posted December 22, 2001 13:15            

One of my long-term "maybe someday" plans would be to become involved in teaching ballet to people with Autistic spectrum personalities, such as Asperger's syndrome.

Very little seems to have been done about this. It is commonly noted in the literature that autistic-spectrum children naturally move in ways that any dancer knows are not condusive to dance. Also, there are a couple of programs I've seen that seek to teach ballet to such special needs children. However, I am suspicious of them because they seem to intentionally put their children on a non-professional track, and they throw the autistic children in with the blind children, the wheelchair-bound, the deaf children, etc.

I believe that, using proper methods, it is possible to develop children with Asperger's syndrome into professional dancers. Such children certainly have some advantages over "normal" children in the study of ballet, as well as certain disadvantages. By focusing teaching energy in the right way, focus could be placed on ameliorating the disadvantages while capitalizing on the advantages. I am not sure what format would be best to deliver this "special education".

The benefits to Autistic-spectrum child with proper professional dance training can be immense, both inside and outside the studio.

posted December 22, 2001 14:52            

However, we did have an interesting thread a while ago on teaching children with special needs that you might be interested in reading if you have not already done so:

posted December 22, 2001 14:58            

Dyslexic Dancers

posted December 22, 2001 21:25            

Things go in one ear, and out the other.

In class, I have the greatest difficulty retaining and following sequences of instructions. As I perform a routine, whether at barre or in center, I tend to be a little bit off because I have to rely on visual observation of what everyone else is doing.

If anyone has encountered dance students whose attention span seems limited, this may be why.

Citibob, I'd be interested in knowing the results of your research.

posted January 04, 2002 10:45            

Dance/movement therapy is defined by the American Dance Therapy Association as "the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process which furthers the emotional, cognitive and physical integration of the individual." Dance/movement therapy effects changes in feelings, cognition, physical functioning, and behavior. As a professional practice, dance/movement therapy has been evolving since the 1940s due to the efforts of Marian Chase (Washington D.C.). A group of D.C. based psychiatrists found that her unique dance classes were the perfect non verbal approach needed to deal with certain medical conditions. For more details/history etc. on the practice of dance therapy see the American Dance Therapy Association’s homepage. ADTA was founded in 1966. Their url is http://www.adta.org

Moving on….in short autism is a developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. Males are affected four times as often as females. Children may appear normal until around the age of 30 months. Symptoms, which vary widely in severity, include impairment in social interaction, fixation on inanimate objects, inability to communicate normally, and resistance to changes in daily routine. Characteristic traits include lack of eye contact, repetition of words or phrases, unmotivated tantrums, inability to express needs verbally, and insensitivity to pain. Behaviors may change over time. Autistic children often have other disorders of brain function; about two thirds are mentally retarded; over one quarter develop seizures. The cause of autism remains unclear, but a psychological one has been ruled out. Neurological studies seem to indicate a primary brain dysfunction, and a genetic component is suggested by a pattern of autism in some families.
See M. M. Scariano and T. Grandin, Emergence: Labeled Autistic (1986); L. Wing, ed., Aspects of Autism (1988); T. Grandin, Thinking in Pictures (1995). See also publications of the Autism Society of America.

I have a quote written down from my notes that puts things very clearly (and this is where dance comes in): “Autism is a disorder of relationship, and even casual observation reveals that movement is important in relationship. Normal interactions rely on synchronies and symmetries of movement, as if the participants were partners in a dance; yet, if you watch people with autism in interactions you will see asynchronies and asymmetries. Most of these abnormalities involve coordination of concurrent movements -- a job of the cerebellum, which has been implicated in autism. Since autistic children from an early age fail the dance of relationship, the idea that a shared spatial and temporal scaffold is the foundation of it, and that the nervous system can't cooperate to build that scaffold, makes sense”.

Of course this is referencing the brain which in turn effects the outward movement/body etc. Methods vary, but dance has long played a part in the field of autistic treatment. Dance is not necessarily a cure, but can improve the quality of life for a child with autism. To see examples (photos) check out: http://www.udaan.org/therapy/ram1.html
This couple does wonderful work, putting together visual art, theatre, and dance classes for children with autism, cerebral palsy and other conditions. They believe that these classes culminate well in a ballet theatre performance where the children feel proud and learn that on stage they can hold their own against performers (whod o not live with their own limitations). I think you will like this program Citi Bob, the emphasis seems to be on putting on a "normal" show with costumes, sets etc...it is not a pity display (I agree with your qualms about how some people degrade the seriousness of production with disabled children and throw professional training to the wind). This couple has taken a more traditional route in terms of what we think of as dance/ballet etc. Dance therapists work more in the clinical sense that there wouldn’t normally be a performance. I’m not trying to put down what the above people have done, in fact I greatly admire them, but I do want to point out that a dance therapist would be more clinical in terms of a one on one situation and no performance. I cannot recall the name but I studied a woman who worked with autistic children by letting them move in a room and then she began to mirror their movements and in doing so, made a personal connection. The picture I saw looked VERY similar to contact improvisation…(.both individuals were rolling their heads against each other.). I think the significance of the work I just mentioned is that normally autistic children are approached by others who want to teach them to fit in..someone is always trying to mold them to move with society but the above woman went in and related to them, mirroring their movements INSTEAD of trying to force them directly into something else. It seemed to be a lesson on the ease of transition.

posted January 05, 2002 12:45            

That is why I asked specifically about ballet. I think it is more suitable to autistic dancers than other common dance forms.

posted January 05, 2002 15:36            

The retarded students were mixed through regualr classes, in many different setting in which I taught.

