In reading about Errorless Learning I acknowledge a sense of repulsiveness. Life is not about errorless for the first part. It needs to be about acceptance and learning to “let go.” Also, second, I am wary of people patterning or role modeling speech with all of its complexities. Part of the intricacy of speech is the experiences of the speaker, and how those experiences and memories are revealed through language usage. I find each person has a unique voice, probably because I listen more than I watch when I am in relationship. This concept is akin to how authors have different voices...Clive Cussler from Robert Ludlum from Agatha Christie from Jane Austen from Shakespeare from Rumi from Marcus Aurelius...both the beloved author and the controversial one set a tone and a pace in their writings. And this tells the reader something about the author. I understand the desire to help make connections, but I worry about creating social clones, of having Auties and Aspies mimic the tonalities of their therapists, or educators, or parents.
Errorless Teaching became Errorless Learning became Errorless Modeling and each of these phrases captures a different essential concept and the evolutionary language reminds me of the crucial skill of bathroom use. When I was little the operative phrase was toilet teaching...of course for me that means teaching a toilet to do something but I can get past that pretty quickly. When my eldest was my littlest the higher consciousness baby experts led us toward toilet learning, a kinder gentler framework for that all-embarrassing aspect of the human condition. Perhaps it is because this utilitarian situation is embarrassing—even though every human has to learn this process and has had to since The Beginning—that toddler experts have not prescribed Toilet Modeling, although there are lots of picture books and even videos about the sensitive topic.
But reading the article about Errorless Modeling (by the way 'errorless' is NOT a word in the DICTIONARY or on SPELLCHECK) and additional online research fails to capture the experience. Watching an Errorless Modeling videoclip in class was so fascinating! Watching the prompting, the encouraging and interactions was amazing—and part of me was so jealous! I so want to be a better conversationalist and a better verbalist!
For all my journalling, all my observations and anthropological studies, I think I have hit the limit of that for me. All the prosody and pitch and volume and premeditated pauses only get me so far. Eventually the Other Person senses and acknowledges that I am, somehow, different. I have had friends leave me because I use words that are too big--they feel they cannot compete with me (I do NOT compete with people, that's stupid and sad), and they feel uneducated next to me (so? I do have several degrees). These events led me to an experiment that lasted several years...just how “dumb” does language have to be across relationships?
So I listened better to television (ostensibly at the 12th grade level in the 1970's) and read tabloids and craft/home makers' magazines (supposedly at the 8th grade level in the 1970's) and I practiced cuss words. I “dumbed down” my word choices. Unless I was in a university setting with colleagues, I never used a word longer than three syllables. THIS WAS HARD WORK.
After five years of verbal adaptations, my relationships lasted the same length of time.
When I was an adolescent, I figured out that part of my personality that warded off people was my word use and my facial expression. So my question to therapists and psychologists is this: Why are we addressing the symptomatology piecemeal and not the trait that runs deeply through a person? Symptomotology is good beginning, but it goes not far enough nor does it address the fact that a person is genuinely autitstic, not being a goof.
When I was an adolescent, I figured out that part of my personality that warded off people was my word use and my facial expression. So my question to therapists and psychologists is this: Why are we addressing the symptomatology piecemeal and not the trait that runs deeply through a person? Symptomotology is good beginning, but it goes not far enough nor does it address the fact that a person is genuinely autitstic, not being a goof.
For me, watching films and television, observing people in action in restaurants, train stations and airports, and writing copious notes was how I began my NT (neurotypical) training. I had 100's of journals filled with observations. Then getting into Theater was my next best adventure. I had a script! I had a director to tell me which emotion went where and when and how! And I had other actors who wanted to perform together so we were all committed to getting a scene “right.” I had watched so many movies and television shows that I could run the film through my mind, find the right actress (although not always on the first try) and voila! A Star Is Born!
Not.
So mimicry, parroting another's speech patterns, and cloning NT's out of Auties may have short term spectacular effects, but does it do ENOUGH? For 30 YEARS I have consciously and continuously sought communication between myself and those I have come to consider Earthlings. I think 30 YEARS are statistically significant...just wish I had more documentation and quantification but I believed I was in a minority of 100 or so (and that was being Very Hopeful) so I really didn't think what I had done would change the world much.
Only I was wrong. Now my differences and the fact that I have studied myself and The Earthlings are proving helpful. I give presentations on how I perceive the environment and people and various coping strategies and research and both parents and professionals have found this helpful. My question when someone tells me “Oh,CarolAnn, you were great!” I ask back “In what way was this helpful to you?”
Specific, explicit, well-defined-skip-the-connotation responses are what I ask of persons that declare me “great” because hyperbole in our culture of entertainment is the norm and I want to know what about me deserved such an appellation and I want a specific response because I hope to change the world.
Maybe that is part of the Normals discomfiture with me...No matter what has happened in my life, I hope. And I hope that treatments and interventions such as CBT and Errorless Modeling truly does change the world, also. Long term, measurable and joyful change.
The children deserve that.
The photo is an uploaded clip from the I, Robot film review Web site.
