THRASS ABSA TALKTOGETHER
PROJECT AND AUTISM

Lyn Thijsse is an educational psychologist, who is a consultant to the Growth Through Knowledge School (GTK School) in Table View, Cape Town. The small school is funded by Autism Western Cape. The school has four teachers and four classes. Three classes of children are aged 4-8 years, with three children in each class. The fourth class has two teenage girls. The class teacher ratio is 3-1 and the school runs individualised programmes for every child. Some of the children are non-verbal and some have challenging behaviours.

In her original email to the TalkTogether Project Lyn wrote, “I have compiled the curriculum and am involved in monitoring the implementation of it at the school. A colleague told me that THRASS resources are being used to assist deaf children with learning to read, and I immediately wondered if it could then be effectively used with autistic children. Autistic children, as you know, are “visual” learners – and struggle enormously with language and language processing. There is no problem with their hearing, but they are not effective in verbal processing. Teaching them to read then using phonics seems to be “nonsensical” and instead we are using a visual approach of object-word recognition and then picture-word recognition. We are in the very early stages of this – and would really like to know whether THRASS has ever been used with autistic children. I have looked at some of the resources and I am very impressed with the content. Autistic children seem to have a good sense of rhythm and thus your incorporation of the songs also seems to point to the fact that this may be a possible programme we could try for our children.”

As part of the TalkTogether Project, the school has now received some THRASS resources, mindful of the needs of the particular needs of the children. On Sunday, 10 May 2009, she wrote, “Thank you for an enlightening and enjoyable time spent this weekend as I was introduced to the THRASS programme by looking at the materials, listening and moving along to the catchy sing-a-long-songs. I am excited about the potential I see for “independent” learning - as well as the potential for “repetitive” learning. The visual nature of the materials has great potential for our autistic children – and there has been research on music as means of communication with autistic children (many seem to have a strong sense of rhythm). However, having said that, our autistic children struggle with primary challenges of concept formation, communicative intent, expressive language and generalisations. Introducing THRASS to autistic children is going to be an interesting journey of which we cannot predict the outcome yet! I am grateful you are giving us the opportunity to walk it with you.”

Lyn and some of her colleagues will attend the two-day THRASS Accredited Certificate in Cape Town on 2-3 June 2009. She is very keen to hear from teachers, speech therapists and/or psychologists in Southern Africa, the UK and other countries in the THRASS UK Territory, that are using THRASS resources with autistic children. Her email address is lynthijsse@webafrica.org.za  and the school telephone number is +27 21 556 3927.