Holistic Functional Approach to Autism: A Case Study

By Vladimir Matvievskiy PhD

Within a sea of stories about autism, this is the only book that describes precise, functional self-control in order to overcome an autistic state. Video episodes of the case study demonstrate the systematic functional procedures, which help the low-functioning autistic boy to overcome autism radically due to learning functional self-control. In the text, each functional step and the holistic strategy have neurophysiologic explanations, and the results are introduced as predictable, observable, and measurable. Such breakthrough results are possible only in the case of an autistic person learning self-control over neurodynamic changes and following it in direct interactions with his surroundings in everyday living.
The author of the book, the practitioners, and the family of the boy came with the boy through the series of natural experiments, experiencing the similar neurodynamic responses with the purpose to conduct and teach him precise self-control. The author scans the controlling process over the holistic, functional neurodynamic corrections. The content of the book is elicited from that actual process and for the purpose of such actual self-control.
Knowing and controlling neurodynamic functioning for a normal person might be as natural as cleaning teeth or using a napkin. For an autistic child and for his parents, however, it is the only chance to overcome pervasive neurodynamic disorders.
Nowadays parents face the problem of such self-control issues as neurodynamic shock. Only those who badly need it and rather deeply accept the approach are ready to learn it by doing, to test with their children the similar neurodynamic changes, and they always obtain success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481769518

Vladimir Matvievskiy PhD

Vladimir Matvievskiy, PhD is published in Hubner’s Who’s Who in Russia. He is the director of the Innovative Educational Center in Moscow, Russia. He is also the founder of the parent ASD research community based on a holistic functional approach to autism.

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© 2013 by Vladimir Matvievskiy, PhD. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/03/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6951-8 (e)

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Contents

Introduction

Part I: Actual Visual Direction

Zeno’s Arrow Test

To Be Here and There at the Same Time

Natural Experiment 1: A Child with Actual Visual Direction

Part II: Tracking Holistic Functional Approach

Natural Experiment 2: Tuning Foveal and Peripheral Vision

A) Tuning Foveal Vision

B) Tuning Peripheral Vision

Natural Experiment 3: Developing Pupillary Light Searching Interaction

Natural Experiment 4: Joint Parietal Vision

Natural Experiment 5: Intentional State of Attending

Natural Experiment 6: Episodic Memory Consolidation

Natural Experiment 7: Prefrontal Short-Term Memory and Initiation Language Learning

A) Prefrontal Short-Term Memory

B) Initiation Language Learning

Contextual Initiation Language Learning

Content Initiation Language Learning

Cognitive Initiation Language Learning

Language Interiorizing as an Initial Stage

a) Inner Language

b) Egocentric and External Language

Part III: Dual Stream Model for Language Processing

A) Intentional Phonological Processing

From Chunking Body Gestures to Sound Chunking

Intentional Articulatory Chunking

B) Intentional Meaningful Speech

Intentional Syntactic Processing

Intentional Semantic Processing

Conclusion

References

About the Author

About the Book

Introduction

It is well known that autistic children exhibit challenging behaviours, including noncompliance, aggression, and repetitive actions that interfere with daily life. The lack of direct eye contact prevents them from social communication, causing pervasive disorders.

In this case study, I start functional corrections with actual visual direction. Step by step, I reveal holistic functioning of the visual perception in direct eye contact.

I start with conducting a normal child along the actual visual direction in the natural experiment sunny tree to reveal contrasting perceptual responses of healthy and autistic children.

The real experiment is sharply contrasted with classic laboratory experiments. The experiment takes place in a natural situation; it develops in real conditions in which it is possible to reproduce and assess the actual holistic intentional responses with higher fidelity. Practitioners by means of natural experiments make actual holistic, functional corrections of the autistic visual perception in direct eye contact. They tune fovea, peripheral vision, and interpersonal pupillary light-searching interaction; develop joint parietal vision and intentional state of attending; mature episodic memory consolidation; and tune prefrontal, short-term working memory as the basis of initiation language learning and cognitive language processing.

Due to the video episodes, one can not only read but also may actually observe the living, firsthand process of direct eye contact maturation. Practitioners show the real process of the holistic functional correction of the autistic child, starting from tuning fovea vision up to the remarkable effect of his cognitive language development.

In addition, the content of the book refers to the real process of the boy’s holistic, functional maturation; it involves those who badly need to grasp that kind of process and to sense an autistic enigma; it invites one to share the boy’s way of personal growth. Hence, it is not enough to get only mental representations of the process—it is necessary to chase the real process with the sense of presence within the natural experiments.

This challenging voyage is the subject of the book, and if a reader ignores this subject, he has to take into consideration that he does not actually follow this method but reproduces his mental representations relative to the subject.

PART I

Actual Visual Direction

Zeno’s Arrow Test

Lizat and Isa, parents of autistic child Adil, invited me for a walk. We took along with us Oleg, a marvellous normal child. The boys were of the same age (seven years old), and Adil’s parents did their best to help their son make a friend.

Adil scored some success, and the parents used every possible means to test his progress. Lizat caught sight of a flying bird. Adil, dear child, look at the pigeon! Can you show the way it is flying? Adil saw the pigeon, rather indifferently pointed at it, and then tracked down the trajectory of its flight. The parents were happy. It is okay. He behaves like a normal child! Lizat said to me. It was a hasty conclusion, and I asked Oleg to do the same to show the difference.

