- iQ: smartparent is made possible in part by the McCune Foundation, and The Grable Foundation.

Today's program is all about helping children succeed by celebrating what makes each child unique in the way they learn and in the way they experience the world.

Discover how technology can help children communicate.

Meet a teacher who uses hands-on science and math projects in his special education classroom.

Hear from a child psychologist who has news about a new term that's changing the way we think about learning disabilities.

And meet two young students who host their own talk show to educate people about autism.

That's all coming up on this edition of iQ: smartparent, and it starts right now.

(bright music) (graphic whooshing) Welcome to iQ: smartparent.

I'm your host Darieth Chisolm.

Today we are celebrating different learning styles.

Instead of talking about disabilities, we're talking about different abilities that make each child unique.

I'm so pleased to welcome our first guest today, Dr. John Carosso.

Dr. Carosso is a child psychologist who specializes in treating children with autism, ADD, and behavioral and learning issues.

And he is also the Executive Director of the Autism Center of Pittsburgh.

So let's start today, Dr., by looking at this term, neurodiversity.

What is that, and what does it mean?

- Y'know, it's a wonderful intro you gave 'cause that's really what it's all about.

Is recognizing and appreciating differences, as opposed to looking at things as a disorder, a pathology.

That's really what, that's the bottom line.

So, neurodiversity has led to a paradigm, a model, a neurodiversity way of thinking.

And what that would have to do with is the idea that we're gonna embrace those differences.

We're going to see them not as a disorder, not as a, something that's pathological, but just that there are certain individuals, and they range at the various ends of the spectrum in terms of the bell curve and whatnot.

And so we're not gonna see them as needing a cure per se.

We're gonna see them as we as a society need to accommodate, and also help them to accommodate, and sort of meet in the middle somewhere.

Now that has led to a neurodiversity movement, if you will.

And it can be seen, I suppose, akin to sort of a social justice types of thing, in terms of how we're going to advocate for individuals rights and see it akin to race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation.

- Yeah, would you suggest that creates sort of a social bias because we've labeled them as this, and then people see them entirely... - Well, it's stigmatizing, you know.

- Yeah, it's stigmatizing.

- Really, I mean clearly.

And so, the idea of seeing it as we're all connected, we're all in the same boat and we all need accommodation to some extent, it's just a matter of to what degree.

- Yeah.

And then no more of this fitting-in thing, because in fact, it creates consequences for children who are not seen as, so-called normal.

In fact, they should be appreciated for their differences.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- And helping people to understand that difference doesn't mean disorder.

- What advice would you have for parents who may themselves be struggling with this concept and allowing their children to be, and play to their strengths?

- Well, it's a 180.

It really is, because, you know, even today, clearly we have the idea of we diagnose, we call it a disorder and our goal is to remediate and to chronical cure.

So it's really a 180 in terms of recognizing that we're going to welcome and accept the differences and work toward accommodation.

It really is a change.

- And so, in an ideal situation, what would you recommend is the best way to reduce or eliminate this stigma?

- So, it's educated.

You know, for example, we go into classrooms, we help not just the teachers to accommodate, but also help the other students to recognize that if a child is doing something that they find to be a little unusual, okay, it's not the end of the world, it's not a big deal, and just go with it.

And it, and we all have our differences.

- Yeah, we certainly do.

And appreciating them makes all the world better.

- Indeed.

- Yeah.

Thank you doctor for being here.

We do appreciate that.

Yeah, certainly.

Coming up, discover ways technology can help kids with different learning needs, communicate, but first, find out more about neurodiversity.

Find resources about neurodiversity online by entering these key phrases in your favorite search engine.

There's so much talk today about technology, helping kids with autism.

It's exciting, but it can also be a bit confusing for parents.

So our next guests are here to explain the range of options.

Welcome Michelle Lubetsky, an educational consultant for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit in Pennsylvania and Kristen Tachoir, who is an assistive technology coordinator.

Thank you so much for being here.

Kristen, let's start with you.

What are assistive devices?

- Assistive devices can be an item that you make from something you have at home, or something that you adapt from something you have at home, or a product that you buy commercially.

It really is an item that helps a person do something that they are typically not able to do on their own.

- So it doesn't necessarily mean high tech.

It can be a range between low tech and high tech.

Give us some examples.

- Something low-tech could be a pencil grip.

This is a curler, a foam curler that you may have at home, and it's a pencil grip for a pencil for a student that is enabled to just grip their fingers around a regular pencil.

It could be something, a little higher tech, like a communication device, and there's many apps on an iPad that would be considered more higher tech.

- And when we get into the ones that are more higher tech, are they generally more expensive?

- They are.

And they also require a power source and there's usually lots of training that goes with them, so that you're able to use the product.

- Michelle, can you share with us some of the things that you use?

- Oh, absolutely.

