Saturday August 1, '09

Last weekend Lori, Brad and Alicia all flew back to the US. It was sad to see them go, but know they accomplished an incredible amount over the course of their three weeks in Ghana.

Work started with the development and implementation of preference assessments. These will be used to determine potential reinforcers for communication opportunities and academic work. In collaboration with Baaba, we helped to create an afternoon activity schedule. This not only gives the students more structure, it also puts selected staff in leadership positions, increasing overall accountability.

Throughout the trip, Lori and Brad put together workshops for the staff. These included trainings on the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), and Functional Behavior Assessments. Along with the workshops, we all helped to make the necessary PECS pictures cards and provided consultation on their use. The BI Capture was also set up. The AACT staff was taught how to use it when evaluating problem behavior or modeling effective techniques.

Last, but certainly not least, Alicia built four specially modified workstations. The materials used were all locally acquired, in order for more of them to be created by AACT staff in the future. Needless to say, Lori, Brad and Alicia were fantastic on many levels. They will certainly be missed here in Ghana.

As for the past week...

Baaba came into work Monday morning with a mission to clean. Every day we choose one room or space to tackle. Broken, chewed, unuseful toys were thrown away. Selected toys and teaching tools, including all stuffed animals, were washed. Once inventory was taken, we were able to make every child there own set of supplies. Each pouch included a new box of crayons, colored pencils, a pen, a pencil, sharpener, and eraser. The individual classrooms were also given the appropriate toys and teaching materials according to the needs of the students.

Once again, a personal thank you to Lori, Brad and Alicia for being excellent volunteers. Can't wait to work with you again next summer in India!

Going now to enjoy some delicious grilled plantain.
Casey

Day 15: July 21, 2009

Greetings and salutations,

Today was another day jam packed with work and steady progress. Alicia is nearly finished with her desk project; when finished the centre will have four retrofitted desks at their disposal. The new design of these desks will make instruction and data collection more effective and efficient.
I spent my morning working with a staff member to review, revise, and develop a number of new training and assessment documents. These documents included a PECS and PRT procedure poster for each of the classrooms, an A-B-C chart for use with functional behavior assessments, and a brand new preference assessment worksheet. This collaboration was an excellent example of how the Global Autism Project works to empower existing resources within the centre. Lori, a staff member, and I spent the afternoon conducting a workshop on functional behavior assessments. Again, it was great to work side by side with staff member who had so much knowledge and experience to share with the staff and us.
Casey spent her morning drafting an AACT volunteer questionnaire; this document will be used in the continuous refinement of volunteer roles, duties, expectations, etc. Casey’s afternoon was split across training a staff member in PECS and helping to facilitate the newly created afternoon structured play activities. While giving the staff and students something new to do, these activities aim to provide staff and students with continued opportunities to utilize PECS and PRT.
Our evening was filled with a quick trip to the National Cultural Centre (place where all the souvenirs are sold) where the girls picked up some last minute gifts: wooden spoons, a wooden boar (which was actually a rhino), and jewelry. After this, we had another delicious catered dinner courtesy of a friend of the project. We were joined by a number of volunteers that are also working with the centre.
Tomorrow we will continue to focus on finishing up our works in progress…
Thanks for reading.

Respect,

brad herron

Day 9: Wednesday July 15, 2009

Salutations from Accra!

This is Lori. We had a truly amazing Wednesday! It was excursion day at AACT; so we all packed into a bus and traveled to the University of Lagion’s Botanical Gardens. The children were wonderful on the bus ride, although traffic was occasionally a challenge. We arrived to the botanical gardens where we were given a tour of the grounds. We enjoyed a boat ride in a small lagoon (well, Alicia enjoyed it while Brad and I paddled the boat). We also went with the children and staff at AACT to see various farm animals including goats and chickens. Some of the children enjoyed chasing the chickens.

At the botanical gardens there was an amazing playground. The children (and adults) enjoyed a fantastic seesaw that went up high and could spin around (I enjoyed trying it out!). There were other seesaws, slides, swings, and cars that the children could peddle. Everyone enjoyed playing for hours! I also witnessed several staff members creating communication opportunities during mealtime and on the playground (something we discussed in our workshops earlier this week).
Lewis, a local drummer who volunteers time at the centre, played drums for the children both at the centre before we left for the field trip and at the botanical gardens. He even played on the bus ride home. It felt like a party bus as music was played and staff and children were dancing and clapping the entire ride home.

