Conclusion 4/26/16

Hello!

I have attached a link to my presentation below. I hope you can all attend on May 7th for the final presentations!

Grace

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bU-Xn_2uRzxr-ms_ykzDyWRN5Rcvwf2jD7YP6amoGbw/edit?usp=sharing

Week Nine 4/13/16

Hello again! Today was my last day at my internship. It’s quite shocking how time has passed by so quickly. My day was as ordinary as any other day on the job, but one thing that was different was my mentality. I wanted to give today my very all.

As I instructed my regular morning class, things were a little different. Over the couple weeks, I have actually been training a very high-functioning student, Kyle. MaryAnn hopes that he himself can become an instructor eventually and I was in charge of getting him there.

Whenever we had these sessions, both Kyle and I worked with Andy.

Kyle needed to understand a few things about Andy before working with him: Andy’s OCD, his wandering eyes, and his issue with not staying inside his workspace. I then had to explain he will need to have a background of each of his students in the future because it directly correlated with how he was going to teach them.

After listening to me, Kyle took in everything and before he gives any instructions to Andy, he makes sure that Andy and he make firm eye contact. Kyle still has a little problem with keeping Andy on task when they’re not working for long periods of time and rather doing small tasks.

However all in all, I know that Kyle will make a great instructor one day.

Like any final day on a project, I began to reflect on what I learned over the past couple months. For three days a week, I saw this amazing, thriving community of hard-working individuals. Constantly learning and totally capable. However, once they step out into the world, they suddenly lose their independent light and live in the shadows. I find that the gap between them and society is not that large. They need support from people like MaryAnn, who see that they can improve and live a fulfilling life.

Every time a student here learns a new technique in jewelry or in welding, they are able to create high-quality products. These products are then bought by customers and sold to people in the outside community. The students take in pride that they were able to create something beautiful and “good enough” to be put up for sale in a show. And isn’t this sense of pride we all look for in life? To have accomplished something after hard work?

As the frequency of autism increases, the support for these individuals must do the same.

Thank you for following along with me for my senior research project!

Grace

Week Eight 4/6/16

Hello again! I cannot believe two months have gone by since I started to come to SEEDs. It’s very exciting to see how far the students have come since the beginning.

This week my hands got a little dirty. There was a lot of painting and a lot of filing, leaving my hands green and black.

When working with Alex and Ryan in the morning, I needed them to paint some metal stakes for the upcoming show. The challenging aspect was that these stakes needed to be painted in a certain manner. With a fan brush, the painting needed to be done in a way the black metal could still be seen through the green acrylic paint. I struggled with trying to explain this to the students because they both lacked listening skills. Alex caught on quickly after I showed him how the paint was supposed to look, but Ryan got a little carried away. The paint was already so pigmented and he was putting on way too many coats. So instead of trying to explain it again, I first added some water to the paint to dilute it a bit and then I held the paint cup in my hand so I could control how many times he could put his paintbrush in the paint. After denying his access a couple times, I kept on telling him to use the excess paint left on the stake. With both students, I constantly rubbed down the stakes with a paper towel to leave a nice spread out layer. All in all..they came out perfect! Just took a little extra work.

In the afternoon, I worked with Breanna and Andy. We polished the garden tags that we’ve been making for over a month. Using scotch brite to scrub off the dirt and metal, we all ended up with black fingers. Breanna worked very hard and she made sure to get every last bit of dirt off of the garden tags. Andy on the other hand simply rushed through the tags that I was giving him and wasn’t exactly paying attention to how well he was working. To keep him on the same pace with Breanna, I gave him a rougher scotch brite and told him to apply a bit more pressure to completely polish the tags. Like the morning class, they both worked very well and we finished our products on a good note.

After having my own class every week, I realized the instructor is constantly thinking of ways to either use a student’s certain behavior to help the outcome of a product or thinking of ways to counter a student’s certain behavior to do the same thing. For example, I needed to think of ways to counter Ryan’s overcoating. This isn’t a skill specific to a person who has worked with people with autism. This is just common sense.

Thanks for reading!

Grace

Week Seven 3/31/16

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful week!

