Watson University, Business Plan Competitions, Parent Follow-Ups and other exciting updates!

In the two months since our team left Jenin, we have had many exciting developments for A Global Voice for Autism. Here are  a few highlights:

-Skype Parent Follow-Ups: We have made several attempts to follow up with the mothers over Skype but after realizing that Skype cannot support the bandwidth of our calls (we have volunteers in the U.S., Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and more!) we have decided to switch to pre-recorded videos. The mothers will now film therapy sessions with their children using the cameras on their cell phones and will send these to our therapists for feedback along with any questions they have.  We are excited to welcome a three new Arabic-speaking volunteers to our team, which will allow us to get back to the mothers faster and to make sure that their needs and our suggestions are not lost in translation.

-Business Plan Competition: A professor at Hult International Business School is going to be hosting a business plan competition in one of her courses in July in which her students will be challenged to develop a sustainable business plan for A Global Voice for Autism. This will allow us to continue expanding so that our services can reach communities in need around the world.

 

-Watson University-In the fall, I will be attending the Watson University program in Boulder, Colorado. Watson University is a program for 18-23 year old social entrepreneurs from around the world. At Watson, I will have the opportunity to work with mentors to scale A Global Voice for Autism and to pilot potential programs for international sites.

-Partnerships in Jordan, Jerusalem/Ramallah and Canada-We are excited to be discussing partnerships and collaborations with organizations around the world. We are always open to new partners and projects in any communities in need. Please let us know if you are interested in partnering or know an organization that would benefit from our programs. We have more exciting announcements on the way…stay tuned!

-Melissa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvpyDcYsEW8 

Progress Report

Even though our team is back in the U.S., the program in Jenin is continuing. On Saturday, the mothers in the cooperative met to practice and to discuss the next steps for helping their children with autism. They are hoping that awareness will continue to spread throughout the community and that they will continue to receive occasional outside support. We are currently working on coordinating the first follow-up Skype calls with some new volunteers. If you or someone you know has background in ABA and is interested in volunteering a few hours of time to provide feedback to mothers in Jenin, please contact me at: melissajdiamond@gmail.com. The times and days of the week are flexible and the mothers are very appreciative of the help.

While we have highlighted some milestones and exciting breakthroughs throughout the course of the program, I thought I would also share the data that shows the progress the mothers have seen in themselves and their children. At the beginning of the program we gave a survey to the mothers where we asked them to evaluate their children in different areas related to behavior, communication, and social interaction. They ranked their children on a scale of 1-5 (1 if they never see a behavior, 5 if they always see a behavior). We gave the first group of mothers the same survey at the end of the program in order to measure their progress.

 

Here are some of the most significant results:

 

You saw Mohammad’s exciting 3-word mand in his famous Gangnam style video, but here are some other areas in which his mother noticed the most progress:

+4 points: using 3-4 word phrases

-2 points: aggression toward self

-2 points: aggression toward others

-2 points: restrictive and repetitive behaviors

Although Abed had some difficulty transitioning to and from the center during our final weeks in Jenin, it did not stop him from making great progress at home:

+2 points: interaction with peers in play

+2 points: responds to name by turning and looking

+2 points: responds to name with eye contact

-1 point: restrictive and repetitive behaviors

+2 points: receptiveness of community to child’s behaviors in public

 

While Adnan still knows what he wants and will do whatever he needs to do to get it, he has become more responsive to those around him and his mother learned some great skills for handling his behaviors both at home and in public:

+1 point: using 3-4 word phrases

+2 points: responds to name with eye contact

+3 points: receptiveness of community to child’s behaviors in public

+3 points: comfort handling child’s behaviors at home

+3 points: comfort handling child’s behaviors in public

 

Both Basil’s father and mother are doing everything they can to make their home a nurturing environment for Basil. After doing some research and seeing his love of animals, they decided to buy him a horse! Although Basil still loves waving toys in front of his eyes, his mother has seen a significant decrease in problematic behaviors at home:

-3 points: restrictive and repetitive behaviors

 

These are just a few of the milestones reached over the past three months. More photos and videos to come! We have an excellent video where the mothers reflect on their child’s most significant accomplishment in the program. It is in the process of being translated. In the meantime, if you have not watched the Reflections from Jenin video, check it out here to see what the mothers have to say about their experience in the program.

