Children with a form of autism manipulate puppets' features in workshops designed to help them show their feelings.
By JANE MADDEN WELCH
Published June 7, 2004
[Times photo: Kinfay Moroti]
Jesse Klima, 8, of St. Petersburg relaxes in a whirlpool after a therapy session at the home of his Safety Harbor therapist Anne Pesacov. "This is the best day of my life," says Jesse of his euphoric mood. The therapy helps children who have Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.
Nathan Beals, 10, left, and Nick White, 7, play with puppets during a therapy session at Pesacov's home.
SAFETY HARBOR - When Christine White recently picked up her son Nick from an experimental therapy session, he said something she had never heard from him before.
"Mommy, I made a friend."
Nick, 7, has Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
The new workshop is the brainchild of two school therapists, Anne Pesacov and Betty Dixon, and teaching artist Emily Harris. Their series of eight workshops is designed to teach social skills to children with Asperger's syndrome through the use of puppets.
"The quicker they can learn social skills and put them into practical use, the less rejection they have from their peers," Dixon said.
She has been a Pinellas County school psychologist since 1989 and has worked with emotionally disturbed children since 1972.
For this workshop Harris created six multicultural puppets with adjustable facial features. The children are encouraged to manipulate the puppets' features to express how they feel.
Harris, 54, has been designing her trademarked puppets for the past three years. She is a founding partner of the Planet Earth Relationship Center, which uses specialized puppets to facilitate teaching relationship skills to children and adults.
"The puppets are a teaching tool," Harris said. "If a child doesn't want to say something, they can have the puppet say it."
Dixon and Pesacov wrote various puppet scripts to focus on troublesome areas for the children. Workshops deal with topics such as how to handle disappointment, what makes a good friend and communicating emotions.
"What we've found out with Asperger's kids is they like to play-act, to step inside another character besides themselves," said Dixon, 55.
Aspies, a friendly term used by parents and professionals in the field, have difficulty in dealing with changes in routine, said Pesacov, a school social worker and private practice family therapist with more than 20 years' experience.
"A term I came up with is puppet-assisted relationship therapy," said Pesacov, 55. "It's a hybrid of Gestalt, psycho drama and play therapy."
The most prominent characteristic of people with Asperger's syndrome is their inability to read and respond to social cues, according to the National Association of School Psychologists.
Other common characteristics are the inability to read body language and facial expressions, lack of eye contact, misinterpreting actions and difficulty showing emotion.
Aspies often have coexisting problems such as tic disorders, mood or attention disorders. Many children with Asperger's will be undiagnosed or misdiagnosed because the characteristics are similar to other disorders.
"It was a relief to finally get the problem identified," said Stephanie Klima. Her son Jesse, 8, was diagnosed with Asperger's three months ago.
Klima drives from St. Petersburg to Safety Harbor each week so Jesse can attend the puppet therapy workshops. On the way to a recent session, he told his mother, "I'm so glad to be with boys who are like me."
The official title of the workshop is "Puppets From the Planet Earth Social Skills Workshops for Children." Pesacov, Dixon and Harris are planning a marketable training kit with puppets and scripts for parents of special-needs children, teachers and counselors.
Now the workshops are privately funded. Parents pay $50 per session plus a one-time puppet-making fee. In addition to the "teaching" set of puppets, each child makes his own puppet and uses it to act out scripted scenarios.
"It's expensive, at least for us," White said. "But it's worth it."
Health insurance generally does not cover group behavioral issues, Pesacov said.
Danielle Dickinson drives nearly an hour from St. Petersburg so her son Nathan Beals, 10, can participate.
"He doesn't seem so inwardly focused since he's been coming," Dickinson said.
Asperger's is a lifelong condition, more likely to occur in males than females. Language skills are higher with the syndrome than most disorders in the autism spectrum. Intellectual abilities often range from average to superior.
Emily Olsen, 16, of Safety Harbor is part of Pesacov's adolescent Asperger's group that meets monthly at Morton Plant Hospital. Olsen recently attended the puppet therapy class to help out with the younger Aspies.
"A big problem for me was misinterpreting what people are saying," said Olsen, who will be in the ninth grade at Countryside High School. "I would think someone is yelling at me when they're not."
Olsen was given the "Lincoln, what are you thinkin'?' " puppet to interact with the class. Another puppet is "Alien Nate," to aid the children in identifying when they are feeling withdrawn, or alienated. Pesacov and Harris gave each puppet a rhyming name to help convey the social skills they are teaching.
At the end of the sixth workshop, which was held at Pesacov's home, the boys were allowed to go swimming in her pool.
"It's a joy to see them interacting in such a positive way," Harris said.
To a stranger, it looked like an ordinary afternoon: young boys having a good time together in the back yard. But the parents and therapists saw it differently.
"Nick doesn't make friends easily, at all, actually," White said. "This is very important for him."
TO LEARN MORE
To learn more about puppet-assisted relationship therapy, call Betty S. Dixon of Tampa at (813) 431-9790, Emily Harris of Tarpon Springs at (727) 934-5890 or Anne Pesacov of Safety Harbor at (727) 738-9232.