We brought along such an array of items so that parents could look in their own cabinets and find something that could be assistive in nature.

- What about children who have challenges with their fine motor skills, what would be a good assortment for them?

- Well, one of the fun things that we like to do is to make a book easier to use.

So, we have fluffed up the pages in this book so that fingers can easily get to the pages.

And the way we do that is simply by taking a tab and inserting it right on top of the page.

So, here's an example.

This, you might recognize as what goes on the bottom of your furniture legs, right?

Put it right inside here, and now that page is easier to turn and it's not frustrating.

This is a tab that's from the office supply stores, and you grab that and turn the page, another great way to do it.

And the whole idea is we wanna make things easier.

We don't want kids to be frustrated when we're really trying to have fun.

- And what about for children who may have issues with communicating, and tips and tools for them?

- Sure.

- Well, all children have something to say, whether they can communicate or not.

And when you use assistive devices with them, you're giving them a voice.

You can have something as simple as a snack choice board.

These were just pictures off of the bags that I had in my pantry that instead of a child being frustrated, because they can't tell you what they want for a snack, they can point to a picture.

And a lot of people think that using a device is going to stop a child from speaking and that's really not the case.

- It helps them to communicate better and they are not frustrated and challenged by it.

- Exactly.

- And how do you get all of the family involved?

I mean, certainly for children with autism or some other learning challenges, the other family members may not be, but you can turn things into family night, right?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, what's, I have families that I know, we do it ourselves, we have game night.

When my child, my daughter was little we had game night.

Well, some little kids, have trouble holding cards because their hands are too little.

You can take a regular pool noodle and you just have to kind of shave the bottom so that it doesn't rock.

You put a slit on the top and here you have your card holder.

So you don't have to lay them on the table and have the brother or sister cheating and looking at your cards, you can also use a bar clip, you know, and you just attach, you know, put the cards between the clip and you're holding it.

It's like, you're everybody else is a new thing.

- Very ingenious ways of looking at, making this simple.

What about the dice?

We found some dice here.

Yeah.

- Oh yes.

We have, you know, a lot of times the dice will go off a table or maybe under a couch.

Well, this way, if you get just a little container, a see-through container, you have them contained and you put it on the table, you can still see through them, but it's an easier way to roll your dice.

- Now we talked just a little bit in the very beginning about digital and more high-tech assistive devices, but certainly there are still, let's talk maybe about a few of those options before we wrap up.

Just because some family members may want to engage their children to keep them in the digital age, so to speak.

- Absolutely.

Well, if you've started with something low tech, you can take the same idea of taking photos and then putting them into digital context.

So, this example is about going on errands.

And a lot of times kids just don't have the patience, but part of it is the unknown.

What am I going to do first then what, and then what, and what happens when I'm done?

- And when do I get there?

- Right.

So here's a fun way to help kids.

And again, this is just going to our computer and printing some pictures.

First, we're going to go have some lunch.

Next will be, go to the bank.

And the last thing we do is, hit the grocery store.

And it's kinda fun because the kids can do this part themselves.

And then if we go to the iPad, we can simulate the same thing digitally, and boy aren't they interested in anything digital.

So one of the things that we consider with our youngsters who may have autism, or maybe they just have another developmental challenge that they're experiencing.

And one of the things that we know is we've gotta grab their interest right away.

So, in trying to grab their interest, we might also have a fun thing ready, right?

That they're going to get their hands on as soon as we get through the thing that's not so fun.

Now, when I hand this to you, you are going to absolutely love it.

This is a common eraser, but it is so pliable that the kids can have fun manipulating that while they're waiting.

Can you imagine all the times that we sit and wait and we're fidgeting and having this on hand.

And here's an example of taking the same idea and going digital.

So in this case, I'm going to help my youngster learn to be a little more independent and make that peanut butter and jelly sandwich all by themselves.

And here are the steps to do that.

So I've just gone through steps manually, and here I'm going to do it digitally.

We'll get our picture that tells us what to get first, get the bread.

Our next picture tells us what to do next, to get the peanut butter.

Obviously we'll finish this up.

And the result is, tada!

There's our peanut butter sandwich.

- It's a great way to help to submit what they've learned here, and then take it into digital.

What would you share with us as final advice for parents who are really looking for creative ways to implement assistive devices?

- Right.

I'll tell you the final advice is, and this is true for every parent in every situation that it's great to have the bells and whistles, and boy, aren't kids drawn to it?

But there's nothing like that one-to-one interaction of the parent and their child.

They're going to learn more language and they're going to see how fun it is because the parents' excitement is there as well.

So, we always want to encourage that there's that one-to-one time in addition to anything else that you might select.

- Kristen?

- I agree.

I think the parents have to be involved.

You know your child the best.