 

Thank you for your support!

-Melissa Diamond

Mission Accomplished!

It is hard to believe, but today we wrapped up our program in Jenin.  The past three months have been life-changing for both our team and the families involved in the program. In spite of the challenges we faced, I cannot imagine a more successful program. We came here to help families and their children, and during the parents’ final reflections today, it was clear that we accomplished this.

The mothers and their children joined us today for a review session and a final celebration. After the review, I spoke with the mothers about their progress in the program and they eagerly shared their accomplishments in a video for this week’s UN presentation. A common theme was present in a number of the mothers’ reflections. In the words of Abed’s mother:

“I always thought that I was to blame for [Abed’s] autism because I allowed him to watch television when he was a child. I learned that it is not my fault. I advise other mothers not to be ashamed of their sons. On the contrary, they should seek out programs for their children. The more they talk about their child, the more chances they will have to be helped. If I had not told anyone about my son, no one would have helped me.”

The empowered approach of the mothers was inspiring and I know that the relationships between our team and the families will extend beyond our time in Jenin.

After the review and reflection, we gathered for a celebration. We brought lunch to the center, and celebrated with the mothers, children and translators. The mothers brought traditional sweets and a cake. I am going to miss everyone in Jenin and I hope to return to Jenin in the near future.

(Partial group photo at the celebration)

This evening, my friends from Nablus came for a final visit and we walked around the city and relaxed in a public park in Jenin. Now, we are spending the rest of the night packing for our trip back to the U.S. Monday morning. Our flight is not until early Monday morning, but we will travel to the airport tomorrow afternoon.

While our daily blogging ends today, we will continue to update the blog periodically. Stay tuned for updates about the UN, the families in Jenin and future A Global Voice for Autism ventures!

Thank you for your support,

Melissa Diamond

 

 

 

Final Few Days

As we end our time here in Jenin, we have been invited over to several peoples’ homes.  Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit the village and home of one of our translators.  She lives a little bit further away, so we had to plan a longer day.  It was a beautiful village situation on the side of a hill with views of the surrounding farms and villages.  We enjoyed a wonderful lunch with her mother and sisters and then we were able to go on a long walk along the hills with one of their neighbors.  People have been so welcoming and happy to have us spend time with them.  We ended up spending the night at their house and returning to Jenin this morning.  We will also spend today at a couple different peoples homes.

On another note, I had recently been talking with Katrina about a book my work had me read when I first started in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis as a therapist.  They had us read the book “Let Me Hear Your Voice:  A Families Triumph Over Autism”, by Catherine Maurice.  This was written by a mother who had two children diagnosed with Autism and her experiences with Applied Behavior Analysis.  Her children received intensive ABA services from Dr. Brigitte Taylor when she began providing services early in her career.  The thing that I loved about this book, is that it helpful to see how the process was a struggle in the beginning, but it also shows how well the children did because of receiving these services.  I wish that this book was translated into Arabic for these families here, so that they would have another mother’s story to read about their journey.

Tomorrow, we will have our final review training with the mothers, followed by a celebration.  It will be sad to say good-bye to these families.

Sarah

More Friends and Adventures

Hello Global Voice for Autism Friends and Family,

It is so hard to say goodbye to all of the wonderful people and the new friends we have made while working here in Jenin. Today Sarah and I went to visit some individuals that we have met throughout our time here.

For lunch today, we visited one of our favorite falafel stands and took pictures walking through the city. The picture I took below was with fancy dresses that hang in the window of a store in a near by mall.

We walked to the money exchange bank owned by Mohammad’s family to chat with father and grandfather. They have shown us so much hospitality and therefore, we were so happy to see them one last time and say goodbye.