As I was working with some students this week, there were a couple frustrating moments. On the first day, I was working with a student named Charlie. Charlie has a tendency to wander off mentally and space out. As the instructor, I needed to constantly bring him back; however, the problem was that Charlie didn’t know he was wandering off. He thinks that he is constantly working and with every reminder I make, the more he thinks I’m attacking him for something he didn’t do. This caused a grave amount of stress in him and he started to lash out at me and talk to me with a more aggressive tone. You could tell he wasn’t having a great time, and I started to feel irritated by his behavior. Nevertheless, I reminded him again and again and explained why I needed to remind him why I was doing so. His work was very slow-paced and inconsistent, but he said he was still technically working. We both got through the session, but it sure was a rough time.

The next day I worked with a student named Keri. Unlike the older students, Keri is much older and is in her early 40s. She lives independently and consciously knows she has Asperger’s. I needed her to hammer some metal wire; this required very minimal energy. Keri’s goals are focused around her whining. She constantly whines and whines and it’s ridiculous. Five minutes into the hammering, she started to complain and said she has arthritis in her wrist and lacked the muscle coordination do to this. Being the stubborn person that I am, I pushed her even though she felt out of her comfort zone because I knew she was completely capable of doing this task. She found that hammering with her left hand was much easier because she was, in fact, left-handed. After the small hurdle, the rest of the session went on fine.

On a personal note, growing up whenever I had to introduce my brother and state the fact that he was autistic, I would immediately get the response, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” They felt this immense amount of pity and would treat him with this absurd amount of care. This most likely came from their fear of Calvin’s insane meltdowns, but nevertheless, they treated him in a way that he was terminally ill and never made him to any hard labor. But what one thing I have learned off the bat from being an autistic brother’s sister is that they are human too. They can do as much as we can do. They’re just as unique as we are. They have the same amount of potential in life that we also possess. So when my mom tells us to bring in the groceries, I make sure Calvin does the same amount of work as I do. When Calvin starts to complain about how he doesn’t like the feel of water, I tell him he needs to wash his dishes. They all need a little bit of a push and they can accomplish anything.

Thanks for reading!

Grace

Week Six 3/24/16

This week was total chaos. Three completely different days.

The first day everybody lost it. For some reason the students were having meltdowns and were not cooperating with the instructors. First thing an instructor must understand when a student is having a meltdown is to remain calm. If you start talking to them with an aggravated tone, it just adds fuel to the fire. In the morning, Nate, a student in the sewing department, could not understand certain instructions and when two different instructors were trying to teach him how to deal with the stress he was feeling, he kept on lashing out and started to yell at everybody to leave him alone. In the afternoon, another student started to break down when an instructor was trying to tell him he needs to start working on his personal goals. Daniel (the student) has a tendency to ask “what if” questions even if they are completely out of context. He had just asked a “what if” question and then said he’s doing excellent on his goals. The instructor wanted to make him recognize that he had just failed at his goals two seconds ago, but Daniel took it a completely different way and started to cry because he thought the instructor meant he’s been failing at everything he’s done since he’s been attending SEEDs.

The second day was filled with new recruits. A group from another organization called Mentor came into the warehouse and had a class. These individuals were very low-functioning and some had multiple disabilities: blind, deaf, etc. Each individual had a personal helper. While MaryAnn was running the class, she had to think of ways to break down the steps even more in order to increase their success rate. This day, unlike the first, was a very productive and easy day. Everybody was on their A-game and there were zero meltdowns. I took part in a small exercise with two other students in the afternoon. One of these students used to be very playful and would respond well in a conversation; however, in December she had an extreme breakdown and it caused her to be hospitalized for a week. Since then she hasn’t really been the same and doesn’t show any emotions anymore. However, during this exercise, I said a couple small remarks and I got her to smile and laugh and come out of her shell a little bit. Overall, a very successful day.

Each day of this week I had my own class. I worked with Camille, Charlie, Brian, Breanna, and Ricardo. I needed to be aware of each student’s goals and had to prepare for the class beforehand. This was a much more tiring job that I thought. By the third day, I was physically and mentally exhausted (cutting metal with shears isn’t easy with my lack of strength). Nevertheless, the impact I leave on these students is completely worth it.

I have grown very close with most of these students and will be very sad when I have to leave them in a couple weeks.

Thanks for reading!

Grace

Inside View of SEEDs

Where I go three days a week!

Week Five 3/16/16

Welcome back to my blog!