If you're anticipating or seeing some kind of issue, you know, don't be afraid to say something, but just enjoy, and play.

- And have fun.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

So thank you so very much.

We do appreciate being here on the show.

Coming up, meet a teacher who embraces the maker movement in his special education classroom.

But first, we've got these five takeaway tips for parents who want to learn more about assistive devices to help their children.

(bright music) Our next guest is an educator and blogger with a particular interest in neurodiversity.

Welcome Patrick Waters.

Patrick, you work with children who have a range of neurological differences, and you incorporate a lot of hands-on design and building projects in your lessons plans.

So how would you take something that might be considered a barrier in learning and really play to their strengths?

- Well, you know, I like to think of, I think of my room is a place that the kids can invent and build and dream.

And so I reach in and try to find their strengths, build up their confidence, and let it come out into the projects.

And I like to look at it, not really, as barriers, these are challenges that they have in learning and challenges are there to overcome.

We are there to walk through that challenge together.

And that's what I try to convey to them everyday.

- And you're really end of the maker movement.

- Oh, absolutely.

- And in this case you've, you know, these kids are really hands-on and you've brought some of the projects.

- Absolutely.

Lemme start off with this one.

This is a really neat one.

I call this the museum project, specifically designed this one for young kids in mind.

- How does it work?

- Well, it's, it had, there's a microcontroller that is going to register anything I, like anything I touch as a keystroke.

So what we should, we should hear a young person talking.

There we go.

(young voice over speaker) You can tell that's a very young kid.

It's my son.

He's about five years old, discussing what he's learned about dinosaurs as he's built it.

In fact this is pretty neat.

We have a, this is a nice one that I did with my middle schoolers.

It's a called a pinhole camera, and you can see the pin hole right there.

And so what happens is light will enter that pin hole, and when you load this bad boy up with some film, right there, the light will hit the back of camera.

And now you could take it to the drug store and get it developed.

- Now, the camera though, was this created with a laser printer?

- No, this is a 3D printer.

- Okay.

- So it's a, it's built up layer by layer, and you can see some of the other creations that we can just do with the 3D printer.

- But you have a few other things that were from 3D printers, right?

- Yeah, so we have a, this is a really cool rocket car that a young man built as a design challenge.

It has a spot for his CO2 rocket and this guy was a pretty successful one.

It goes about, you know, 40, 50 miles an hour as it shoots down the highway.

This is a neat project over here.

It's a cutting board with a laser cut inscription in it.

It's the STEAMWORKS.

That was the name of the makerspace that the students and I actually built up from the ground up.

They helped me design it.

They helped me figure out what tools are supposed to go in it.

- And even with children with disabilities, they're able to handle the laser printer, the 3D printer and all of the apps.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So what I do is we all start off with a basic competence in hand tools.

And I work with the kids to learn how to use scissors, use utility, box cutting blades, safely.

And when they master that they can move on to bigger and more dangerous tools.

That's also works in the computer realm.

There's computer programs that are specifically designed for the very young, and then they grow to the middle school age, and then they grow up to the high school age.

So as the kid would stay in the makerspace, their abilities would grow from one spot.

- They are progressing along the way, and then utilizing the equipment, technology.

- Exactly.

- Why is this so personal?

For you seem to be quite passionate about this.

- Yeah, it's personal because it is personal.

I mean, I've got skin in the game.

I have two young brothers or younger brothers.

They're not that young anymore, we're we're in our thirties now, but I have two brothers that have special needs.

One is as a neurological difference and one is a giant three-year-old.

And so when I look at them, and I don't get to be with them every day, I live far away from them, and I get to go to school every day with my kids and I get to be reminded of my brothers.

And that's really important to me.

It's really important to stay connected to my family in that way.

It's just a fantastic way to connect and to realize that these differences aren't there to separate us.

These differences are things that they bring to the table that can grow us as a community and keep us together.

It's just quite wonderful.

- Wonderful.

Well, your work is speaks volumes obviously with the work that the kids are doing.

So thank you.

And thank you for being here on the show today.

Stay with us because we'll meet another teacher and her students who developed a unique way to use multimedia, to teach others about autism.

Coming up right after this.

(bright music) Our celebration of different learning styles ends today with some great guests.

Jan Abernethy is a fifth grade teacher in the Greenville area school district in Western Pennsylvania.

And she's also been recognized as an outstanding educator by the Keystone Technology Innovator Program.

And we're also joined today by two of Jan's former students, Alex and Hayden.

Welcome to you all.

- Thank you.

- So Alex and Hayden, you all do something very interesting, in fact, it's what I do.

You host a talk show.

- Yep.

- Yes.

It's a show that you all host.

And tell me a little bit more about how that's come to be and your topic.

- We teach kids how to deal with autism and how, and other kids to understand autism.

We just try to help as many people as we can out there who have autism or people who don't even have autism just to get a better understanding of what it is.

