We were required, for a variety of reasons, to attend "speech therapy" classes. In Toronto, those are code for "ASD" classes, because all of the children there (there were 8) had been diagnosed ASD. It was interesting because they broke down the middle (they were between the ages of 4 and 6, and all were boys). Four of the boys were like my oldest son at that age - but less hyper and less frenetic; four of the boys were quiet, focused, and utterly silent.
For the quiet boys, the goal was to get them to engage in discussion.
My oldest, at the time, was 9 years old. He could, and did, engage in discussion - although the hour long inventory of the thing that was on his mind was also common, it was no longer the sole focus of his words.
One of the fathers of one of the four silent boys asked me how it was that my oldest could now engage in discussion like this - what had we done?
What we had not done was follow the instructions that were being given in the the very frustrating class.
And I said: In order for an ASD child - who has some social difficulties interacting with people, regardless - to want to talk to other people, he has to have incentive to talk at all. All four of these little boys had the things they were obsessing about - fire-trucks, trains, weather satellites and... I can't remember the last one.
But what I had noticed immediately in this class was that if these boys began to talk about the things that excited and engaged them they were immediately cut off. Because, of course, obsessive monologues are not conversation - and, worse, not normal.
I may have mentioned I hate that phrase.
This man's son was one of those four, and I said: We let our oldest son monologue. He was excited and he wanted to share. It did not make sense to us to cut him off every time he tried because if he had no incentive to engage, why would he bother? His obsessions were his only incentive; they were his joy and delight. Cut those off and...we guessed there would be silence. Did he know how to talk about things that didn't interest him? No. No, he didn't. But what was his incentive to start talking at all if he wasn't allowed to talk about the things that did?
As he got older, we were able to interrupt him. We were able to ask him to wait his turn. We were able to ask questions, and to shift parts of the monologue into something that resembled discussion. He was willing to do this at the beginning, because if he did, he would then be allowed to share what he really wanted to talk about.
What he learned was that talking could be fun. If he couldn't learn that at all, what was the point of talking? Why make the difficult effort? And as he grew accustomed to waiting, as he developed, he began to find some of the things we discussed interesting. He began to ask questions about topics that he had not introduced, because he understood on a basic level that talking could be … fun.
The father just looked at me (it was, of course, me, and I was perhaps a little more vehement than any other parent in the room generally got), and said, "You know, that never occurred to me."
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-05-25 03:27 am (UTC)We were required, for a variety of reasons, to attend "speech therapy" classes. In Toronto, those are code for "ASD" classes, because all of the children there (there were 8) had been diagnosed ASD. It was interesting because they broke down the middle (they were between the ages of 4 and 6, and all were boys). Four of the boys were like my oldest son at that age - but less hyper and less frenetic; four of the boys were quiet, focused, and utterly silent.
For the quiet boys, the goal was to get them to engage in discussion.
My oldest, at the time, was 9 years old. He could, and did, engage in discussion - although the hour long inventory of the thing that was on his mind was also common, it was no longer the sole focus of his words.
One of the fathers of one of the four silent boys asked me how it was that my oldest could now engage in discussion like this - what had we done?
What we had not done was follow the instructions that were being given in the the very frustrating class.
And I said: In order for an ASD child - who has some social difficulties interacting with people, regardless - to want to talk to other people, he has to have incentive to talk at all. All four of these little boys had the things they were obsessing about - fire-trucks, trains, weather satellites and... I can't remember the last one.
But what I had noticed immediately in this class was that if these boys began to talk about the things that excited and engaged them they were immediately cut off. Because, of course, obsessive monologues are not conversation - and, worse, not normal.
I may have mentioned I hate that phrase.
This man's son was one of those four, and I said: We let our oldest son monologue. He was excited and he wanted to share. It did not make sense to us to cut him off every time he tried because if he had no incentive to engage, why would he bother? His obsessions were his only incentive; they were his joy and delight. Cut those off and...we guessed there would be silence. Did he know how to talk about things that didn't interest him? No. No, he didn't. But what was his incentive to start talking at all if he wasn't allowed to talk about the things that did?
As he got older, we were able to interrupt him. We were able to ask him to wait his turn. We were able to ask questions, and to shift parts of the monologue into something that resembled discussion. He was willing to do this at the beginning, because if he did, he would then be allowed to share what he really wanted to talk about.
What he learned was that talking could be fun. If he couldn't learn that at all, what was the point of talking? Why make the difficult effort? And as he grew accustomed to waiting, as he developed, he began to find some of the things we discussed interesting. He began to ask questions about topics that he had not introduced, because he understood on a basic level that talking could be … fun.
The father just looked at me (it was, of course, me, and I was perhaps a little more vehement than any other parent in the room generally got), and said, "You know, that never occurred to me."