In this episode, we are mythbusting ND affirming practice. I hear too often phrases from people who don't quite get what neurodiversity affirming practice is, like ‘If we just let kids do whatever they want and don't extend them, they won't learn essential life skills’. Join me as I discuss what it means to support neurodivergent children and explore how affirming practices don’t just allow children to do whatever they want but rather guide them in extending their abilities in a supportive environment.
We'll explore different approaches to challenging situations, like swimming lessons for an autistic child, and how a truly affirming approach differs from traditional and passive methods. We'll also discuss the importance of safety, connection, and respect in learning environments, and how meeting these fundamental needs allows children to learn new skills effectively.
- Free Webinar For Professionals who Support Neurodivergent Children - Neurodiversity Affirming Practice Kickstart: 3 Actionable Tips to Do Today - Register here
- Free Webinar for Speech Therapists (Live on 14th March 2025): Turning Affirming - Register here
- Free podcast training for Speech Therapists: Evolve Your Affirming Practice - Register here
- Course for Speech Therapists - Affirming Communication for Autistic Children https://playlearnchat.com/acac-course/ Doors opening soon! Get on the waitlist now to get the best offer when we're open for registrations!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to the ExploringNeurodiversity Podcast for adults
who support Neurodivergent children.
Whether you're an allied healthprofessional, medical professional,
education professional or aparent of a Neurodivergent
child, you are welcome here.
This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginallands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people.
I acknowledge the traditional ownerselders past and present, and I extend
(00:28):
my acknowledgement to any Aboriginalfirst nations people listening in.
I'm Adina from Play.
Learn.
Chat.
I'm an autistic ADHDer, a speechtherapist, professional educator
speaker, and I also supportNeurodivergent Business owners in
my other business, neurodivergentBusiness Coaching and Consulting.
I'm obsessed with creating a world whenNeurodivergent people are understood,
(00:48):
embraced, supported, and celebrated.
A world where we Neurodivergentpeople can understand ourselves and
thrive in a life aligned with ourindividual strengths, wants and needs.
On the Exploring NeurodiversityPodcast, you'll get my
perspectives and conversationswith my Neurodivergent friends.
All about how adults can best supportNeurodivergent children in our lives.
(01:08):
I bring a NeurodiversityAffirming approach and indeed a
human affirming approach to thesupport that we all provide for
Neurodivergent kids in our lives.
Let's dive in.
Today we are myth busting, folks.
I hear too often phrases like thisone, including this exact phrase,
from people who don't quite get whatneurodiversity affirming practice is.
If we just let kids do whatever theywant and don't extend them, they
(01:32):
won't learn essential life skills.
I mean, I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
If we let kids do whatever theywant, we don't extend them, they
won't learn essential life skills.
I actually agree with that.
What I don't agree with is thatneurodiversity affirming practice means
letting kids do whatever they want, notextending them, and therefore leading
to not learning essential life skills.
(01:52):
My hope with today's episode is if youare a little bit confused about when
neurodiversity affirming practice.
So, if you are wondering how theworld sits in terms of supporting
children to learn new skills, thenI hope to answer some of this and
clarify some of it for you today.
My other hope for this episode is thatif you do understand the differences
(02:13):
between being neurodiversity affirmingand letting a child do whatever they want
and never extending or teaching them,then you will be able to have better
ways of explaining it to other peoplein your world who you might come across
who struggle to understand exactly whatNeurodiversity Affirming Practice is.
I feel like this misunderstandingof what Neurodiversity Affirming
(02:34):
Practice involves comes from a fear.
That if we are respecting a child'semotions, their sensory needs, their
communication preferences, then it somehowmeans we're not encouraging, supporting,
or pushing them to develop their skills.
And here I'm using the word skillsto encompass, really absolutely
anything that a child or aperson might learn in their life.
(02:54):
We're going to keep it prettygeneral in this episode.
Now, what a neurodiversity affirmingpractice approach really is, yes,
it's about understanding and honouringa child's emotions, sensory needs,
communication style, preferences.
