Power Cards

Using Special Interests to Motivate Children, Youth with Asperger Syndrome and Autism

By Elisa Gagnon (2001). Published by Autism Asperger Publishing Co. PO Box 23173, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, USA.

This is an excellent new book that provides an opportunity to constructively use the special interest of a person with Asperger’s Syndrome as a means of providing motivation, insight and specific strategies, particularly in social situations. Elisa Gagnon has developed the concept of Power cards; the strategy is to use the interests to motivate and to aid learning, and can be used in the classroom and at home. It involves creating a card (the size of a business or trading card) that provides an explanation and advice that incorporates scenes or characters associated with a circumscribed interest. The text is written much as a Social Story, and includes pictures and characters associated with the interest. For example, a girl was notorious for her direct and sometimes personal comments about her peers; she would loudly say comments such as “You have bad breath”. She needed to learn to inhibit such comments and say them in a more tactful way. Because she had a great interest in the popular singer Britney Spears, a Power Card was written with a picture of Britney in a text, which included Britney’s ‘advice’ to her on what to say to the other children in her class. The inclusion of the interest can focus the person’s attention and the recommendations are more likely to be remembered and used by the child.