by Chris Vacek

Camp SSTAR is Heartspring’s annual summer day camp program for children with high functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome. For three weeks in June, school-age children work at arts and crafts, game playing, building a yearbook and a newscast, and most importantly, learning how to build solidarity with their peers. What is unique about Camp SSTAR for this counselor is that it was all supposed to be about the students - but it turns out this is actually a story about all of us. You would think this is about resolving differences, and learning to cooperate and get along with each other; about sorting out what he or she said, about interpersonal issues – and it is, but it’s about so much more. It’s about kindness, about dignity, about respect, and above all, about the freedom to successfully be yourself, here at Camp SSTAR, and more importantly, wherever the students go in the future. This camp is about the nature of interaction, of how people communicate, and how people build successful friendships.

There are three different age/ability groups which cycle through activities designed to enhance social skills and interaction. The first week is dedicated to reporters (the youngest group), the second to producers (those in middle school), and the third to apprentices (mostly high-schoolers). The common thread for students enrolled in the Camp SSTAR fabric is the lack of success they experience in building interpersonal relationships in everyday life. In fact, many children who are “learning different” have challenges in the social sector of life, and peer relationships more often than not actually define us. These relationships are critical to our everyday success…at work and play.

Being a kid is difficult enough in today’s world, but when you have issues sorting out what you’re thinking about, when it’s difficult to get the words just right, or when you don’t know how to “read” the situation and can’t tell what’s appropriate, when you can’t organize the thoughts in your head, or you can’t follow someone else’s line of reason, or when you’re so busy thinking about what you’re gong to say that you stop listening to what others are saying and get easily lost…well, the social world is not only unforgiving, it’s downright treacherous. While Camp SSTAR offers a week away – an all too brief respite – from their existing social life, these students must return to a judgmental, targeting, and alienating world for the remaining 51 weeks of the year. So what difference can a week make?

More than you might imagine. Camp SSTAR focuses on how we can all be more successful at interpersonal relationships by practicing how to communicate and problem solving shared tasks, by learning about the process of interaction (how to manage turn-taking in conversation), by sharing common experiences and relying on others as a resource base, by modeling kindness and patience, and by engaging the natural interests of these kids. While the students clearly benefit from explicit learning strategies and carefully sculpted outcomes (supplied and arranged by the incredible staff), counselors benefit because they are part of the educational fabric itself. We are both participants and observers; we are both conveyors and learners, too. Here are some of the things I learned.

1. When working with kids who have limited attention spans, only structure activities to last 30 minutes – any more, and you’ll hit the wall of diminishing returns. You get more out of completing a shorter task than working indefinitely on one long task. Quick outcomes work better. 

2. When working with kids who have trouble organizing their thoughts and responsibilities, it’s a great idea to have big schedules and visual supports on the walls…so that whatever is “next” is quickly identifiable and students can “confirm” that they are in the right place doing the right thing. If you can reduce the anxiety about “what’s next,” this goes a very long way.

3. When working with students on interpersonal issues, teams of two work best. Focusing on one successful relationship is the first step to building multiple successful relationships. Activities such as playing board games create opportunities for counselors to model how to celebrate when someone wins, and how to act the graceful loser. Pair the students in shared tasking, and “inspire” the outcome – don’t “insist” on the outcome. Let it naturally develop and “shape” the moment for a lasting impression.

4. When working with kids on how to “read” social situations, it’s great to have other successful relationships around you, so you can identify what makes them successful. “Reading” social situations really means “watching” social behavior, and by focusing on successful behaviors, asking students to replicate these successful behaviors, and by rewarding them instantly, we can build successful vocabularies of behavior for our students.

When I started writing this report, I was thinking just about the students. Now, I realize that this is a story like many others…a story we tell to ourselves, about ourselves. The lessons I learned at Camp SSTAR are lessons I will carry with me into my own professional life, to apply them when I need them. When I encounter fellow employees at Heartspring who might not be able to stay on task the way I would prefer, I will attempt to shorten the length of the tasks, encouraging their success. I would rather be in a position to reward someone for getting the job done than having to remind them over and over about their incomplete task. When I sense that my team members have difficulties organizing their thoughts or the information we are working with, I will try to put up charts and posters and schedules that will help organize the material for them. When I discover interpersonal issues I will attempt to restructure the interaction to an even smaller group and to inspire whatever the outcome, rather than insisting that a particular outcome reached. And when I feel it necessary to “read” a situation for my peers, I will try to show them what I’m talking about by using good examples, rather than by asking them to accept certain facts without clear referents. I have learned a lot at Camp SSTAR.