The psychiatric students (adults) were at an inpatient psychiatric facility. This was difficult because so many of them were on fairly high dosages of psychotropic medications. This not only affected mood, but balance and memory.

I forgot to say in the above post - I also taught a student with epilsepsy that was not entirely controlled.

In none of those situations did I - or the other students - find it disruptive at all. For the epileptic student (she was a teen) the rest of the students were teens and adults. I knew this student was coming to class and I had been told of her condition, and what to expect. So, with the permission of her family I prepared the rest of the class for what they might expect, too.

The deaf student in the performing arts high school had been assigned a sign language intermediary by the school district who followed her all through her school day. So, she stood beside her at the barre and 'interpreted' what I was saying. It was a low intermediate class, so I did a lot of demonstrating anyway.

In my post above I put in a link to the Special Needs Student - and in that thread is the story of teaching the deaf student on a one-to-one basis.

posted January 05, 2002 15:39            

One of them took to a particular song on one of my tapes. Whenever he came to dance, he had to hear that song before he could participate in class. So I brought in an extra tape recorder, he sat with his aide and listened to his song, and then he could dance with us. The other one tuned in on a statue game I played with the kids. Whenever he saw me any place around camp, he'd strike a statue pose -- his way of saying "hi."

These kids not only needed structure; they created their own. In their particular groups, I did try to have repetition, of warm-up exercises, for example. When activities became more creative, it was a bit more challenging. But sometimes just having the music playing was enough to draw them in, even if they were not doing exactly what others were doing.

posted January 05, 2002 16:32            

In my limited experience, modern dance is much less structured than ballet. I have, for example, come across steps without names in modern dance classes. Also, modern dance refers to a wide variety of dance forms with varying vocabulary, structure, goals, etc.

posted January 09, 2002 11:39            

You mention the relational problems with synchrony and symmetry of movement, perhaps being indicated as motivated from the cerebellum. Just a thought.

Many years ago, I believe there was significant study done on movement-related therapy for the deaf. The general premise that I remember being derived from that research was that a wide variety of conceptual learning for the young may be tied to the learning of certain physical movements often inspired by hearing sound.

Thus, hearing-impaired youngsters often had more problems assimilating or identifying concepts than other youngsters their age. Learning would then lag behind their peers by two to five years or more.

Once these same children were offered dance classes designed for their special needs, they quickly caught up to the same level as the rest of their age group. The movement seemed to increase their ability to understand certain concepts.

In autism, has there been any work to determine if bypassing the other associated symptons and going straight to overcoming the asymmetric and asynchronous movement problems brought notable changes in the other associated problems (attention, verbalization, etc.).

An example from a different realm: an acquaintance of mine in college had great difficulty reading - a form of dyslexia. Analysis led the doctors to believe that as a child, he had CRAWLED incorrectly. He apparently crawled in parallel (same leg and hand at the same time). They gave him remedial crawling lessons, emphasizing crawling in opposition, and this seemed to develop a new pathway in the brain that led to him being able to see words correctly.

posted January 09, 2002 17:32            

As to analysis of how an adult crawled as a child, I can think of two things off the top. One is that I know I have video tapes of my son crawling. Perhaps those existed for the person cited. Also, if you work backwards, you can hypothesize. In other words, if re-patterning his crawl as an adult leads to a breakthrough in his dyslexia now, it may be reasonable to conclude that he crawled parallel as a baby. It's possible that there's data on babies who crawled "improperly" and later had challenges with reading or other activities.

posted January 10, 2002 12:59            

Some years ago, I spent 2 years working with an autistic child in a home based program - we are talking VERY autistic - 5 and non-verbal, the works.

The main principal of that program was of encouraging eye contact and interaction - often with imitation - it went both ways- we imitated the child as well as the child imitating us. There were a lot of other things we did to encourage this - and she made tremendous progress - even talking in short sentences by the time I left the program. Each volunteer did 2 2 hour sessions one on one with her each week.

One day, I was amazed to see her doing entrechat quatres as she galoped around the room.... It was before I took ballet myself, so I was totally mystified as to how anyone could do them.

Her mother had shown them to her once a while ago, and she had taken a liking to them!

I have to say, though, that, while this particular child loved movement, the key ingredient really did seem to be interaction and eye contact.