“Shut your face!”; Prioritising, Valuing and Enabling Autistic Children’s Autonomy.

Listen to audio transcription here or scroll down to read

Introduction

This is an article about autonomy and instincts through the lens of being autistic and/or living, working and being alongside autistic people. In the first part of this article I share a story about a very short but significant interaction between myself and a young person I once worked with. This story helps demonstrate the link between the ability and opportunity to follow our instincts and practicing autonomy. This link might not be initially clear or obvious, but I hope this article will change that whilst demonstrating the importance of the relationship between instincts and autonomy from an autistic perspective. The second part of the article covers seven principles that we can use to prioritise, value and enable Autistic Children to practice autonomy.

Autonomy itself is a complex term which can carry many different meanings. Because of this I’m not sure it’s always the best word, but it’s the one I have! The autonomy I’m talking and thinking about here has two parts, both necessary for it to exist, I will define them as;

1. Having access to the knowledge and learning you need to have control over your actions.

2. Your needs and wants having equitable status in your community and wider society.

Handwritten text says "to practice autonomy we need....access to knowledge and learning + our needs and wants to matter". With access to knowledge there are small drawings of a book, a computer screen with 'blog' on it, an adult pointing something out to a child and a young child touching a tree. To demonstrate needs and wants there is a drawing of 4 children in a line, three are standing with mouths open and arms in the air and one is sitting cross legged smiling in ear defenders.

Thinking about instincts

About seven years ago I was sat in the back of a mini-bus full of 8-12 year olds, all of us seemingly tired but wired following a trip to a warehouse full of trampolines. I was chatting away with the child who was sat next to me; reliving top bounce moments, joking and laughing. We got to a part of the story that involved another child who was sat in the seat in front of me, I called out his name to get him involved and, without a moment’s hesitation, he responded loudly and clearly with; ‘Oh, Shut your face!’.

Seven years later I still look back on this often and fondly. To me it’s a story of a young child asserting their autonomy despite existing within cultures and systems that work to suppress it. As an autistic child there are often extra and specific layers to this suppression. For me, understanding this and then being able to support that autonomy begins with thinking about instincts.

Autistic children often get taught to ignore their instincts. When a child is told they must keep their hands still when every part of their body and nervous system is telling them to wiggle them.  When they are told they have to hold hands in a circle with other children even though the sensation is unpredictable and at times unbearable. When they are told ‘not to be silly it’s not that bad’ when a sound or taste is making their head melt and insides shiver. When they are told that if they don’t look someone in the eye then they are not being truthful even when they don’t actually understand how to lie and looking someone in the eye feels sharp and painful. When they are repeatedly seen as being in the wrong socially… told they are being silly or anti-social or unkind because they need space or time or just a bit of positive regard from others because they do things in a non-typical way.

These are all things that happen frequently and can be seen as pretty innocuous to the majority. But these are all things that dismiss the needs and often physically, sensorially and emotionally challenging experiences of the autistic child in systems and environments that aren’t built for them. They happen from an early age and come from many directions, from adults and sometimes children and perhaps most notably within education. As this dismissal and taught-ignoring or supressing continues and happens over and over it builds into something much bigger and becomes the way a child just exists in the world.  

I interpret these acts of dismissal of the child’s instincts as a meeting of two things. Firstly a lack of understanding of the experience of autistic children and secondly, an often unexamined and deep drive for compliance between adult and child. It is often the children whose needs differ the most from the majority that get the most demand for compliance put upon them. Of course there are times when ignoring your instincts might be important, sometimes it’s necessary to stay safe. But this should be the exception not the rule. Being expected to constantly override your body and brain based on someone else’s assumptions and expectations is highly damaging and unnecessary. Particularly so when it happens during the time where you are building the foundations of how you understand and move through the world. Yet this is happening all the time for autistic children.

A child sits on a chair with hands tucked beneath them. They are looking down unhappily and the words 'ahhh i need to move' are written around their body. Red lines emanate from their body representing discomfort. A speech bubble reads 'quiet hands!'

What happens when we teach a child to ignore their instincts?