And in doing so, you then supportthem to be in the best space
possible and have the most capacityfor learning and development.
(03:15):
Part of me is actually completelysurprised and incredulous that I
even need to make this clear thatneurodiversity affirming approaches
are absolutely not about just lettinga child do whatever they want, whether
it harms others or whether it meansthey're always comfortable in doing
what they do, in knowing what theyknow, and there are no boundaries.
But I hear it time and time again, so,I think we've got to talk about it.
(03:37):
Let's take an example of an autisticchild, we're going to call her Mary.
Like many autistic kids, Mary had a lot ofdifficulty engaging in swimming lessons.
She actually loved the water,loved splashing in the water,
loved playing in the water.
But when it came to structured lessonswith an adult that she didn't know, in
a noisy environment, At a time of daythat she couldn't control, having to
(03:59):
separate from her parent, mary struggled.
Is anyone surprised?
The teacher called out toMary's parent and said, just
chuck her in, she'll be fine.
Meanwhile, Mary was clingingto her parent, screaming
and refusing to separate.
Now, in fact, that is a veryunaffirming way of framing it,
to say refusing to separate.
She couldn't.
Relationally, safety wise, securitywise, Mary was not in a space where
(04:22):
she was able to try that new thing,to move away from her parent, to get
into the water with this stranger.
So here we have a sliding doors moment.
I'm going to paint a couple ofscenarios, and let's see where they go.
We have the non affirming, we'regoing to call it traditional approach.
The approach that says, just throw Maryin, she'll be fine, she'll figure it out.
(04:44):
She's got to do this, she'ssigned up for classes.
She can't always make a fuss,let's just get on with it.
That is not a neurodiversityaffirming approach.
We're going to explore what happensif Mary goes along that pathway.
Then we're going to explorethe passive approach.
The misunderstood version ofwhat neurodiversity affirming
practice might look like.
This idea of never extending achild, never teaching them new
(05:06):
skills, just allowing them to doexactly what they want at all times.
And again, let me be clear, that is alsonot a neurodiversity affirming approach.
And we're then going to explorewhat a neurodiversity affirming
approach to supporting Mary inher swimming skills looks like.
The traditional approach That's theinstructor shouting at the parent,
Just give her to me, she'll be fine.
(05:26):
The parent in that scenario submits to thepressure of this very confident teacher
encouraging the parent to pry Mary off herand throw her into the pool where she's
clearly feeling unsafe on every level.
Maybe Mary would find that it's okay.
and she would end up enjoying the lesson,or at least being okay with the lesson.
Maybe Mary would continue to havemeltdowns with her whole body and brain
(05:49):
completely being unable to be in thatsituation, let alone learn something new.
Because that base level of safety,security Feeling okay in her body.
Feeling supported bythe people around her.
That's not there.
And maybe, here's a really common onethat people like me and many, many other
people have experienced all too often.
(06:10):
The masking trauma response.
Mary's given messages from the adultsaround her that she's supposed to trust.
Her parent, the swim teacher.
That it's supposed to feel okay tobe in the swimming pool, to be with
this stranger in these class settings.
In that process, she's masking heremotions, disconnecting from her
body, suppressing her understandingof what her body and brain are
(06:31):
telling And losing trust in beingable to read what she needs.
Now, self advocacy is something I talkabout a lot, many people talk about.
And the first part of self advocacy,being able to ask for what you
need, is knowing what you need.
And if you don't know what youneed, you can't ask for it.
Yes, there's many other pieces of thepie as well that need to be in place
before you can advocate for yourself.
(06:52):
But the first piece isknowing what you need.
If you feel unsafe, uncomfortable,your brain is on fire.
Your body just needs toget out of that space.
You have no trust in the weirdgrown up next to you who's
shouting at you to be calm.
You're going to learn to not trustwhat your body is telling you.
You're going to end up essentiallygaslighting yourself into believing that
(07:13):
you're the one with the faulty response.
And when you feel unsafe in thatsituation, you're going to learn
to suppress it judge yourself.
