Language is the operative word pertaining to autism and related disorders. Parents are perched waiting for expressive language, words that fail to flow from a toddler's lips, like sunlight that never shines. It is also the receptive language that baffles the scholars. Children appear deaf. They do not seem to understand simple commands or words of affection. Like a life in a fish bowl children with autism are being observed without knowing why.
William Safire, the consummate word smith speaks of thenotion of the Aha! moment in his NY Times On Language column. Mr.Safire's concentration is on "senior moments". He makes a reference to the perception: “We’ve all had our ‘aha’ moments,” reports the science writer Robert Lee Hotz in a recent article on “the payoff of daydreaming” in The Wall Street Journal. He cites the psychologist John Kounios for a definition: “An ‘aha’ moment is any sudden comprehension that allows you to see something in a different light. It could be a solution to a problem; it could be getting a joke or suddenly recognizing a face."
Perhaps "getting the joke" is far too auspicious a dream for parents of autism. However, "recognizing a face" or learning to listen conjures the Aha! from those who work meticulously and fervently with our children.
Safire reminds us that "In the current media world, Oprah Winfrey and Mutual of Omaha are involved in a legal dispute over the advertising use of the phrase “the aha moment.” It all seems rather trite. Mastering adversity just might hold the monopoly on the "Aha" exclamation. A simple response from a child is the quintessential Aha!
Ivar Lovaas, sometimes referred to as the "father of behavioral analysis" created The Me Book in 1981. Discreet trials, followed by data gave parents information about their child's progress. Holding a stimulus (even candy) to their eye, a therapist would command "Look at me!" The bonanza.....the Aha! moment arrived when the child looked into the therapist's eyes, "Good look at me!" responded the therapist with great enthusiasm and heightened sound.
Safire takes notice of the "senior moment", the one that produces the Aha! when we remember. He introduces us to Guy McKhann, "a leader in the new field of neuroeducation, which ties together cognitive science, arts training and learning in the schoolroom, hypothesizes that “the brain is bringing more resources to the problem without any conscious direction from you . . . perhaps the brain adapts by recruiting other pathways to help solve the problem."
Perhaps those pathways are circuits for autistic children as well. This could be the start of something BIG! Aha!!!!
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