Introduction

I wanted to be a baseball player-a pitcher, in fact.  My youth was spent developing the skills I would need some day to play in the big leagues.  It was a dream I held onto until the day I was invited to a tryout and the major league scouts didn’t call me over.  I never knew what they were looking for, only that, it wasn’t what I had to offer.  This became one of life’s first big lessons for me - things don’t always come to you just because you want them so badly.  Enter the void and a long process of letting go.

Fast forward to February, 1996, when I found myself practicing as a therapist with the North Carolina  TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication handicapped CHildren) program, working with children who have autism.  One of my responsibilities was to do work sessions with these kids, most of whom had shown little or no response to directions from their parents.  The purpose of these sessions was to demonstrate how to create an appropriate structure within which the child could begin the process of “learning how to learn”.  The sessions were conducted in a small room with a window, which allowed the family to observe from an adjacent room without the child seeing them.  Working with one of these children felt similar to pitching a game of baseball.  It was a one-on-one competition, where I needed to stay alert and be responsive to the ever-changing needs of the situation.  Although I found the process to be similar, the desired outcomes were very different.  In baseball, the goal is to better your opponent and prevent them from defeating you.  However, during these therapy sessions, the goal is to create a situation where the child can shine and show all that they can do.  It isn't a clash of wills or an attempt by the bigger person to control the outcome of the interaction.  If anything, the smaller and less significant the bigger person can become, the more successful the outcome.  Timing and creating something of interest are all important.  As a TEACCH therapist, I inherited a great deal of the  knowledge and experience gained through the experiences of my fellow therapists working for years with individuals on the autism spectrum.  Because this spectrum ranges from those affected most severely to those affected mildly, there is a wide array of activities and ideas that are available as one interacts with an energetic young person, new to a therapeutic situation.

With the support of coworkers and this wealth of ideas, my work with autistic children progressed with positive results; however, a pattern began to develop that was troubling.  It was clear that many of these children displayed an ability to focus on details within their immediate environment-details of their choosing.  The challenge for me was to direct their focus to the activity that I was setting up before them.  Since many of the existing activities that I worked with consisted of several distinct parts, it required several moves on my part before everything was in place.  In addition to displaying tremendous focus to detail, these young children were very quick and agile.  Before I could get the entire activity set up, they were dismantling what was already set before them.  My repeated attempts to get everything in place often resulted in a flurry of arms and hands moving randomly in the air, resulting in a face-off between the child and me.  Needless to say, some of these activities were never completed, and it often appeared that the child was the one setting things up and I, the therapist, was responding.

As a therapist, I work  to create a structure in which the student can demonstrate the full breadth of his/her abilities.  Always being aware of not giving students tasks beyond their ability level, I try to build on their successes in those areas where they need just a little help.    How the activity is structured, as well as how it is presented to the student, are important elements in this process.  Being successful also means becoming more independent.  This requires close observation of the student at work and making an evaluation of those aspects of the session where he or she needs the therapist’s help.  How can we, as therapists, phase ourselves out of this teaching/learning interaction completely?  Do we need to come in contact with or verbally prompt the student during his/her work?  Is hand over hand guidance necessary for the student to be successful?  Sometimes this might mean backing away from our expectations and establishing a starting point from which the student will have the greatest opportunity to act independently.  How we structure our environment and activities and how we are able to create interest and motivate the student all play important parts in this parent/therapist/teacher/student interaction.

Who can say exactly why someone would turn a cardboard shoebox over and begin experimenting with design possibilities.  Had this never been done before?  Unlikely.  In my case, I was certainly motivated by the frustration I felt as a result of some disastrous outcomes with these young children.  Having done some carpentry and not having a typical background (many therapists had been special ed teachers) in this field of work probably contributed to the “why” of my actions.  In any case, I designed a few rudimentary activities using shoe boxes and tried them out with a young child with whom I had been having some particularly challenging sessions.  We had a very successful session together using  these new activities.  He completed them without any difficulty or challenge.  In fact, he appeared highly motivated to do them.  It was almost too easy.  Buoyed by this success, I created more of these “shoebox activities” and began to use them in all my sessions with these young children.

 TEACCH CONFERENCE

It was about this time that other therapists at the TEACCH Center began to take notice of my new-found success using these shoebox activities during work sessions.  They suggested I do a presentation about them at the upcoming yearly TEACCH conference.  With the conference in mind and with the understanding that many of those attending my presentation would be teachers, I worked on developing 16 activities with a progression of skill levels from a simple “put-in” to a “4-way sort.”  By refining the form and function of this novel design, it became increasingly clear that these activities might have a credible place in the educational process for young children and severely challenged individuals on the autism spectrum.

I could not have anticipated the response I received when I presented the activities before more than 100 teachers, therapists, and parents at the TEACCH conference held in Chapel Hill, NC, in May of 1996.  Literature, with drawings of each of the 16 activities created by my wife Linda, was quickly taken by all of the participants.  I encouraged those attending the talk to go to their local shoe stores for empty boxes and begin producing them for use in their classrooms.  A number of teachers and several TEACCH directors from other Centers in the state questioned the possibility of these activities being mass produced and made available for sale.  The seed had been planted!

If it weren’t for Linda, my colleagues, and my friends, who loved the idea, these activities probably would have remained as cardboard constructs.  Once it was decided to pursue the manufacture of these ShoeboxTasks, so named by a fellow therapist at the Asheville TEACCH Center, we began to find sources for all the parts that go into making the 16 activities.  Linda and I decided to make 50 sets of tasks 1 through 16, now called the Basic Curriculum, on a trial basis.  Our only way of letting potential customers know of the availability of the activities was through trainings conducted by the North Carolina TEACCH Center (information about the activities is included in the TEACCH training manual) and through the product list of the North Carolina Autism Society’s Bookstore.  Despite such limited advertising, we sold the initial 50 sets within a few months, at which point we decided to continue production.  Over the years, we have added additional activities to complement the Basic Curriculum, created a website for visibility and  a database for mailing newsletters and brochures, maintained a close connection to the TEACCH program, and enjoyed an ongoing relationship with our customers/clients.  We now have a shop, which employs adults with autism who assemble and package the many loose manipulatives that comprise each activity.  I guess you could say that this idea has come full circle.

 We'll look at how ShoeboxTasks are used in classrooms, offices, or homes in our next installment in late August.