Disconnect from being able to perceiveyour own sensory and emotional needs.
And over time, seek less and less ofwhat you actually need to be okay.
So whether Mary is getting in that pooland trying to get out of it screaming.
(07:34):
Whether Mary is getting into thatpool and shutting down because she's
learnt to not trust how she's feeling.
If Mary is not feeling safe to get intothat situation, it is not affirming to
throw her into that situation, forcingher to comply, invalidating how she feels.
So there's our traditional approach.
Let's chuck Mary in the pool.
(07:54):
Let's go with the passive approach.
Mary feels some distress at beingin this swimming pool situation
for her swimming lessons.
And the misunderstood application ofwhat neurodiversity affirming practice
is, some people think that means, well,let's just get out of there and not
even try, and therefore Mary doesn'tlearn to swim, we don't extend her.
As she grows up and her peers get olderand get more confident in the water,
(08:15):
Mary loses Her interest in being inthe water because she recognizes that
she has different skills to her peersand she can't be safe on her own, even
though she used to love the water.
This is not neurodiversity affirming.
It's not even safe.
I mean, in Australia,we live around water.
It's pretty much a non negotiablein my mind for Almost every child
to be able to learn to swim.
(08:36):
I'm going to say almost everybecause there's always exceptions.
But it's a real safety non negotiablein my world for the kids that I support.
And a layer on top of that is thatMary actually likes the water.
She wants to be involved in the water.
It's just really, really, really hard onmany levels for her to get from the point
of not being able to swim and not havingexperienced swimming lessons to being
(08:58):
able to swim independently and safely.
We don't want to do the passive approach.
We don't want to say, okay,Mary, you never have to.
That was hard once.
We're just going to leave it.
We're not going to do it.
That's not neurodiversity affirming.
And that is not what I share.
That's not what I explain.
That's not what many otherneurodiversity affirming advocates teach.
So what do we do?
What is aligned with neurodiversityaffirming approaches when it
(09:19):
comes to Mary's swimming lessons?
Let's go old school.
Let's go into Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
So if you are familiar with it, cool.
If you're not, that's okay.
Envision a pyramid in your mind.
And this idea from, I think itwas around the sixties, where
Maslow proposed that all of thelower levels need to be in place.
before the higher levels oflearning and development can occur.
(09:42):
So the lower levels, these basic needs,need to be in place, like psychological
needs, safety needs, so feeling safe,feeling connected, feeling supported.
Sensory processing is a huge challengefor autistic people, so feeling
sensorally safe, feeling okay withthe noise around, the smells around.
The feeling of your swimming costume,feeling okay with the people around
(10:05):
you, being able to trust that yourparent will keep you safe, and
put you in situations when youfeel ready with the right support.
The relationship with that swimmingteacher is deeply important for some kids,
yes, some kids can just jump in a pooland splash around with whoever's there.
And many kids, especially manyneurodivergent children, need a much more
deliberate, slow pace of relationshipbuilding before they feel safe to do that.
(10:28):
And that is absolutely the case for Mary.
When psychological safety and physicalsafety and relational safety is
met, Then new learning can happen.
Then a child can extend beyond what iscurrently okay, safe and comfortable for
them, what's within the usual repertoire.
Even if Mary can sometimes get intothat pool with her dad and splash
around and have a great time,
(10:49):
but on the day of her swimminglesson, she's not able to because of
that relationship with the swimminginstructor just not being there.
That's the piece thatneeds to be built first.
She needs to feel safe in her body,safe in her environment, safe with the
relationships of the people around her.
And then, slowly, slowly,she will get into the pool.
She will try new things.
Now the piece of frustration, I think,for many people is, slowly, slowly.
(11:11):
Yes, this can be a slow approach.
But it is the approach that buildslifelong skills, lifelong trust
in self, lifelong confidence,lifelong relationships.
This is learning without trauma.
So bringing it all back together,neurodiversity affirming practice doesn't
mean letting kids choose exactly whatthey want to do all the time and forever.
(11:32):
What it does mean is supportingchildren to be in their best space
for learning and development.
