The #1 hurdle in your Autistic’s child’s learning is … [you]
You [Or in my case, Me]. No offense, and let me explain why!
There is an intrinsic truth to learning that parents of neurotypical kids can gloss over often but parents of children with a disability almost never can.
It is that learning cannot be outsourced (or left to chance).
This is true for all kids, but in the absence of sensory / motor issues, a few children can figure out their own learning roadmaps.
When your child has sensory dysregulation [most kids with a learning difference experience the world via a different sensory matrix — and this is different for every child], they experience the world differently.
When your child has motor planning issues, or low muscle tone, or other neuro-motor issues, they also interact with the world differently.
Which means that a learning strategy that works for one child will likely not work for another. This also means that when your child doesn’t seem to be learning, it is not about cognitive ability.
Remember senses are the way into your brain, and motor is the way out of your brain. In this altered sensory-motor matrix, what you perceive as a learning disability maybe, quite simply, your (parent / educator’s) lack of perception of a different operating system.
This leads to a vicious cycle:
- Parent / Teacher thinks child does not understand
- Parent / Teacher simplifies information
- Child is frustrated, child is bored, child cannot accurately convey the need for differently worded information or just more complex information.
- Parent / Teacher sees behavior
- Instead of addressing frustration, parent starts “behavior intervention”
- Since no root cause has been addressed, the cycle continues.
Yes, this is overly-simplified.
Yes, there are multiple reasons for a child’s frustration.
But this teaching-boredom-motor-issues-frustration cycle is real, and for many Autistic kids, this struggle is real.
This cycle is broken by a simple mindset change.
Assume Intelligence.
Because
Assumption of Intelligence Reveals Intelligence.
Why? Because you (the parent or educator) break the cycle. And so, now your child has access to meaningful learning.
If you want to hear my story — how breaking this cycle changed my life and my relationship with my non-speaking Autistic teen with Down Syndrome, check out my TedX talk “Who Decides How Smart You Are!”.