Oleg was happy to demonstrate the way a pigeon was flying. His hands represented wings, his nose imitated a beak of the bird, and his head was bobbing. He flapped his wings and flew like a bird along its directedness.

And what is the difference between them? Adil’s parents asked. I decided to start the explanation by giving an example of Zeno’s arrow paradox.

Zeno of Elea was a pupil of Parmenides, and Aristotle named Zeno the inventor of dialectic. Zeno proved that motion was not possible. Suppose that time consists of moments or instances. A flying arrow at any instant of time occupies a space equal to itself. Therefore, at any instant of time, like in photos, the arrow will be at rest. If at any instant of time the arrow has no motion, temporal locomotion is impossible because time is composed of freezing instances in succession.

I made for Lizat and Isa a freehand drawing and explained the paradox.

image001.jpg

Figure 1

A line that joins the arrow position in point b and the fovea can represent the visual direction as the principal visual direction, or visual axis. Based on the principal visual direction, any other arrow position in the subject’s visual field is determined. The position in point a is below, and the position in point c is above. This is called oculocentric visual direction.

A man can experience oculocentric visual direction while looking at an arrow. In this case, each point of the retina has its own sense of direction: points a, b, and c are separated as frames of the retina, fixation points of the trajectory of a moving arrow but not an arrow motion per se. A man does not have motion sensing in vision, and that is the problem of any autistic child. We could observe the problem when Adil tried to show the trajectory of a bird’s flight.

No point in concentrating on the trajectory of a moving object as a series of frames. In this case a man, standing outside the motion, observes a pathway as the result of moving. He acquires a mental picture of moving on his 2D retina from one 2D plane to another, and he reproduces a 3D picture of motion only as the brain’s representation. A man cannot identically embody what is actually going on within interpositions, and hence he cannot be actually sure relative to the real motion.

There is no problem in knowing about the real motion; the problem is identifying it as the real extended space within a real length of time along the real vector-directedness. The problem is actual seeing, actual navigation within vector-directedness with the sense of presence.

In contrast to Adil, Oleg showed egocentric visual direction. It refers to the direction of an object in space relative to oneself, rather than the eyes. Real motion perception is the process of actually inferring the speed and direction of elements in a scene based on visual, vestibular, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic inputs. The egocentric visual direction changes because the object is moving. That is exactly what Oleg tried to demonstrate, and we could observe that he had a sense of motion in vision.

Did Adil meet the requirements of Zeno’s arrow test in his flying pigeon observation? No. And what about Oleg? He passed the test with flying colours. Now, we can explain the enigma by way of comparing their eye-body movements.

To Be Here and There at the Same Time

In the test, Adil exposes gaze stabilization to track a bird and its trajectory. Oleg’s visual orientation is also impossible without similar stabilization, but there is a crucial difference between these two types of gaze stabilization: Oleg’s eyes, head, and body are active and intentional; Adil’s eyes, head, and body are passive with a lack of intention.

Obviously, Adil lacks for the bird’s motion, but Oleg demonstrates some important details of the actual navigation in the real bird’s motion. First, let us stress some well-known facts relative to the pigeon’s egocentric visual direction. A pigeon’s head bobbing is a thrust-hold cycle. During the thrust phase, the head goes forward, and in such a way the pigeon produces motion parallax. Motion parallax is a depth cue that a pigeon associates with its movement. It sees the prey that is closer to it as moving faster than objects that are in the distance. A rather strong relationship between a bird’s typical head movement and its visual processing provides such discrimination and recognition. A pigeon is able to see the full speed motion of the close prey, but distant objects seem to be moving at a slower rate, and as the result is it actually senses the depth of the space and real vector-directedness of a prey, it actual carries out navigation within 3D space as the sense of presence.

The head movements may also allow a pigeon to process some kind of depth visual input. Due to head movements, a pigeon can generate signals of the anticipated distance from the vestibular, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic systems relative to its actual motion along the real vector-directedness.

In this case, head movements seem to be necessary to guarantee appropriate actual visual processing in the real vector-directedness. How does it take place? The accurate gaze assessment as the act of comparison between anticipated and real points of the vector-directional motion (point a and points b, c, etc.) from a prey becomes possible because a pigeon actually compares its anticipated, there and real, here vestibular-proprioceptive, kinesthetic states at the same time, and it finds itself within interposition and makes course corrections.

However, the act of gaze stabilization takes place during the hold phase, and a pigeon seems to remain virtually motionless with respect to forward or backward movement, but it is not a passive act—it is an accurate act of self-motion. Due to such accurate self-motion, a pigeon produces information that is available as feedback into the visual system, as a visual act of actual comparison and corrections in the real vector-directedness, and the pigeon seems to be in a state of contradiction; it is actually here and there at the same time.

The reafferent processes were postulated and discussed by Erich von Holst and Horst Mittelstaedt, who published an extremely influential paper in 1950 under the title The reafference principle: Interaction between the central nervous system and the periphery(von Holst, E., Mittelstaedt, H. 1950). Self-motion stimulation of the anticipated distance is reafference because the information is the product of its own movement. It distinguishes from the external stimulation because of the real moving along the real distance. Moreover, a pigeon discriminates between self-generated and externally generated retinal images of the distance, and it successively overcomes the above mention contradiction to be here and there at the same time.

As a result, the reafference stimulation of the actual retinal image of the real vector-directedness (points b, c, etc.) is compared with the anticipated retinal image (point b), and during real orientation movements the discrepancy between them might be compensated and proved.

It is worth