On January 14th I attended Teaching Communication Skills to the Early Learner, presented by Adrian Rodrigue. This was part of the Speaker Series for the Center of Autism and Developmental Disabilities at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas. Adrian showed videos of one of her clients and how she taught him affective language skills. The boy was able to speak when she first met him, but he had a hard time getting across his wants/needs. Adrian started out with basic words, like firetruck (his preferred toy). She eventually started to teach him more complex sentences such as “I want my red firetruck” or “please open [the box containing the firetruck]”. Adrian also showed other videos of a little girl learning how to ask for her juice. Each child received prompts, either verbal or physical to signify that they needed to ask, eventually the children no longer needed prompting to ask what they wanted.
This was a very informative experience in regards to learning about communication with a person with autism. (I’ll include a few more notes on this subject later).
Afterwards, I then introduced myself to Adrian (as she is a classmate of Kari’s) and asked her what she did as an undergrad to get to where she is no and what I could do myself. Of course, she told me I should do anything involving applied or clinical experience. She also gave me some advice to look up cognitive behavioral therapy (as I’m interested in neuroscience and behavioral interventions).
The Psychology Intern 