The child who told me to ‘shut my face’ was joyful, kind and thoughtful. Going to a mainstream school he didn’t have many autistic peers. He was used to bending to others and very concerned with not being ‘annoying’ or upsetting anyone. He remains one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. When we were bouncing off each other he’d sometimes do a double take and say ‘why on earth are we like Monty Python right now’. I suspect his slightly off-piste humour was a useful tool for him socially. He was able go along with things whilst still finding a way to be himself. He would very likely have been described as ‘polite’ and ‘grown up’  by the adults around him… which may have made it difficult for them to see where he struggled and how much he had to work. He was not someone who asserted boundaries for himself. So the “shut your face” came as a pleasant surprise.

So what are the implications of this experience… when a child is taught to ignore their instincts what processes are these children missing out on?

They are missing out on learning how to recognise their instincts and this recognition is what enables us to make connections between our emotions, bodily feelings and actions.

They are not getting to explore what those instincts mean. This exploration is what allows many of us to figure out the differences between wants and needs, weigh up risk and benefit.

Having done that recognising and exploring they are then not getting to express those instincts which is an act that can allow us to feel seen and understood, connect with others through shared wants and needs and gain a deeper understanding of how those needs might clash with others.

They are not getting to follow those instincts, an act that allows us to develop our sense of self, expand our understanding of the world around us, express ourselves freely and genuinely and feel safe and respected. Instead of getting to explore or feel out any of this richness, they learn to ignore them instead.

Doing this repeatedly over a period of time means losing access to all of these processes. I’ve spent time with a lot of fellow autistic adults who are trying to learn them now, often having repeatedly found themselves in vulnerable and damaging situations.

Image shows three drawings of the same child. One where they are stretching their arms out and looking to the side. One where they are playfully jumping and one where they are lay on the ground resting their feet against a wall.

Linking instincts to Autonomy

Here’s why this “Shut your face!” felt so big! For this child it was a product of doing at least some of these things. It happened in a split second but he was recognising what he needed; to not have verbal demands placed upon him. He was able to ascertain that it was safe for him to assert that need and then he was able to express it. In a way I’d never heard or experienced him doing so.

Now, personally I’m not offended by being told to “Shut my face” if, well, someone needs me to shut my face. But I appreciate that this might not be ideal in certain circumstances and to certain owners of faces. Because of that in many situations this child would have been reprimanded… but what is more important here; politeness or a child expressing and asserting a need? If this child had more access to the latter, more positive experience built up over time leading to more opportunity to develop tools and practice using them, then perhaps there would be time to think about the former. But this is not the case for many autistic children. Depending on where that child is starting from it might be appropriate to explore ways to express and assert their needs in ways that are considered more polite or appropriate, and therefore might help them get listened to in certain situations. However the capacity to assert need should be prioritised.

Being able to engage in all these instinct based processes is part of having autonomy. To return to my earlier definition the Autonomy I’m discussing requires the presence of two things;

1.Having access to the knowledge and learning you need to have control over your actions.

2. Your needs and wants having equitable status in your community and wider society.

Autonomy and how we are taught to engage with our instincts are tightly entwined. As such the lens of autonomy is a useful one to use to address the idea of allowing autistic children to engage with their instincts.

How can we approach such a big and broad idea? Often we approach it by thinking about how to ‘give’ autonomy to people. I think this can be a step backwards as a starting point. Autonomy is something that develops within us as we grow and experience life rather than something to be gifted by others. However many people, in this case autistic children, are subject to the systems, structures and people around them actively taking that away. Therefore rather than thinking about ‘giving autonomy’ I feel its more helpful to think about and act from a place of intending not to take autonomy away. This might also look like allowing that autonomy to bloom, giving someone permission in different ways and practicing generosity  in how we relate to people who are going through this process.

I’m going to share seven principles to make space for capacity for autonomy to flourish in autistic children and help prevent us from taking it away. These principles are of course, applicable and useful for all children, but have arisen within specific context of autistic children as I’ve outlined above. A caveat for these is that, there may of course, occasionally be times where these need to be overridden, usually in the case of the safety of the child, but this should be a rare exception.

Image shows the same child twice. On the left they are standing on their tiptoes and stretching their hands upwards smiling. On the right they are sat cross legged reading a book. In the middle their are the words 'if I can move.... I can read and think!'