As March progresses forward, my schedule seems to become more busy. With college decision dates, my concert with the Phoenix Symphony, and All-State auditions, I’m constantly on edge and have trouble finding time to rest. Nevertheless, I have taken refuge to going to SEEDs every week. Now that a little over a month has passed by, I have created many relationships and will only continue to do so.

Also, VERY exciting news. I received my fingerprint clearance card! The card that legally allows me to work directly with these students (not that I have been interacting with them illegally…) and give MaryAnn approval for me to be around the students. This card required a 6-week waiting period; however, mine came in surprisingly early!

This week I worked alongside MaryAnn to teach two students, Jonatan and Andy, about emotions, coping skills, and personal goals. Jonatan tends to ramble on and on about his thoughts and has a difficult time listening to whoever is talking to him. He mumbles a lot of his words and has poor enunciation. I’ve talked about Andy before in previous blog posts, but just in case you guys forgot, Andy is the nonverbal stellar student who has great focus and works meticulously. However, Andy’s OCD causes him to constantly be distracted by imperfections and has a hard time keeping his hands to himself and his own work space.

MaryAnn and I started with writing some emotions: happy, sad, scared, angry, etc. We made both students express the emotions on their face. From here, we transitioned to positive emotions and negative emotions. MaryAnn wanted to get to a point where she could talk about anxiety and stress. We all feel anxious and stressed out, but unlike most people, these students don’t exactly know how to handle these emotions. Therefore, MaryAnn taught them easy steps to cope with uncomfortable situations. First, stop what you are doing and take moment to breathe. Then, remind yourself and say, “ I can do this!” We might automatically do this, but by breaking it down for these students, they can process the information easily and use it in the future. Jonatan caught on to the three steps really easily and in fact really enjoyed doing them.

However, it was interesting to see Andy be very active in this class. After expressing the different emotions on his face, he was also very verbal and proceeded to say all of the steps as well.

All of the students are improving their communication and social skills every week and it is really exciting to be a part of it all!

Thanks for reading and talk to you guys soon!

Grace

Week Four 3/9/16

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all having a wonderful spring break and a good week of rest. Since I had nothing planned for this week, I thought I might as well go to SEEDs and continue my internship. And it was a good thing I did!

This week everyone was working very diligently to finish a lot of products for this Saturday’s event! Because of all of the chaos, Mary Ann  gave me more responsibility and more hands-on work. This was my first week as a substitute instructor. I had two classes, each with two students.

In the morning painting class, I had Ricardo and Alex. Both have a tendency to wander off, both physically and mentally, and requires me to constantly remind them to keep focus. Alex has clear verbal skills when he is directed to answer questions, but likes scripting and singing to himself. Ricardo has a much more difficult time communicating and has small to minimal communication skills. He says a word or two occasionally, but usually self-talks. In the class, I had to teach both of them how to make long brushstrokes to make a cleaner finish on whatever we were painting (in this case, pots). I appointed Ricardo to the gold layer and Alex to the black layer. Both struggled with being neat, so I had to come up with a way to teach both of them how to make straighter lines.

Alex was using a much larger brush because he had to paint a larger surface area. The large brush was giving him a hard time to make the line between the black and gold not overlap. I looked at Alex and had to keep asking if he was paying attention. When he made eye contact with me I would show him how to move the paint slowly, so that the black wouldn’t go onto the gold. His tendency to paint quickly made his work uneven and inconsistent, so his key term I gave him was “slow.” As he eased his brushstrokes, his hand became steady and his lines improved. Ricardo had the same issue of painting too quickly; however, I couldn’t have a conversation with him because of his lack of concentration. With Ricardo, I put my hand over his to physically show how he should paint. I was saying words like, “slow, calm, soft, etc.” and he caught on to the word “soft” very quickly. So whenever, I caught him painting too rashly I would say “softer” and he would understand.

The pots Alex and Ricardo were painting

In the afternoon, I worked with Andy and Alex. The three of us had to create labels for the finished ceramics. This required stamping, writing, and taping. Since Andy has good handwriting, I put him in charge of writing the dollar amount on the labels. I told Alex to stamp and tape the labels onto the products. This system was working fine until Andy had an unexpected appointment and had to leave. I then tested if Alex had good penmanship and told him to start doing the writing. He impressed both Mary Ann and I with his handwriting and I made him do all three steps for the rest of the class period.

Thanks for reading and talk to you guys soon!

Grace

Week Three 3/2/16

It is already MARCH! I can’t believe the time has gone by so fast.