That can take time.
That can take five minutes fromwalking in the door of a therapy
session to actually starting anykind of work in inverted commas.
Maybe it takes 50 minutes.
Maybe it takes five weeks for what mightlook like structured work to happen.
(11:53):
And that is valid.
What it doesn't look like is never askinganything of the child, never teaching them
new things, never modelling new ideas.
Like, that is just wild that anyone wouldthink that I and other educators are
advocating for us to just sit and letkids do whatever they want all the time.
I hope that this is clear, and I hopeyou've got some ways to share with
(12:15):
the people around you the truth, thatneurodiversity affirming practice
is really just honoring a child fortheir real experiences, respecting
that their experiences are differentfrom yours and they're different from
neurotypical people's experiences.
And getting curious about why somethingis hard for a child, not judgmental, not
about avoiding the hard thing, it's aboutfinding out what exactly is hard for them.
(12:37):
And then recalibrating, figuringout do we need to change something
up and make it easier for them,get them more comfortable, give it
more time, build more relationship,and then the learning will come.
Or maybe we need to recalibrate our entireexpectations, and maybe Mary doesn't need
to learn to play the tuba, but she stilldoes need and want to learn to swim.
Nothing against tuba players ormusic, I'm just giving it as another
(13:00):
example where you might recalibrateand choose that some expectation
you did have of Mary might shift, itmight not be the right thing to do.
But when you've decided that a pieceof learning is something that's really
important for her, and especially whenshe's interested in that herself, she
can get there and she will get there.
But how you get there looksdifferent, and that's okay.
So if there's one takeaway that you
(13:20):
keep in mind from this episode, it isthat learning happens when kids feel safe.
If we focus on connection and respect,and honouring kids real experiences as
valid, then the learning can unfold.
And so it should.
Now, this is just the start ofme doing a bunch of myth busting.
I have a few other ways that I'msupporting people now and into the future.
(13:42):
If you are a speech therapist, I'mrunning a webinar on Friday the 14th
of March called Turning Affirming,and it's for speech therapists
who support autistic children.
We are putting NeurodiversityAffirming Practice into action
and we are myth busting.
We're going deeper into some of the mythsthat come up about what Neurodiversity
Affirming Practice is in the contextof our speech therapy support.
(14:05):
One myth I'll be tackling is this ideaof, Oh, but you're just playing with him.
He's not even learning.
So, yeah, we're diving into that one.
And a lot more, and I'll beproviding a bunch of tools for
speech therapists to help you takethat clarity and understanding into
your advocacy for autistic children.
So that is a free webinarhappening on the 14th of March.
(14:25):
If you're listening after the date,check the link in the show notes anyway
because you'll see if it's still availableor what else I have open for you.
Either way, head to the linkin show notes and register.
And that one is specificallyfor speech therapists.
If you're not and you're curiousand , I'm not going to stop you signing
up, you're very welcome to, but I am,talking to the specific scenarios,
questions, and challenges that comeup in our speech therapy worlds.
(14:48):
Also available for speeches, Ihave my free podcast based training
series called Evolve Your AffirmingPractice, and that is out now.
It's four short episodes in your ears,just like this one, and I go even deeper.
I'm getting stuck into the grey area.
And again, of some of those realnuanced areas that we speechies come up
against when it comes to neurodiversityaffirming practice for our autistic kids.
(15:11):
And if you are not a speechtherapist, I am still really,
really happy that you're here.
I have a free webinar foryou, for any professional who
supports neurodivergent children.
called Neurodiversity AffirmingPractice Kickstart, three
actionable tips to do today.
So really helping you get some clarityon other neurodiversity affirming
strategies and ideas and just putthem into action straight away.
(15:32):
That's available all the time.
Go to the link in the show notes and youwill be able to check all of that out.
If you have other myths that you'rehearing or that you're wondering
yourself, please feel free to send mea line, probably on Instagram is the
easiest, but you can also send me anemail, hi@playlearnchat.Com and I may
well follow up with another podcastepisode unpacking further myths.