Seven Principles for Valuing, Prioritising and Enabling Autistic Children’s autonomy

1. Give an ‘out’ whenever possible.

When offering children activity and interaction make sure there is a way for the child to choose not to engage; to say “no” or “not now”. Based on that child’s experience in the world it is not a given that they will automatically be able to do this for themselves and they may need support to figure out how to express these “no’s” and “not now’s”. Or they may be expressing them already and you might need support in being able to recognise what that “no” or “not now” looks like. They might be verbal, touch, gesture, a turning away of the head, a pushing away of an object, sitting on the floor and not moving. The child may have developed “no’s” and “not now’s” that offer challenges to those around them. They may have learnt that adults around them only respond to their “no’s” and “not now’s” when they are aggressive or disruptive or even dangerous. This doesn’t mean we don’t listen. In this case listening is perhaps the first step to helping that child feel safe enough to develop new ways of expressing these needs.

From here it’s important to make sure you leave enough space and opportunity for that child to then use their “no” or “not now”. This might simply be leaving more time between interaction and offerings, it might be a verbal or physical prompt or it might be telling a child what you are going to offer, giving them some processing time and then offering it. There are many possibilities for what this looks like but developing this communication with the child and then paying respectful attention to it is fundamental. It deserves all the time it needs.

2. Don’t offer choice when there isn’t any.

I see this happen a lot, children are verbally offered a choice where the outcome is already set. I think it often comes from a feeling or desire on behalf of the adult to give choice and make sure the child feels heard and respected, but being in an environment when there is not actually much flexibility. For example in a school setting asking a child ‘do you want to come and do maths now?’ in an enthusiastic and cheerful manner when actually, you are saying ‘you need to come do maths now’. (I’m not here discussing whether this should or shouldn’t be how things work that’s a whole other essay!). When that child says “no” and the adult then has to tell them to go do maths now, they experience being seemingly offered a genuine choice and then their choice being ignored. Or perhaps you are supporting a young person out and about and you ask them if they want to “stay in soft play or go get a hot chocolate” when you actually need to leave the soft play but are hopeful or pretty sure they will choose the hot chocolate. If that young person then opts for soft play, again, they’ve seemingly been offered a choice and then had their choice ignored. These may both seem like innocuous low stakes things but as it keeps happening they build into something much bigger and the child expects their choices not to be respected. I’ve also seen this happen on much higher-stakes scales, for example disabled autistic adults being offered a choice about where they might live or spend their time, but this offering of choice is not real.

3. Praise and acknowledge assertion of need- regardless of outcome.

However skilled and comfortable a child is in expressing what they want and need, there will of course be times where they don’t get it. Hopefully this is when we are talking about wants and not fundamental needs. When this happens it can be valuable to acknowledge that this has happened. It can help distinguish these times from ones where their assertions are ignored or missed. You can praise how a child has expressed themselves, be clear that you have understood and also acknowledge that yes, it can really suck when you can’t get what you want. This can be as simple as saying ‘I know that you don’t want to leave the park but we have to right now’ or ‘I can tell you are upset that she doesn’t want to play with you, it’s okay you are upset but you still need to leave her alone’.

4. Focus on enabling children to have control of their bodily and sensory experience.

For a lot of autistic children, the way that their sensory systems work differs from the majority and therefore the ways children are typically encouraged to explore and understand their sensory experience might not work the same way for these children. The world can be a scary place when you experience discomfort, pain, overwhelm or confusion in response to stimuli that others seem to find innocuous, exciting, or pleasurable. Our sensory responses are highly instinctual and are amongst the instincts autistic children are often expected to override or ignore. Being supported to understand and then take steps to make that experience less scary and also open doors to enjoyable and chosen challenging experiences is important in developing autonomy. In order to understand and express our needs we need to feel safe to explore them.