As my third week at being at SEEDs comes to an end, I have formed relationships with most of the students and staff. Now that I have a familiar face, the students feel more comfortable around me and I have proven to my supervisor that I can establish an instructor-student relationship, regardless of my age.

This week I wanted to focus on how SEEDs incorporate job skills into its program. I stayed in the newsletter department. Although this class doesn’t have any artistic or hands-on work, students are learning about different computer programs, such as Publisher, and how to use social media as a voice. Each student chooses what he or she wants to write about. Once a topic is chosen, he or she conducts research and, after the instructor helps edit, writes the final draft of the article. These are the same steps we learned when attending grade school when learning how to write a five-paragraph essay. We all had to learn the basic rules to writing before learning how to write with our own style.

On a different note, I was able to do some work with the students. Acting like an instructor, I followed Mary Ann’s instructions and helped assist and make tags for the products for the next big sale. Each student had his or her own job, whether it was hammering, filing, stamping. While looking over the students, I focused my attention to the nonverbal student. Andy was hammering around the edges of the tags, but has a tendency to wander off in his mind and after he finished one job. A goal for him is to keep to his work space and to ask for more work to do after he finishes. This forces him to speak at least a minimal amount. So after he finishes one tag, I only looked up to him and didn’t say a word until he said he needed another one to work one. After the first three attempts, he caught on very quickly and I was very proud of him!

Steps to creating the tags

It was a very exciting week for me and I love to see everyone working hard for the next big event!

Grace

Some Finished Products

Week Two 2/25/16

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful week!

Although I’ve been at SEEDs for only a week, I have witnessed so many different things and observed a plethora of different interactions. I’ve sat in the weaving, ceramics, jewelry, and sewing classes and saw how each of these students take in new information and apply their knowledge.

Yesterday was the most interesting day so far. Like any other person, the students all seemed to have an off-day. No one seemed focused and everyone seemed a bit on edge and easily irritated. It was only today that I realised last night was a full moon… Regardless of the conspiracy about full moons and weird behavior, the day proceeded forward with just a few drawbacks. The instructors had to constantly remind everyone to concentrate and stay focused.

As I sat in the sewing department, I watched three students more closely. The female student showed high-functioning skills and quick communication skills, so she took directions well. On the other hand, the two male students lacked these skills. One displayed communicating abilities, but also showed great insecurity in his work, therefore easily frustrated. The other lacked communicating skills and displayed loud repetitive behavior. Most of his vocabulary was actually in Spanish, so the instructor had a hard time understanding the student.

Although this student may be seen as “low-functioning,” he surprisingly learned how to use a sewing machine in only one day. As the instructor showed the female student how to use one, I quickly became very confused.

Then I realized I began to see an indirect relationship with focus and functioning level. We all believe high-functioning students are quite verbal and can have a steady conversation; however, these students show a lack of concentration for a long period of time. They also, ironically, talk a little too much and don’t listen to instructions thoroughly. While the low-functioning students are seen as the non-verbal, they show great level of intelligence and display very strong concentration for a long period of time. They listen to instructions very well and absorb any information you tell them, displaying a much faster learning curve. Therefore, this notion of categorizing “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” students isn’t quite accurate. Each student is a different case and has different goals. Like I’ve said in my first post, we cannot simply label each person with autism. They are just as unique as any other person in our society.

Thanks for stopping by! Talk to you guys soon!

Grace

Week One 2/17/16

Yesterday was my first day at SEEDs for Autism. Since I arrived fifteen minutes before classes started, I saw each student come through the door to see a new face. After a daily morning meeting with all of the students, Mary Ann LaRoche, my mentor, took me on a tour. I saw each station with its intricate tools and became almost intimidated; I could never figure out how to use a weaving loom or a welding machine.

As these thoughts ran through my head, Ms. LaRoche sat me down once again to tell me why she started a pilot program in her own backyard. A sister herself, she saw her brother growing up with an artistic talent and realized a need for a workplace for adults with autism. Her brother has now passed away and SEEDs was created in his memory.

I spent the day observing students in the ceramics department. In the morning class, both students were glazing clay sculptures. Simultaneously, the instructor directed a conversation about coping with change. Like most people with autism, change causes a great deal amount of stress and schedules act almost as a safe haven. However, life as we know it is a never-ending cycle of changes. Both students talked about different changes that had occurred in their lives in the past 12 months, each concluding that the change was for the better. 