- So, the two of you sit in conversation for about five minutes and you talk about what it's like to have autism, how to live with it, and certainly how to be supported by it.

- Yeah.

- Hayden, what do you enjoy most about that?

- Is that I can be myself and just hang out with my friends.

(upbeat electronic music) - Hello, this is Alex, and this is Hayden, and Jackie, and Harmony.

- It's the Alex and Hayden Show!

- There was a man in Chicago who found their show and the entire state of Illinois uses their talk show to train people for social interaction for autism.

Did you guys know that?

- No.

That is amazing!

- You didn't know that?

- No, you never told us.

- Jan, you were very instrumental in helping them get started.

In fact, did they come to you and give you some interests that they thought they wanted to do this?

How did they come to be?

- Well, the one day I overheard the two of them talking and they were giving each other strategies for ways to deal with getting frustrated, and getting upset and different things, problems they might have.

And they were both, they were feeding off each other and I thought, wow, that is so grown up of them.

And that would be such a great topic for other people to learn about.

So I talked to them and I asked them if they'd be interested in helping other people.

So then we got the entire class, our entire fifth grade class involved.

Then they gave everyone else in the class different jobs.

And maybe you can tell them about the different jobs and maybe the different segments of the show.

- We had a design crew.

We had a, tech people that work on like the cameras and stuff and people in charge of bipods and managers and we even had our own logo.

And we voted who had the best logo.

- We actually have a pin that one of our friends made and we all voted on a design for our pin.

- Yeah.

And Jan, I find this very interesting because obviously the boys have led the project, but you've involved the other students.

So this teaches everyone in the room, what it takes to put a show together, but also working as a team and then the sensitivities around autism.

- I'm glad you asked this because these are the skills that I feel that the students of the 21st century really need.

And we call them the four C's.

And they are creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.

And by all of them working together, they are using all of those skills.

And these are the skills they're gonna need for the future, for any job that they encounter.

- Hayden and Alex, let me ask, do you think that people are really coming to now understand by watching your show about autism and living with autism?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Is it because some of the conversations that you have, or the response that you're getting?

- It's because of some of the, every talk show, we always have a famous person of the day who some people didn't even know.

For example, I didn't even know Albert Einstein had autism.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And due to it being a bit more educational than most other things, which most YouTube things are about about makeup or how the be better and, or like life hack or stuff like that, we just talk to, we just do it to help others and help people understand what it's like having autism.

- Right.

And everyone should know that this show is available on YouTube and so much so that they were recently recognized at a national autism conference.

Right?

How was that?

Congratulations.

- It was real interesting.

(speaking indistinctly) - And I saw a lot of people there supporting us, well, people I didn't even know.

So I bet that was a role that really got me.

- Yeah.

And these were adults that were taught, this what, there weren't necessarily children there, so they were the kids there that were presenting to adults.

- They were presenting to... - They were the experts there.

- Yes.

They were presenting to all of the librarians in the state of Illinois.

And... - Did you think your show, that it would grow to that?

And what about viewers?

How's that going?

Subscribers and viewers.

- I'd say it's going great.

- Yeah.

- They're decent.

Yep.

- Yeah.

- It's going all good.

- And in terms of the question that I asked about its growth and that it's gotten there, and now you've got this attention, could you ever imagine that it would come to this?

- Nope.

- No, not really.

- No.

- What were some of the favorite segments that you did or some of the things that you remember the most.

- My favorite was the historical person thing.

- My favorite segments were the history and the animal of the day.

- So at the end of the day, since your topic is autism and you're teaching them about autism, what is it that you would like them to know?

- Autism is something that not, that people can't control, but they can keep, can, they can control it.

And it's better to understand that than not to.

So that way, you know how to help those who have it.

- And you can live with it and succeed with it.

Yeah.

- Yep.

It's what we do on the show so other kids out there are like, saying they're, like they can't succeed 'cause they have autism.

But we, when we look up all the, famous actors that had autism and became very successful.

- So tell me when you were the most proud of yourself through this experience.

- Seeing some of the comments down below on YouTube saying, you're doing such a good job, and going to Illinois, and being commented on all the people there.

- Just being there just made me happy.

Especially where, since I was able to look forward to it.

- Well, you all really inspired quite a movement.

So congratulations and congratulations on your success.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you for being here, Jan.

Thank you for being here.

We do appreciate it.

It's been so good to hear from each and every one of you.

And we hope that today's program has given you new insight about different learning styles, celebrating what makes your child unique and finding strategies to help every child succeed.

Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you again next time for more iQ: smartparent.

Want to learn more about iQ: smartparent, visit us online iqsmartparent.org for more episodes and additional tools and resources.

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(bright music) iQ: smartparent is made possible in part by the McCune Foundation and The Grable Foundation.