Linda McCullough
Wedgwood Christian Services
Missouri

"I have tried a lot of things, but the cups and other activities used together have seemed to assist the kids with language. I don’t know exactly why, neurologically speaking, the activities I do increase expressive language for verbal children with autism, but they do!

Communication is a range of purposeful behavior; autistic kids rarely can find a reason to communicate verbally for a purpose. They usually engage in poor, maladaptive behavior and repetitive verbalizations and actions with no intent to communicate. Expressive language intervention programs for verbal autistic kids are used to increase the child’s knowledge and understanding of social communications. Play is used to teach social skills and language, it is best to use simple step-by-step instructions for play. These kiddos don’t play independently – they need directions to play. The stack cups are taught step-by-step, and have a beginning and ending, formal and structural, not verbal, but visual and tactile. Also, no over stimulating auditory input is necessary to stack cups. The cups are “tactile” friendly-smooth, autistic kids are hypo and/or hyper sensitive to touch, they don’t prefer textured surfaces. While these kids typically have fine motor difficulties, writing is difficult, and gross motor difficulties, hopping or skipping is difficult. The use of their hands and arms are a happy, not too difficult, medium task. The sensory-structured-repetitive-non-auditory move at your own pace, features of cup stacking, allows autistic kids to be able to do this activity. As the kids watch the DVD, they pay attention to every detail, they are super mimics, so the DO use both hands and follow the DVD carefully. The sensory integration of the three senses, vestibular, tactile and proprioception occurs when both hands are moving and the senses are stimulated. The typical unconventional verbal behaviors such as echolalia, perseverant speech and incessant question asking stop and are replaced with sequenced expressive language. This sequence is short at first, two words, then increases to 3-4 and 5, eventually.

Echolalia is a hint as to how the child processes, they process information as a whole “chunk” and not individual words that make up a sequence of understandable words. The cups are stacked individually, in a sequence, and then always break down individually, in a sequence. If you attach a word to an individual cup and stack the “words” in an order, the kids will follow. They learn the order of language by learning the order of the cups. First with prompts-then with no prompts. If one cup is one word, used one time, the constant repetition of words stops, also the repetitive motions such as licking or shaking his/her fingers/hands/arms stop because both hands and arms are busy. So, basically, touch of cups, sequence of cups, attach cups to individual words, give meaning, “words” meet “meaning” through this sensory integration process. The more words that are “attached” to cups, the more vocabulary are used. The kids already have the words-they just don’t express them.

Of course none of this is an over night deal. I have been working with this for a year now. Many times I have been hit with a flying cup-good news is that they are light and won’t easily break. One of my students, who came to us over a year ago, only uttered guttural sounds and used her own made up sign language. With no way of communicating her needs, she would become angry and bite, kick, etc. Initially, I worked with her 5-10 minutes a day, now she is in school 2 hours a day. She has over 250 words and uses at least 5 words in a sentence to communicate her needs and ask questions. Her behavior has dramatically improved, she is my shining star! I hope you get the big picture of why I think your stackers have truly helped my kids express themselves and communicate for a purpose."

Linda McCullough has taught special education for 38 years. She has two master's degrees, and is endorsed in teaching students with: Cognitive, Emotional, Learning, DISABILITIES and Autisic Spectrum Disorders. 

She has taught in Englewood, CO., Douglas County, CO., Bethesda Psychiatric Hospital, CO., Kentwood Public Schools, MI in two treatment centers, one run by Hope Network and one run by Wedgwood Christian Services. She is currrently at the Wedgwood facility. 

www.speedstacks.com

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