The afternoon consisted of a different group of students and the artistic dynamic between these three was very interesting. All three students were very high-functioning; however, two were very verbal and one was not. Each excelled in a different area of ceramics: cutting, detail work, glazing. As the instructor directed a similar conversation from the morning class, I saw each student’s multi-tasking skills. The nonverbal student had laser focus on his art project while the instructor asked him one-answer questions to simply have him say something. 

The slow learning curve and the development of social skills is the driving force behind SEEDs. With the two, the integration of people with autism back into society can be achieved. 

Talk to you guys soon!

Grace

Some of Calvin's Artwork

What is Autism? 2/12/16

Hello everyone!

This week I took the time to research about autism: its biological definition, causes, symptoms, etc.

When one asks, “What is Autism?” a vague answer of some sort of a brain disorder might come up.  The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that impairs social interaction, communication, and speech skills. There hasn’t been an answer to what causes autism; however, scientists have found some gene mutations related to autistic symptoms. Nevertheless, the cause is rarely because of the gene mutations, but rather the combination of these gene mutations and environmental factors that are related to the earlier stages of brain development.

These environmental factors are closely related to events happening in short time periods before and during birth. Some factors include advanced parental age for both parents, illness during pregnancy, premature birth, difficulties during birth, especially in cases where the baby brain is deprived of oxygen. Other research states that mothers exposed to pesticides and air pollution have a higher chance of having a child with ASD. Nevertheless, there is still not a definite answer to what causes autism.

Children with autism can easily become categorized: verbal, nonverbal, high-functioning, low-functioning. However, every individual on this spectrum is a unique case. Many people with autism possess a special ability in art, music, academics. About 40 percent have an intellectual disability, or an IQ less than 70. 25 percent of these individuals are nonverbal and use other means of communicating, such as Assistive Technology. When treating any person with autism, every case is different and one method of treatment might work for one, but not the other.

There are some common symptoms among these individuals, such as scripting and self-talk. Scripting is when he or she repeats lines from cartoons or movies and self-talk is when he or she talks himself or herself through a thought process out loud. In that sense, we all talk to ourselves on some level. Some symptoms shown at a younger age are lack of eye-contact and no speech.

In every case I read, each parent who received the news from a doctor saying his or her child has autism said the earlier you can get the diagnosis, the faster you can find treatment for your child. In this day and age, we are finding more answers to this mysterious brain disorder and I will keep you all posted!

Talk to you soon!

Grace

Introduction 1/22/15

Hello everyone! My name is Grace Shin and I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale. In the final weeks of my senior year, I have the opportunity to step outside the halls of my school and participate in a personal research project. Instead of studying for a final or another AP test, I will use my time to apply what I have learned in the classroom in a "real-life" setting and combine two of my passions, art and science, to study the relationship between art and autism.

In the first couple years of my life I was sent away by my parents at the age of one when my older brother was diagnosed with autism. His violent behavior forced my parents to send me to Korea to live with our relatives. I started living with my brother from the age of four and our sibling relationship had a rocky start. In the beginning, Calvin did not possess communication or social skills. As a result, he used aggressive behavior to convey his thoughts to us. Obviously, this was a very difficult time for me and my family.

Since we couldn't use words or sentences, Calvin and I began to lose touch and a distance grew between us. This was the case until one day Calvin picked up a pencil. Pencil in hand, paper in front, Calvin started to draw and hasn't stopped since. As I matured, my interest in art grew as well. We finally reached a place where we could relate to each other.

Now twenty years old, Calvin has developed high-functioning skills in graphic design and uses most of the hours in the day at his desk drawing. Interested in how Calvin uses his art to convey his thoughts, I will research how abstract expression affects stress, anxiety, and other emotions.

I have reached out to SEEDs for Autism for my internship. Here, experts in ceramics, woodworking, and etc., train people with autism who have an artistic talent, hoping that one day these individuals can have their own business and integrate themselves into society. In my internship, I will focus on an individual in each different artistic sector and follow them through the entire process, observing how they brainstorm ideas, analyzing how art affects mood and focus, and witnessing how they take criticism or praise.

I'm very excited to begin this project and I hope you guys are too! This project will start on the week of February 15th and I can't wait. For a more detailed background, please click my link labeled "Proposal." See you guys soon!

Grace