The final place we went today was the Al Miner mall. During our stay here, we spent several afternoons there. Not only has the mall been a popular place for us to shop, but it has also been a great place for our team to practice community outings with the families we have served. As we walked up the escalators and down the corridors, I was amazed at how familiar I had become with the place.

One of the last friends we went to visit was my friend Rawand. She has a small women’s clothing store in the mall, which she always keeps up-to-date with all of the latest Middle Eastern fashion trends. Each time I have visited her she has made me feel so welcomed. She has given me gifts from her store and offered me snacks/drinks each time as well. Today, she even invited Sarah and I to her house for a barbecue with her family on Friday.

Our last few days here in Jenin, as you can see, have been filled with lots of goodbyes, hugs, and thank you’s for everyone’s kindness. As we get closer to the day of our departure, the farewells will probably continue. While I will be happy to see my friends and loved ones back in the US again, it will be sad to say goodbye to the new friends I have here.

Until we meet again, Jenin! May peace be with you.
departure, the farewells will probably continue. While I will be happy to see my friends and loved ones back in the US again, it will be sad to say goodbye to the new friends I have here.

Until we meet again, Jenin! May peace be with you.

Submitted by Katrina WAlker

The First Goodbyes

*Note: Our internet is not working so we apologize for short or sporadic blog posts during our last week.

 

It is hard to believe that our three months in Jenin are coming to an end. There were times that were challenging, but overall, these three months have been enlightening and rewarding. Living in Jenin has given us all a perspective on the world that we could not have gained anywhere else. Throughout all of our experiences, a constant highlight is the close friendships we have formed in the community. As we say goodbye to each of our friends, we do not know the next time we will see each other, but we do know that we will stay in touch occasionally and remember each other often.

 

This afternoon, we went out to lunch with one of our translators, Dima, at her favorite restaurant in Jenin. Not only has Dima reliably helped us translate at every Saturday and Monday session for the past three months, but she has also accompanied us on community outings with the program participants and has invited us to her home. Yesterday, Dima was hired for a permanent job and we are all proud of her! We went out to lunch today to celebrate her new job and to celebrate our time together.

 

We have a week full of plans to visit friends in their homes and to gather at the center. I hope that one day everyone has a chance to visit Jenin and to meet the wonderful friends we have found in this city.

-Melissa

Final Skills Session

Today, we had some fantastic sessions with the families.  It was our last skills training session and we saw some great progress with the parents and the children.  It was a great way to end our time here.  Two of the newer parents especially had great sessions with their kids.  Aref’s mom has done a great job the last two weeks with working on manding, imitation, and following directions with Aref. Last week, Sharif had a harder session with surrendering preferred items in order to work on manding or compliance, but this week, he did fantastic with these things as well as showing off his play skills.  His mother was very pleased with the progress that he made today.  Additionally, we were able to get the mothers to work with the other child and build rapport and work on a social activity with both boys. Both boys like to jump and so we tried to have them do this together with the mothers and roll a ball back and forth together.

In the afternoon, we had 4 children and the parents continued to work on skills that they have learned over the past three months.  A couple children had a more difficult day with being tired and sick.  Basil’s parents have both been coming learn how to work with him. They continue to work on manding, following directions, receptive skills, and today we showed them some strategies for getting more sounds out of him.  Adnan has also been doing better with following directions and more compliance. He is also using more language and said “Katrina” when he walked in the door.  Since we were able to observe an Occupational Therapist working with him a few days ago, we showed his mother some of the skills we saw him display and worked with her on how to get him to do similar things.

Sarah

Our Last Week in Jenin

Hello Global Voice for Autism Friends and Family,

We have almost completed our work in Jenin.  Our families have only one more remaining session, a review session  and a final celebration to wrap things up.  Since I last blogged, we  had another practice session and lecture with our families.

One of many stars in last week’s sessions was  Abed.  Abed and his mother have been coming to our programJanuary.  He is 4 years old and is non-verbal.  When Abed and his mother arrived last week, he began to cry.   He also made several attempts to pull his mother back towards the door.  We realized, at that point, that he was not motivated by the setting here in the center and probably wanted to go home.   Due to his non-compliance, I decided to redirect him with various activities and observe his behavior throughout this time.   Observance of this behavior showed me times that he would stop crying for brief periods.

