Making contact

This entry is mostly a link to an article by Dr. Jeff Sigafoos and Dr. Mark O’Reilly of the University of Texas. The article is about the relationship of autism to communication and the use of technology to unlock communication pathways.

http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2004/autism.html

I do not profess this is a solution for all autistics but it does open ideas and questions on the methodologies of conventional communicating methods and also on teaching methods.

one quote that raises such questions is;



Further to this is the following excerpt from the article

• “When an autistic child is moving through his environment,” said Wood, “he’s not picking up information incidentally the way that a ‘normal’ child would. The therapist or teacher has to break all of the information out there down for him and teach each thing specifically. At some point, many children will begin to pick up some of these things on their own and be able to operate a little more independently.

This relates to the opening up of communication channels, I have felt through this piece of work and looking at the alternative ways others communicate that communication is not simply about the broadcaster and receiver but about the complete interactive surroundings. The "spatial" occupancy of broadcaster and receiver is present within each person as well as the interactive space and technology.

Does not understanding of communications begin with internal and personal interpretation of the message.







The communication theorist Marshall McLuhan stated that "the medium is the message" but he does not say which medium he is refering to, thus an alternative communicative form may be an acceptable message broadcaster, we simply have not found the right code to decifer it yet.