(15:52):
Thanks for being here, forchallenging thinking, for opening
your mind, and for supporting thismovement by getting real accurate
information and clarity out there.
I appreciate you.
Thank you so much for sharingthis space and time with me.
Thank you for being open tolearning and unlearning and to
listening to the perspectives andexperiences of Neurodivergent folks.
(16:14):
If you found this episode helpful,please share it with a friend, share a
screenshot on Instagram, pop a five starrating and a review in your favorite app.
And join me on Instagram and Facebook.
I'm @play.Learn.chat.
Have a spectacular day!
Welcome to the ExploringNeurodiversity Podcast for adults
who support Neurodivergent children.
Whether you're an allied healthprofessional, medical professional,
education professional or aparent of a Neurodivergent
child, you are welcome here.
This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginallands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people.
I acknowledge the traditional ownerselders past and present, and I extend
(00:28):
my acknowledgement to any Aboriginalfirst nations people listening in.
I'm Adina from Play.
Learn.
Chat.
I'm an autistic ADHDer, a speechtherapist, professional educator
speaker, and I also supportNeurodivergent Business owners in
my other business, neurodivergentBusiness Coaching and Consulting.
I'm obsessed with creating a world whenNeurodivergent people are understood,
(00:48):
embraced, supported, and celebrated.
A world where we Neurodivergentpeople can understand ourselves and
thrive in a life aligned with ourindividual strengths, wants and needs.
On the Exploring NeurodiversityPodcast, you'll get my
perspectives and conversationswith my Neurodivergent friends.
All about how adults can best supportNeurodivergent children in our lives.
(01:08):
I bring a NeurodiversityAffirming approach and indeed a
human affirming approach to thesupport that we all provide for
Neurodivergent kids in our lives.
Let's dive in.
Today we are myth busting, folks.
I hear too often phrases like thisone, including this exact phrase,
from people who don't quite get whatneurodiversity affirming practice is.
If we just let kids do whatever theywant and don't extend them, they
(01:32):
won't learn essential life skills.
I mean, I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
If we let kids do whatever theywant, we don't extend them, they
won't learn essential life skills.
I actually agree with that.
What I don't agree with is thatneurodiversity affirming practice means
letting kids do whatever they want, notextending them, and therefore leading
to not learning essential life skills.
(01:52):
My hope with today's episode is if youare a little bit confused about when
neurodiversity affirming practice.
So, if you are wondering how theworld sits in terms of supporting
children to learn new skills, thenI hope to answer some of this and
clarify some of it for you today.
My other hope for this episode is thatif you do understand the differences
(02:13):
between being neurodiversity affirmingand letting a child do whatever they want
and never extending or teaching them,then you will be able to have better
ways of explaining it to other peoplein your world who you might come across
who struggle to understand exactly whatNeurodiversity Affirming Practice is.
I feel like this misunderstandingof what Neurodiversity Affirming
(02:34):
Practice involves comes from a fear.
That if we are respecting a child'semotions, their sensory needs, their
communication preferences, then it somehowmeans we're not encouraging, supporting,
or pushing them to develop their skills.
And here I'm using the word skillsto encompass, really absolutely
anything that a child or aperson might learn in their life.
(02:54):
We're going to keep it prettygeneral in this episode.
Now, what a neurodiversity affirmingpractice approach really is, yes,
it's about understanding and honouringa child's emotions, sensory needs,
communication style, preferences.
And in doing so, you then supportthem to be in the best space
possible and have the most capacityfor learning and development.
(03:15):
Part of me is actually completelysurprised and incredulous that I
even need to make this clear thatneurodiversity affirming approaches
are absolutely not about just lettinga child do whatever they want, whether
it harms others or whether it meansthey're always comfortable in doing
what they do, in knowing what theyknow, and there are no boundaries.
But I hear it time and time again, so,I think we've got to talk about it.
(03:37):
Let's take an example of an autisticchild, we're going to call her Mary.
Like many autistic kids, Mary had a lot ofdifficulty engaging in swimming lessons.