Observing a child to note when they exhibit target behaviors and when they do not is a very important strategy in assessing behavior.  In Abed’s case, his crying decreased when another child was watching a video near by.  With this information, I decided to look for similar videos for Abed to watch on a separate computer.  Presenting this reinforcement for Abed seemed to decrease the intensity of his crying.

When calm, I also directed his mother to practice having him point to the computer any time the video was paused.  Continued practice using this strategy may strengthen Abed’s ability to communicate with others.  With future practice, this strategy may become his alternative method for speaking.

An alternative method of speaking can include sign language, gesturing, picture communication, or using an electronic communication device.  Using an alternative method of speaking should not be thought of as giving up!  It just allows an individual to voice how they feel and communicate with others more effectively while also learning how to speak with words.  Giving a child and/or adult who is non-verbal this option gives them a voice!  This will help them decrease problematic behavior and increase their quality of life.

Have a great week!

submitted by Katrina Walker

Lockdowns, Trainings and Family Visits

Last night we awoke at 3a.m. to the sounds of gunshots and helicopters. This morning we learned that there were clashes in the nearby  Jenin Refugee Camp overnight. A Reuters article said that this was the most violent incident in Jenin since 2002. We were safe throughout the entirety of the incident, but we felt its effects today as we looked out upon a deserted city. After last night’s events, all businesses in Jenin were closed today. We worried that we might not have parents at our training today as a result. However, we still had three new families and two old families show up to the session today.

 

(Manal, Moayad and Adnan’s sister watch Arabic children’s videos while their parents participate in training upstairs)

Today we had our last powerpoint training with the families. The training focused on toilet training and daily living skills. The parents from the first group were able to share their successes and offer advice to the new group. Although everyone was slightly distracted today by last night’s events, the parents said that the training was excellent and that they are excited to work on these new skills at home. On Monday, they will return in their small groups to complete a final supervised skills sessions. The mothers plan to continue meeting in their skills groups on Saturdays and Mondays after we leave in order to continue working together. We will stay in touch with them monthly over Skype.

After the session, Adnan’s mother invited us to her house for lunch. We spent the afternoon with the family and loved seeing Adnan in his home environment and practicing Arabic. Their family made tabouleh and homemade pizza for us and then we sat outside in the garden eating fresh green almonds and pea pods while talking and watching Adnan play. He has a tricycle at home that he loves and he spent hours walking around carrying the tricycle around the yard. We have noticed that he likes to break things and put them back together and we are trying to think of some activities that will satisfy this behavior without being destructive.

(Our team with Adnan’s brothers and sisters)

In spite of the lockdown in Jenin, we still had a great day and were happy to escape the situation and spend time with one of our program families.

-Melissa

 

Communication and Verbal Behavior

Today was our third session for our second round of trainings.  We were able to review some aspects of identifying the function of a child’s behavior.  The parents were able to identify some of the common reasons that their child might engage in negative behavior as well as explain the meaning of Antecedent, Behavior and Consequence.  Reviewing this information was helpful in leading into a discussion of teaching their child to communicate using words or gestures as an alternative to crying, grabbing, etc.  We talked about the main Verbal Operants (Mands, Tacts, Receptive, and Intraverbals) and explained how to teach these to their child.  This was a wonderful opportunity to have the mothers who had been previously trained to help present the information as well as demonstrate the skills with each other at the end of the training.  Mohammed’s and Basil’s mothers did a great job at demonstrating Mands, Tacts, and Receptive skills to the rest of the mothers.  The mothers who have already received the training have been continuing to share some successes that they are having with their child, such as increased independence with toileting skills.

Katrina and Melissa continued working with the siblings downstairs.  Today they talked about some challenges they have been facing with their siblings, played some games, and worked on a project to present to their mothers on the final day of the project.

Sarah