Brad and I recently finished our first staff workshops on teaching communication using PECS and Pivotal Response Treatments (PRT). I was overwhelmed by the quality of questions and comments the staff had during this workshop. I also enjoyed one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had on perceptions of autism in various communities and the challenges of working with individuals with of autism. I found it very interesting that the challenges the staff mentioned at AACT are very similar to challenges I have faced working at various centers in the US. Some of the challenges they mentioned were raising awareness about autism within the community so that families would be able to bring their children into the community without fear of judgment. They also mentioned that training parents and making sure that intervention is consistent across home and school is often a challenge. Selected the best intervention and teaching methods for each child is another challenge they mentioned.
This trip has been an incredible learning experience for me as I have now been able to see that autism is the same in other parts of the world and that individuals who dedicate their time to improve the lives of individuals with autism often face similar challenges all over the world.
After our excursion we enjoyed some more delicious Italian food at a local restaurant called Mamma Mia. We then visited a sky lounge that overlooks the city. It looked like any place you would visit in the US. There are many times that I will be in a place such as a restaurant or a lounge here and forget where I am so much so that I am surprised when I step outside to see the large street gutters and vendors walking by. AACT is one of those places. I often forget that I am in a developing country as I feel like this centre could be anywhere in the US. They are individuals who are dedicated to research based interventions for children with autism in a place where it often perceived that the cause of autism is an evil spirit possessing the individual.

Tomorrow we will be visiting a place called Cape Coast!

Thanks for reading!
Lori

Day 8: July 14

Greetings from Brad,

We had another busy day at the centre, working with the staff to develop and implement a preference assessment for all of the students. The preference assessment will be used to gain some insight into what motivates each student. We will then use these "motivators" as reinforces for appropriate communication and academic demands.

Lori and I also continued with the PECS and PRT trainings that we had started on Monday. The staff responded amazingly, jumping into the demonstration and showing that these skills are like many that they are already using. We are confident that the staff will be able to apply these approaches to their interactions with the students.

Alicia continues to make progress with her project by having completed all of the sanding. In addition, she started painting (with a color scheme of grey for the legs and blue for the tops) the desks.

After handing out the certificates of achievement to the local staff we headed back to our village to prepare for our personally cooked meal. Before the meal we worked up an appetite by taking a walk to Independence Square. We took in all of the sights, the memorial arch and the conference centre, which are really stunning. Back to the meal, through a mutual friend we had an amazing typical Ghanaian meal that consisted of a pasta with seasonings, jolof rice (similar to spanish rice), and a salad of cabbage, potatoes, and salad cream. This was all topped off with an amazing orange crepe dessert that I hear was incredibly delicious (there was no vegan option, so I had more jolof).

Tomorrow we are heading out on an excursion to the botanical gardens. Lewis, the official drummer of the Global Autism Project will be joining us to provide a drumming workshop for the students. This is going to be great!

Respect,

brad "kofi" herron

Day 4: Friday, July 10th

Friday July 10, 2009
Happy Friday from Africa!

This is Lori again. We had an amazing day at the Centre. Alicia returned to the hardware store (she just cannot get enough of that place!). Her construction continues to amaze the rest of us. She is a talented engineer and carpenter.

Molly and I brainstormed with the wonderful administrators at the Centre to create a new daily schedule that would maximize learning time. A new afternoon schedule was developed where, rather than free play, different structured activities (3 to be exact) would be available to students to participate in. By adding structure and choices, this will increase student’s engagement in appropriate activities (and also create more communication opportunities). Staff members would be assigned to a specific activity for the day. These activities would change daily.

Brad and I worked with the staff on creating language opportunities during motivating activities (such as snack). Some of the students are using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to communicate, while others are using verbalizations to communicate. For students using vocals we are teaching the staff to use Pivotal Response Treatments (PRT) to work on social communication. The staff’s previous training in PECS was apparent by their strong teaching skills.

Brad and I also outlined our staff trainings for the visit. We will provide teaching sessions that will include demonstrations of skills with students and practice by staff members. These trainings will focus on PECS, PRT, functional behavior assessments (FBA), functional communication training (FCT), and addressing problem behavior.

Molly worked closely with Baaba, the phenomenal Administrator of AACT to begin to create a volunteer training orientation program. AACT is very fortunate to receive volunteers interested in joining them from all over the world through various organizations. Baaba said she was looking forward to implementing a strong and organized volunteer orientation program, complete with social outings for volunteers and AACT staff to get to know each other!

After our visit at AACT, we took an adventure to Kokrobite Beach (about 30 minutes west of Accra). There we made a vegan dinner from local vegetables with the assistance of friends from the area. In the evening, we were the guests of honor at a bonfire on the beach with African drumming and dancing. Molly, Brad and I participated in the festivities while Alicia was our photographer of the amazingly beautiful event. It was a truly remarkable experience!
Thanks for reading!
Lori