What is the Miller Method?
The Miller Method®: A Cognitive-Developmental Systems Approach for Children on the Autism Spectrum
Arnold Miller, Ph.D. with Eileen Eller-Miller, M.A., CCC-SLP Language and Cognitive Development Center, Boston.
The Miller Method addresses children's body organization, social interaction, communication and representation issues in both clinical and classroom settings. Cognitive-developmental (c-d) systems theory assumes that typical development depends on the ability of the children to form systems -- organized "chunks" of behavior -- that are initially repetitive and circular but which become expanded and complicated as the children develop. Becoming aware of the distinction between themselves and their immediate surroundings, children's systems, previously triggered only by salient properties of the environment, gradually come under their control. Children then combine their systems in new ways that permit problem solving, social exchanges and communication with themselves and others about the world.
In contrast, developmentally challenged children become stalled at early stages of development and progress to more advanced stages in an incomplete or distorted fashion. Many on the autism spectrum present an impairment in the ability to react to and influence the world. Lacking a sense of the body in relation to the world, salient stimuli drive them into scattered or stereotypic behavior from which, unassisted, they cannot extricate themselves. This results in aberrant systems involving people and/or objects as well as a "hardening" of transitory formations found in normal development, e.g., hand inspection and twiddling or intense object preoccupation.
The Miller Method uses two major strategies to restore typical developmental progressions: One involves the transformation of children's aberrant systems (lining up blocks, driven reactions to stimuli, etc.) into functional behaviors; the other is the systematic and repetitive introduction of developmentally relevant activities involving objects and people. Activities are chosen to fill developmental gaps. This process is facilitated by narrating the children's actions while they are elevated 2.5 feet above the ground on an Elevated Square and similar challenging structures. Elevating the children enhances sign-word guidance of behavior and body-other awareness as well as motor-planning and social-emotional contact. It also helps children transition from one engaging object or event to another or from object involvement to representational play.
Parents play an integral role in the program by generalizing the children's achievements at the Center to the home and elsewhere.