She actually loved the water,loved splashing in the water,
loved playing in the water.
But when it came to structured lessonswith an adult that she didn't know, in
a noisy environment, At a time of daythat she couldn't control, having to
(03:59):
separate from her parent, mary struggled.
Is anyone surprised?
The teacher called out toMary's parent and said, just
chuck her in, she'll be fine.
Meanwhile, Mary was clingingto her parent, screaming
and refusing to separate.
Now, in fact, that is a veryunaffirming way of framing it,
to say refusing to separate.
She couldn't.
Relationally, safety wise, securitywise, Mary was not in a space where
(04:22):
she was able to try that new thing,to move away from her parent, to get
into the water with this stranger.
So here we have a sliding doors moment.
I'm going to paint a couple ofscenarios, and let's see where they go.
We have the non affirming, we'regoing to call it traditional approach.
The approach that says, just throw Maryin, she'll be fine, she'll figure it out.
(04:44):
She's got to do this, she'ssigned up for classes.
She can't always make a fuss,let's just get on with it.
That is not a neurodiversityaffirming approach.
We're going to explore what happensif Mary goes along that pathway.
Then we're going to explorethe passive approach.
The misunderstood version ofwhat neurodiversity affirming
practice might look like.
This idea of never extending achild, never teaching them new
(05:06):
skills, just allowing them to doexactly what they want at all times.
And again, let me be clear, that is alsonot a neurodiversity affirming approach.
And we're then going to explorewhat a neurodiversity affirming
approach to supporting Mary inher swimming skills looks like.
The traditional approach That's theinstructor shouting at the parent,
Just give her to me, she'll be fine.
(05:26):
The parent in that scenario submits to thepressure of this very confident teacher
encouraging the parent to pry Mary off herand throw her into the pool where she's
clearly feeling unsafe on every level.
Maybe Mary would find that it's okay.
and she would end up enjoying the lesson,or at least being okay with the lesson.
Maybe Mary would continue to havemeltdowns with her whole body and brain
(05:49):
completely being unable to be in thatsituation, let alone learn something new.
Because that base level of safety,security Feeling okay in her body.
Feeling supported bythe people around her.
That's not there.
And maybe, here's a really common onethat people like me and many, many other
people have experienced all too often.
(06:10):
The masking trauma response.
Mary's given messages from the adultsaround her that she's supposed to trust.
Her parent, the swim teacher.
That it's supposed to feel okay tobe in the swimming pool, to be with
this stranger in these class settings.
In that process, she's masking heremotions, disconnecting from her
body, suppressing her understandingof what her body and brain are
(06:31):
telling And losing trust in beingable to read what she needs.
Now, self advocacy is something I talkabout a lot, many people talk about.
And the first part of self advocacy,being able to ask for what you
need, is knowing what you need.
And if you don't know what youneed, you can't ask for it.
Yes, there's many other pieces of thepie as well that need to be in place
before you can advocate for yourself.
(06:52):
But the first piece isknowing what you need.
If you feel unsafe, uncomfortable,your brain is on fire.
Your body just needs toget out of that space.
You have no trust in the weirdgrown up next to you who's
shouting at you to be calm.
You're going to learn to not trustwhat your body is telling you.
You're going to end up essentiallygaslighting yourself into believing that
(07:13):
you're the one with the faulty response.
And when you feel unsafe in thatsituation, you're going to learn
to suppress it judge yourself.
Disconnect from being able to perceiveyour own sensory and emotional needs.
And over time, seek less and less ofwhat you actually need to be okay.
So whether Mary is getting in that pooland trying to get out of it screaming.
(07:34):
Whether Mary is getting into thatpool and shutting down because she's
learnt to not trust how she's feeling.
If Mary is not feeling safe to get intothat situation, it is not affirming to
throw her into that situation, forcingher to comply, invalidating how she feels.
So there's our traditional approach.
Let's chuck Mary in the pool.
(07:54):
Let's go with the passive approach.
Mary feels some distress at beingin this swimming pool situation
for her swimming lessons.
