interest.” (p. 129)
But we don’t.
(We learned that lesson early in the Wolfe house. We let people, including “experts,” tell us Sam would “grow out of it” and for two years, and life got worse and worse. After we named the disability and tackled its issues one by one, the whole family’s quality of life got better each day.)
The first study Schneider puts out for the reader is Brock and Balloun’s 1967 classic “Behavioral receptivity to dissonant information.” The participants were asked to listen to a series of messages that were covered up by static, but they had to power to clear the static for three seconds by pressing a button. Researchers let the participants know the message topics and their order. The purpose was to see when they would clear the static and listen in. Smokers listened 35 percent less to a more accurate, but discouraging, message about the link between smoking and lung cancer than another message, which discounted the link. Nonsmokers listened in to both messages.
Bam.
Then, Schneider tells us about a Swedish study of investors and when they looked at their investment portfolios. Of course, they check more often during rising markets, something Vanguard reports, too.
Bam.
With that foundation set, Schneider moves us on to high-stakes, ever-more disturbing human behavior, such as the resistance of prosecutors — hey, jobs and self-image on the line here — when confronted with DNA evidence of a wrongful conviction (see Mistakes Were Made (but Not By Me). To date, some states won’t compensate the wrongly convicted, or even expunge records.
Or the resistance to get an HIV test, even though it is easy and inexpensive, even at the risk of infecting others. “Like cigarette smokers, they are rolling the dice, not wanting to observe and learn the truth,” Schneider writes. (p. 130)
Bam.
Of course, the logical conclusion of this section ends thusly:
“Historians still debate whether Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister of war production, knew about Hitler’s ‘final solution’ for the Jews. Whatever the case, Speer said later that ‘If I didn’t see it, then it was because I didn’t want to see it,’ and he alone at the Nuremburg trials accepted responsibility for the war crimes of the Nazi regime.” (p. 130-1)
Let that sink in for a minute — that full spectrum of the ostrich effect and what it means to humanity.
That’s why that supposedly implausible plot twist in Promised Land, as a storytelling device, has no cognitive dissonance for me. Too many years with boots on the ground in the Barnett, watching the ostrich effect over and over and over again.
But the storytellers in Promised Land still managed to break my heart in the final scene. Landman Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) comes to the grocery counter to pay for pack of Trident and the store owner just gives it to her.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #218
Sam (after a frustrating encounter with the hardware of a mounting plate for a dual-sensor smoke detector): I didn’t know the anchors wouldn’t go into the wood. They just turned and turned and made big holes in the wall.
Peggy: Don’t feel bad. Some things you don’t learn until you get the experience. When your dad and I were young parents, we’d call Grandma and Grandpa all the time to ask how to do something.
Sam: Yeah, when you don’t know how, Grandpa knows.