COGNITIVE EDUCATION FOR THE AUTISTIC CHILD
«Conference»
The cognitive education centre for autistic children makes its activities known through conferences with medical services, parents’ associations and specialised institutes. The cognitive model is a recent arrival within the domain of autism, and is nowadays increasingly focussed on behavioural approaches or centred on contents. The cognitive model, of a psycho-educative and developmental nature, favours a concentration on the processes at work in learning and seeks to stimulate the entire mental capacities, in order to encourage the development and sensitivity of the child. This procedural model, approved by the Faculty of Psychology and the Educational Sciences of Geneva University has been operating in Geneva for 4 years, with regular follow-ups of some twenty autistic children and their families. The clinical results have indicated concrete and stable improvements in the individual treatment of young children and adolescents. The most significant results concern the field of language (communication, comprehension and verbal expression), functional autonomy, regulation and integration of the emotions (interest, calm behaviour, emotional availability, relational exchanges with the family and friends, and learning capacity (acceptance of information, conduct, imitation, and logical thought).
The goal
The goal of the presentation is to exhibit the cognitive education model with the help of specific filmed situations with autistic children, in order to validate the theoretical contents by observing the progress made among them. Visualising the sequences, together with a simultaneous reading of the behaviour, enables the principles adopted to become known, the strategies for stimulating, maintaining and orientating the mental activities towards more appropriate learning processes to be observed, and the work carried out on emotion in order, in a general way, to involve language and maximise intelligence to be understood.
Lecturer
Roland Hifler, pedagogue and cognitive therapist, founder of the cognitive education programme for autistic children.
On autism
If, as a educational body, therapeutic centre or parents’ association, or even as a conference organiser, you can contact our centre at our address, either by e-mail or by telephone.