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The Robin Ward School For Exceptional Children

I teach in a separate Special Education building servicing 500 students ages 5 to 21, nearly half of whom are autistic.  Some are multiply involved.  Most are plagued by communication and processing problems.  All will require some degree of lifetime supervision.  In 2007, I was assigned to teach “Careers” to 15 classes each semester.  That’s 150 students each week, half on the Spectrum.  I thought, “How can a child choose a career preference when he may not even recognize himself in a mirror?”

Flashback twenty years to 1987 when I first began using videos to capture each school year.  Not just the special events but everyday life in the classroom.  From the start, my students loved watching themselves on camera... even more than the events captured.  Clips of them engaged in any mundane classroom activity would be met by squeals of delight.  If they saw themselves demonstrating some newly acquired skill, they would beam with pride.  On the occasion when some unpleasant behavior popped up during a clip, you could be sure someone in the room was feeling embarrassed.  Regardless, audiences were always appreciative and boisterous.

Flash ahead to 2007.  I am now “Careers”.  I must bring small groups around the computer console to engage them in activities enabling me to identify strengths, weaknesses and individual learning styles.  Initially, there is not much pressure on me because most students loved most things I brought up on the computer screen.  If the content did not appeal to them, they might be attracted by sound, colors, moving image, music or content.   We know that music and dance are very important in Spectrum education.  I became convinced that technology, in the right hands, was also extremely important because it encouraged more teachable moments than any other form of instruction I have seen.  I became actively committed to promoting the use of technology for autism.  That is why I dedicated the video-modeling project to my first students from 1969.

I could not yet anticipate how individual students would react.  But I did appreciate that I had to be prepared or risk losing a teachable moment.  I scoured the Internet for resources.  Aside from finding a few jewel sites like Starfall.com and Prior Woods School (Edenbrough), my extensive efforts to locate usable resources basically went unrewarded.  I cursed out loud.. a lot.  Next I tried harvesting YouTube videos and managed to assemble 2 folders, each containing 6 to 7 brief clips communicating a different key element of a common theme (i.e. Hygiene: spreading germs through sneezing).  I hit pay dirt.  By this time, lower functioning students were now beginning to engage.  They would acknowledge me when I entered the room.   Non-verbal children were attempting to communicate with me.  A few did verbally.  I became so enthused by this phenomenon that I began an investigation that has led to my current passion; the project to promote video modeling with autism.

I began taping my sessions around the computer using the Mac’s built-in camera.  These clips not only serve to document sessions and permit professional review of student performance, but they also provide fodder for future student lessons.  Students liked seeing themselves and respond very strongly to watching the clips we made together.  Reviewing these clips appeared to have beneficial effects on the behavior .That’s when I first became aware of video modeling, a tool that has been researched and recommend for use with autism, for forty years.  The computer screen engaged my new students in the very same way our old class videos captivated my former students.  But now I could control content and its presentation.  Might I eventually be able to use clip review sessions to assess and teach new concepts simultaneously?

Meta-cognition, the ability to observe oneself from another’s perspective, is a prerequisite for higher language development.  Repeated self-observations can result in improved communication, social skills and volition.  Does my work prove that integrating video technology into autism education is essential?  No.  But serious researchers, including those at the Koegel Clinic at UC Santa Barbara, home to early ABA research, are now studying the video connection to a phenomenon they term Pivotal Response which posits that children have significant experiences or “a-Ha!” moments that impact their behavior.  All I’m saying is, give this piece a chance.