Autism Vox

The Three C’s

by Kristina Chew, PhD on August 15th, 2006

Phil Schwarz described the “three C’s” of “Communication, Control, and Competence” in a comment on my earlier post, A Really Big Windmill. The “three C’s,” as Phil wrote, can

…steer autistic kids and their families clear of most of the behavioral maladaptations that form the fabric of so much of the mainstream’s “conventional wisdom” of autism-as-horror-story.

Here are the three C’s:

Communication, Control, and Competence
1. Communication : a means of communication of needs and desires, *that will be reliably honored and engaged with constructively*. It might be speech. It might be sign. It might be keyboarding. It might be pointing to selectable symbols. But it must be reliably respected and replied to. Reliably enough that the individual can *trust* that it will be engaged with constructively.
2. Control: a means of getting physical and sensory needs met, and of titrating or preparing for input that would otherwise cause distress. Control doesn’t mean cancelling the fire drill — it means *preparing* for it so that it can be tolerated. Total rigidity for its own sake is most often a defensive adaptation. It might not be the best adaptation. If there is sufficient discretionary freedom and honoring of needs to be met, again, enough so that the individual can *trust* that this will be the case, the need for *defensive* rigidity is likely to diminish. *Discretionary* choice of sameness, on the other hand, needs to be honored as an entirely valid and legitimate expression of aesthetic preference and comfort-seeking.
3. Competence: the assumption of the ability to reason and to advocate for oneself, no matter how handicapped one is in terms of expressive communication. Again, this is a matter of *trust*, and good faith. Figure out how to ask the individual for input, preference, opinion in such a way that s/he can respond — and *engage that response constructively*.

For Jim and me, there is one more C to add: Charlie.

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POSTED IN: Disability Rights, Education, Treatment