And the misunderstood application ofwhat neurodiversity affirming practice
is, some people think that means, well,let's just get out of there and not
even try, and therefore Mary doesn'tlearn to swim, we don't extend her.
As she grows up and her peers get olderand get more confident in the water,
(08:15):
Mary loses Her interest in being inthe water because she recognizes that
she has different skills to her peersand she can't be safe on her own, even
though she used to love the water.
This is not neurodiversity affirming.
It's not even safe.
I mean, in Australia,we live around water.
It's pretty much a non negotiablein my mind for Almost every child
to be able to learn to swim.
(08:36):
I'm going to say almost everybecause there's always exceptions.
But it's a real safety non negotiablein my world for the kids that I support.
And a layer on top of that is thatMary actually likes the water.
She wants to be involved in the water.
It's just really, really, really hard onmany levels for her to get from the point
of not being able to swim and not havingexperienced swimming lessons to being
(08:58):
able to swim independently and safely.
We don't want to do the passive approach.
We don't want to say, okay,Mary, you never have to.
That was hard once.
We're just going to leave it.
We're not going to do it.
That's not neurodiversity affirming.
And that is not what I share.
That's not what I explain.
That's not what many otherneurodiversity affirming advocates teach.
So what do we do?
What is aligned with neurodiversityaffirming approaches when it
(09:19):
comes to Mary's swimming lessons?
Let's go old school.
Let's go into Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
So if you are familiar with it, cool.
If you're not, that's okay.
Envision a pyramid in your mind.
And this idea from, I think itwas around the sixties, where
Maslow proposed that all of thelower levels need to be in place.
before the higher levels oflearning and development can occur.
(09:42):
So the lower levels, these basic needs,need to be in place, like psychological
needs, safety needs, so feeling safe,feeling connected, feeling supported.
Sensory processing is a huge challengefor autistic people, so feeling
sensorally safe, feeling okay withthe noise around, the smells around.
The feeling of your swimming costume,feeling okay with the people around
(10:05):
you, being able to trust that yourparent will keep you safe, and
put you in situations when youfeel ready with the right support.
The relationship with that swimmingteacher is deeply important for some kids,
yes, some kids can just jump in a pooland splash around with whoever's there.
And many kids, especially manyneurodivergent children, need a much more
deliberate, slow pace of relationshipbuilding before they feel safe to do that.
(10:28):
And that is absolutely the case for Mary.
When psychological safety and physicalsafety and relational safety is
met, Then new learning can happen.
Then a child can extend beyond what iscurrently okay, safe and comfortable for
them, what's within the usual repertoire.
Even if Mary can sometimes get intothat pool with her dad and splash
around and have a great time,
(10:49):
but on the day of her swimminglesson, she's not able to because of
that relationship with the swimminginstructor just not being there.
That's the piece thatneeds to be built first.
She needs to feel safe in her body,safe in her environment, safe with the
relationships of the people around her.
And then, slowly, slowly,she will get into the pool.
She will try new things.
Now the piece of frustration, I think,for many people is, slowly, slowly.
(11:11):
Yes, this can be a slow approach.
But it is the approach that buildslifelong skills, lifelong trust
in self, lifelong confidence,lifelong relationships.
This is learning without trauma.
So bringing it all back together,neurodiversity affirming practice doesn't
mean letting kids choose exactly whatthey want to do all the time and forever.
(11:32):
What it does mean is supportingchildren to be in their best space
for learning and development.
That can take time.
That can take five minutes fromwalking in the door of a therapy
session to actually starting anykind of work in inverted commas.
Maybe it takes 50 minutes.
Maybe it takes five weeks for what mightlook like structured work to happen.
(11:53):
And that is valid.
What it doesn't look like is never askinganything of the child, never teaching them
new things, never modelling new ideas.
Like, that is just wild that anyone wouldthink that I and other educators are
advocating for us to just sit and letkids do whatever they want all the time.
