Learning to be a Facilitator
LEARNING TO BE A FACILITATOR
Martha Leary- Understand that facilitators are learners too.
- Assemble a team to support you in your efforts to learn.
- Examine attitudes and beliefs which you hold regarding individuals with autism.
- Examine how attitudes and beliefs affect your interactions.
- Practice sharing information with an individual with autism without demanding indicators of attention. Have interactions without asking questions or giving instructions.
- Share information at a more sophisticated level: provide details; express opinions; tell about yourself.
- Explain your changing perception of autism. Express your desire to learn to be a facilitator.
- Read something to the individual which you think may be of interest.
- Enhance the person's image in front of others. Express confidence in the person's abilities.
- Practice facilitation with family, friends, or colleagues.
- Make a communication book for yourself. Practice using it with family, friends or colleagues.
- Carry pen and paper to write choices to offer; use facilitation to find out preferences. Ask if you could practice by typing out the choice made from the word list.
- Begin to use facilitation to offer choices to the individual. Incorporate use of communication book during conversation or reading aloud. (Eg.: "What do you think of that?" "Do you want me to continue?")
- During conversation or reading, write down key words or phrases which are interesting; practice "copy typing" while facilitating.
- Thank individual for helping you learn to facilitate.
- Facilitate for individuals to participate in a table game with others (eg., Scrabble, checkers, Jeopardy).
- As your abilities and confidence increase, begin to offer choices verbally and ask the individual to type his/her preference.
- Accept some responsibility for mistakes or unintelligible answers. Express confidence that you will be able to learn to facilitate better with practice.
- When you feel ready, offer to facilitate without asking any question or ask the individual if there is anything s/he would like to say. If the message is unintelligible, ask if s/he wants to continue to try, ask if s/he can name the topic to help your understanding.
- Keep trying and move at your own speed.