As guides to our special needs children we help them develop more interests, meaning we direct their attention, concern and curiosity to a variety of topics and experiences. Often children who learn or communicate differently have difficulty engaging with new experiences. You might pick one or two of the following tips for success and employ it today.  

·         Eliminate distractions in the area.  That includes TV, video games and toys or items that the child prefers.

·         Be attractive! Seriously. Ask yourself, “Do I look like I am interested, enthused and enjoying this experience? Would I be interested in doing this with ME?”  

·         Create anticipation. Describe how it looks, smells, sounds and feels. If you child has limited language, use single words, but infuse your comments with excitement.

·         Show, demonstrate, describe your experience - but don’t lecture.

·         Don’t turn the encounter into a test. Don’t ask the child questions that you know she knows the answer to.

·         Go slowly. When you think you are going slow, go slower. Speak slowly. Pause often as you guide, just to share about the process with the child.

·         Give your child a meaningful role. No matter what you are doing or what the child’s age is, give them a job in the process.

·         Break the encounter into small steps and if needed spread those steps out over the day or week if needed.

·         Leave the child wanting more.  Keep encounters brief. Even if it seems like the child is interested don’t stretch it out. Children, who are developing typically, will be able to attend to a task for 2- 3 times as long as their age in years. So a 3 year old will likely have an attention span of 6 - 9 minutes. Children with special needs may attend for shorter periods of time.  Doing more may result in the child not continuing to be interested in that encounter in the future. Always err on the side of brief.

·        Connect the encounter to previous experiences the child can relate to and recall.

·         Talk about the encounter after it is over. Review pictures and videos of the encounter and share what your experience was at the time. Wait quietly for your child to respond.  

·         Don’t give up. It may take repeated experiences for a child to understand how to participate in this particular interest or realize the fun of sharing interests together.  

I hope that you will have great fun finding and sharing new interests with your child. 

Janice P. Guice, MA, CCC-SLP

RDI® Program Certified Consultant

jpguice@essential-communication.com

What are your interests? Were you born with that interest or would it be more appropriate to ask where and when the seed of that interest was planted and by whom? I ask because I often meet with parents working to engage their children with special needs more fully.  They repeatedly tell me, “He is really not interested in anything” or “The problem we have is he is not interested in doing anything with us.” In their answers I can hear their frustration, disappointment and their uncertainty that there is any hope for richer participation.

Although I understand their concerns, I have to respectfully disagree.  Children, regardless of disability, have the capacity to develop new interests.  Dictionary.com defines interest as those times when something causes our “attention, concern, or curiosity” to be “particularly engaged.”  As I think about my interests today, in every case, I owe the seeds of those interests to more experienced adults in my life. I doubt I ever begged my mother to learn to sew, given that she had done it masterfully for me for years. But, at some point she invited me to join in her interest and slowly watered the seeds she planted for me. Gradually my interests grew. I made mistakes and gave up and every time she invited me back again. She never forced me to do it. She introduced new steps slowly at a pace that I could be successful at. She gave me space, but was never far away. Before long a love of sewing became my own.

Another vivid example in my life is that of my oldest son, who enjoys a wonderful career in the music industry. He is often described as passionate about what he does.  It can be traced back to an interest sparked by an adult in our church during my son’s elementary school years. This special adult invited our son to explore the career he loved, sound production. It was something my son did not know would be a lifelong interest. It took time. The opportunity to explore was offered purposefully, but without pressure or condition. Interest was nurtured. It was allowed to take root over time. It was offered on many occasions and in many contexts. It did not merely reside in my son, waiting for him to come of age. It was offered to him by someone willing to do the hard work of engaging a child in something new and unfamiliar.

As the most important guides for our children, we must accept the significant and sometimes costly responsibility of inviting children to explore.  It will cost us our most precious commodity- time.  Sometimes our offers will be declined or merely tolerated. Some seeds may not grow at all, but just as the gardener does not abandon the garden because every seed does not take hold of the earth and grow to bear fruit, we cannot give up in guiding our children to explore, to notice, to experiment in new arenas. As guides we must help our children direct their attention, concern and curiosity to a variety of topics and experiences.  Let’s give up saying “He is not interested in that,” and discover the joy of watching some of those seeds grow into lifelong interests.   

I had the opportunity last week to attend the Training Institute on Autism at Florida State University sponsored by the FSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD). Over the course of the week there were a number of national experts on autism that spoke. In the weeks to come I thought I would share a number of impressions and ideas I discovered while I was there.

One of the speakers was Dr. Michael Siller of Hunter College, CUNY. He spoke about his research in the use of play for developing social reciprocity and language in children with autism. He talked about the importance of parents developing play routines with their children and providing that consistent opportunity to share, explore and communicate about the shared interaction. He even has parents schedule the time to play so that it is not set aside in our busy days. Many parents tell me that play is hard with their child because the child’s disability prevents them from providing a strong feedback loop as they play. A regularly scheduled routine to focus on just enjoying play would help to offset that feeling of why bother to play.

I have always taught families that the toy is the backdrop and the interaction is the important concept. Dr. Siller suggested having a special bag or box that in which you place special toys that you can share with your child at each playtime occasion. The bag or box becomes an anticipated signal of the fun that is to come. It was not surprising that he suggested to avoid toys with batteries or relying too much on cause and effect toys that might merely entertain the child and may take a more prominent place in the child’s attention than the interaction with you.

I was reminded that often with children with autism professionals and parents alike are so focused on ‘getting’ the child to say something or do something that aligns with therapeutic goals that we forgot to celebrate the fun of just playing and creating an environment that invites that rich sharing and removes demand.

I hope you will get in the floor and play with your child just for the fun of it for a brief time each day. Create a celebratory tone as you invite the child to join you and at first meet the child where they are and then gradually expand the play to new opportunities. Enjoy!

Janice