For example, a child who reacts in perhaps challenging, distressed or seemingly unpredictable ways to different noises when out and about might benefit from chances to explore making and listening to different kinds of sounds and noises in a low pressure environment at their own pace. This can then help them, and you, predict and understand what noises to avoid where possible, what noises are manageable if unpleasant, what ways there might be to improve these experiences as well as helping the child to understand noise and how their body reacts to it. It may also change their relationship with certain noises over time. This is not about ‘fixing’ the way they experience noise but giving them tools and opportunities to understand it which can then lead to less painful and upsetting experiences. It is not uncommon that children who really struggle with loud noises can get a lot of fun and enjoyment when they are making those noises themselves. These experiences can then help them cope with the times they are not in control.

5. Explain your ‘no’s, don’t expect children to accept and comply ‘just because’.

Repeatedly telling children “no” and not to do things without ever offering an explanation for why is a very common and unquestioned way that adults relate to children. It feels like a hangover from an era we’ve, in theory, tried to leave behind, where children are taught to be compliant over anything else. Now we value and encourage critical thinking in children in so many areas but still expect them to turn this off when it suits us. The message it gives is confusing, it tells children that their autonomy matters when it is convenient. Often where I’ve worked in mainstream school settings where autistic children are being seen as ‘challenging’ this is something they are pushing against. Sometimes with clear intention and sometimes with a true lack of understanding. A common trait of autistic cognition is an inability or difficulty in doing or learning something without all the information.  Sometimes simply taking the time to offer some explanation for a child when making a demand on them can make a huge difference, reducing a lot of unnecessary friction and restriction of autonomy.

Part of autonomy is also having the chance to make decisions. Children need the information available to do that. Sometimes the explanation of a “no” might be “because it will help me”, “because we don’t have time” or “because it will keep you safe”. Sometimes the explanation might be “I don’t know exactly” and then there might be some reflecting to do about whether a “no” is actually necessary. When telling children ‘no’ for reasons of safety, as well as explaining why I’ve deemed something too dangerous or risky I’ve often added to the explanation that part of my job is to keep that child safe. I find this extra bit of information about why I’m the one telling them “no” is often helpful to the child in processing and understanding why I’m stopping them from doing something and that I’m not just wilfully asserting my dominance!

6. Share your own processes.

Remember that these processes are things you are constantly doing, most likely much more automatically then children you might be interacting with, but not necessarily with ease. A lot of adults, including autistic adults as described above, continually struggle with autonomy. Being aware of how you navigate this for yourself and then, where appropriate, letting children in on your processes can be extremely valuable. It can give permission to those children to do it for themselves, affirm that they are not alone in perhaps finding it a difficult thing to do and provide a model for them to try out. For example, if you’re with a child and encouraging them to try out some messy play and that child is unsure but curious, you can do it alongside them. As you reach into the bucket of jelly or gluck or foam you might narrate it; ‘hmm I’m not sure about this but I want to try it… ooh I like the feel, it’s a bit gross but I like it… its fun but I think I want to be dry now so I’m going to stop and clean myself up’. Or, perhaps a child is asking you probing questions about your appearance (I’m sure this is relatable to many!).  I often get asked about my tattoos and why I have them and a lot of the time children will express that they think they’re a bad idea or will be confused about why I have them… I try to take this opportunity to say that it’s okay if they don’t like them, but I chose to get them because I like the way they make me feel and I enjoy seeing them.

7.Create spaces where children can follow their instincts and interests.

Make sure children have plenty of time and space to explore their instincts, learn about them and play with them. This perhaps most organically comes in the form of affirmative, stimulating and child led play space. Space where children can follow where their attention goes, where they don’t feel pressure to play in a certain way and where they can’t fail, or where failure is part of the fun. The more of this space children have the more they get to practice autonomy and learn what it means for them. The act of preserving and creating this for children as adults also shows them that their instincts and therefore autonomy matters.*

Conclusion

Not taking away a child’s autonomy is a worthwhile and essential aim in itself. But it also frequently will lead to creating nourishing, connective and positive experiences. There’s a scenario I’ve experienced and heard many versions of over the years which demonstrates this beautifully;

You might be spending time with a child over weeks or months and every time you see them you might extend some invitation to interact or communicate with you. Each time, without any clear reason  and in their own way that child will give you a “no”. You respect that no, but don’t let it dissuade you from extending that invitation again in the future. Then, one day, you do as you have many times, likely not expecting anything different, but with no clear reason why, the child gives you a “YES.” