Patience and Praxis: Navigating the Non-Verbal World

Transcription: Patience and Praxis: Navigating the Non-Verbal World

Understanding Patience When Working With Children

Patience and Praxis: Navigating the Non-Verbal World

I want to talk a little bit about patience and what that really means when we’re working with children, from a parent’s point of view and from a teacher’s point of view. I think sometimes as adults, it can be in short supply, because we are intentional, purpose-driven and goal-driven, and we’ve got things to do. We’ve got to get in the car and get to the shops, we’ve got to get our kids to bed so we can get on with the work that we need to get done. At school, we need to get them into class so we can get on with the maths lesson.

And all of that very squarely sits in the goal scope of the adult. The adult wants the child in the class so we can get on with maths. The adult wants the kids to sit still so we can do the homework. The adult wants the kid in the car so we can get to school. And all of this is very adult-driven and adult-purpose goal-driven.

Dropping the Goal and Observing the Moment

I think one of the biggest gifts we can give a child who is struggling is to drop the goal and the purpose for a little bit and just breathe into the moment and see what we see.

Observation skills without judgment are critical in my business. When we are working with children on the autism spectrum, with anxiety, with ADHD, representing as non-verbal, if we are trying to work with the child on our timeline and with our goals and our daily demands that we think are important, we’re going to create more anxiety, more shutdown, more dysregulation.

So what we need to do is let go of the in-the-moment desire to get something done, like getting them into the class, getting the book open, getting them doing maths. That’s something for a neurotypical child or a higher-functioning child who is able to follow those guidelines, get into class, sit at their desk, open their book, and get on with their maths.

But if they are unable to do it, the pressure to do it shuts them down even more. And that would be the same with a child on the spectrum who is non-speaking. The higher the demand we place on the child in-the-moment, the more we shut them down.

Now, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have goals or demands, but we should be responsive to how they respond to us. And then we need to respond to that. What is our ultimate goal, as well as what is our goal in-the-moment?

If our ultimate goal with a child on the spectrum, on the autism spectrum, who is non-speaking at the moment, if our ultimate goal is to give him a communication system, preferably we might have the goal to have him have a verbal communication system, then we need to know that’s an ultimate goal, not necessarily a today goal. Though we could drive it today, we don’t want to ultimately break them down and then lose the long-term goal we have.

Building Trust Through Responsiveness

So being responsive to children is how we bring them into our circle of trust, our circle of learning, and give them an opportunity to find those skills.

Understanding Praxis

Something that changed my understanding of this forever is when I had a better understanding of Praxis. And this is our body’s ability to take an idea and turn it into motor movement or any kind of movement.

So if you wanted to go swim in your swimming pool, you would have the idea of, “Hmm, I want, I’m hot, I need to go swim.” You would change into your costume, get a towel, go outside, and get in the pool. That’s Praxis in action.

The same thing with mathematics. You have this idea of, “I’m going to go into class and do math.” That’s an idea. You turn it into walking into class, getting to your desk, opening your book, sitting down and doing the maths. That is Praxis.

Now, what happens if your praxis is not in place? What happens if you have Dyspraxia? You can’t turn your thoughts into something that makes sense for you to take action. Your body just doesn’t respond.

Same thing with oral Praxis and speaking. I have this idea, I have all this vocabulary in my head, and I want to get it out. I want to communicate it to you, but my brain cannot move my mouth in order to form the words. I can’t move my throat, can’t move my tongue, can’t move my lips, because actually speaking is a very complicated thing.

If you try to learn to whistle and you’ve never whistled before, it’s a difficult thing to figure out where to put your tongue and how to blow the air. That’s a really good example for people who are speaking to try to figure out how non-speaking kids can’t speak.

Developing Ideation Into Action

The work we’re doing at Omatas is to develop ideation into action. So that’s the Praxis component, igniting thoughts from the child’s brain into movement.

There’s a lot of mind reading that happens on our side as we look at their gaze, where their shoulders are turned to or away from, and where they’re leaning. We’re guessing a lot of the time. Are they hot? It’s hot outside. They could be hot. They could be thirsty. They could be hungry. They haven’t been into the toilet in a while. That could be something that they want to do.

Then start asking questions like, “Are you hot?” Can I help you take your jersey off? And they could walk away, and then that could be a no. Do you need the bathroom? Can I come with you? Let’s go. And then you walk towards the bathroom.

You’re always giving them subtle clues to get some motion going. And then, as you get into the motion of walking towards the bathroom, the body starts responding to their thoughts, and they can carry on with the action.

And the more we do that with kids, the more we get their bodies to respond to their thoughts, and the more the Praxis develops.

And the same thing with speech. The more we get their mouth moving and responding to different things, the more the connection between thought and language can develop.

Now it’s far more complicated than that: what are receptive and expressive language like? What is the vocabulary like? What is engagement like? Intention like?

There are many components that help a child become more verbal, communicate, loop, or have conversations, or connect socially.

But it’s something you have to start with a child, where the child is, not where you are or where your goals are. You’ve got to start where they are sitting, from their starting point.

I always use this analogy.

The Hill Analogy

If you want a child to climb to the top of a hill, you’re climbing to the top, standing at the top, and shouting at them while they’re at the bottom. It doesn’t help them if they can’t figure out how to get to the top of the hill.

You’ve got to go back down to the bottom, and you’ve got to say, “Hey, I’m here with you.” And then he’s got a wheelbarrow to push up the hill. It doesn’t help if you grab the wheelbarrow and push it up to the top of the hill for him, and he’s still at the bottom of the hill.

The journey is him figuring out how to climb the hill, and your job is to help him to figure it out, not to do it for him.

Applying This to All Children

So if we shift this to more neurotypical children who are verbal, who are in a mainstream school, what’s the best gift we can give a child? It’s not doing it for them. It’s helping them to figure out how to do it for themselves.

A difficult math sum, a hard text to read, a difficult move in a hockey tournament, a new position on a netball field or a soccer field, something that’s new for them.

How do we think about what they’re experiencing and then move with them from that point, building their confidence and their skills? Not us doing it, but helping them to figure it out in their bodies.

If you’ve never played the violin before, you need to start from the beginning. Where do I put my hands? Where does it go? You can’t give them a difficult piece to play right in the beginning. You’ve got to give them a chance to process.

Listening to All Forms of Communication

The same happens with children on the spectrum who are non-speaking. Give them multiple opportunities to hear language, to hear communication, the space to respond back, to hear their communication when it’s not verbal.

Body language, behaviours, expression, noises, eye contact or lack of eye contact. What are they communicating with us? Because communication is ongoing.

We need to be listening.

If we think communication is just verbal and nothing else is communication, then we’re not speaking their language. And if we can’t speak their language, how do we get them to speak our language, which is verbal?

So the journey is interesting and gentle, and it takes a while, and it takes multiple communication partners to be kind and generous and encouraging, because if we’re not, and we create anxiety and stress, stress and anxiety shut it down.

And we don’t want to shut it down. We want to help it to blossom.

Our impatience can really get in the way, as can our drive towards our goal timeline.

If we can slow down, meet the child where they’re at, encourage and build and be really, really observant and understand that they’re communicating with you all the time, even in bad behaviours, that is strong communication.

If we can interpret that and be gracious and kind with it, we can develop almost any child to the next step, and we can get more, get further than perhaps we ever thought we could.

Final Thoughts

So this might not apply to everybody because a lot of you listening don’t have children on the spectrum who are non-verbal, but you’re going to encounter children like this. Can you be gracious and kind, or are you high demand and put pressure on? And this is a really tricky space for an adult to be in because we are so goal-driven, but it’s so necessary.