I hope that this is clear, and I hopeyou've got some ways to share with
(12:15):
the people around you the truth, thatneurodiversity affirming practice
is really just honoring a child fortheir real experiences, respecting
that their experiences are differentfrom yours and they're different from
neurotypical people's experiences.
And getting curious about why somethingis hard for a child, not judgmental, not
about avoiding the hard thing, it's aboutfinding out what exactly is hard for them.
(12:37):
And then recalibrating, figuringout do we need to change something
up and make it easier for them,get them more comfortable, give it
more time, build more relationship,and then the learning will come.
Or maybe we need to recalibrate our entireexpectations, and maybe Mary doesn't need
to learn to play the tuba, but she stilldoes need and want to learn to swim.
Nothing against tuba players ormusic, I'm just giving it as another
(13:00):
example where you might recalibrateand choose that some expectation
you did have of Mary might shift, itmight not be the right thing to do.
But when you've decided that a pieceof learning is something that's really
important for her, and especially whenshe's interested in that herself, she
can get there and she will get there.
But how you get there looksdifferent, and that's okay.
So if there's one takeaway that you
(13:20):
keep in mind from this episode, it isthat learning happens when kids feel safe.
If we focus on connection and respect,and honouring kids real experiences as
valid, then the learning can unfold.
And so it should.
Now, this is just the start ofme doing a bunch of myth busting.
I have a few other ways that I'msupporting people now and into the future.
(13:42):
If you are a speech therapist, I'mrunning a webinar on Friday the 14th
of March called Turning Affirming,and it's for speech therapists
who support autistic children.
We are putting NeurodiversityAffirming Practice into action
and we are myth busting.
We're going deeper into some of the mythsthat come up about what Neurodiversity
Affirming Practice is in the contextof our speech therapy support.
(14:05):
One myth I'll be tackling is this ideaof, Oh, but you're just playing with him.
He's not even learning.
So, yeah, we're diving into that one.
And a lot more, and I'll beproviding a bunch of tools for
speech therapists to help you takethat clarity and understanding into
your advocacy for autistic children.
So that is a free webinarhappening on the 14th of March.
(14:25):
If you're listening after the date,check the link in the show notes anyway
because you'll see if it's still availableor what else I have open for you.
Either way, head to the linkin show notes and register.
And that one is specificallyfor speech therapists.
If you're not and you're curiousand , I'm not going to stop you signing
up, you're very welcome to, but I am,talking to the specific scenarios,
questions, and challenges that comeup in our speech therapy worlds.
(14:48):
Also available for speeches, Ihave my free podcast based training
series called Evolve Your AffirmingPractice, and that is out now.
It's four short episodes in your ears,just like this one, and I go even deeper.
I'm getting stuck into the grey area.
And again, of some of those realnuanced areas that we speechies come up
against when it comes to neurodiversityaffirming practice for our autistic kids.
(15:11):
And if you are not a speechtherapist, I am still really,
really happy that you're here.
I have a free webinar foryou, for any professional who
supports neurodivergent children.
called Neurodiversity AffirmingPractice Kickstart, three
actionable tips to do today.
So really helping you get some clarityon other neurodiversity affirming
strategies and ideas and just putthem into action straight away.
(15:32):
That's available all the time.
Go to the link in the show notes and youwill be able to check all of that out.
If you have other myths that you'rehearing or that you're wondering
yourself, please feel free to send mea line, probably on Instagram is the
easiest, but you can also send me anemail, hi@playlearnchat.Com and I may
well follow up with another podcastepisode unpacking further myths.
(15:52):
Thanks for being here, forchallenging thinking, for opening
your mind, and for supporting thismovement by getting real accurate
information and clarity out there.
I appreciate you.
Thank you so much for sharingthis space and time with me.
Thank you for being open tolearning and unlearning and to
listening to the perspectives andexperiences of Neurodivergent folks.
(16:14):
If you found this episode helpful,please share it with a friend, share a
screenshot on Instagram, pop a five starrating and a review in your favorite app.
And join me on Instagram and Facebook.
I'm @play.Learn.chat.
Have a spectacular day!
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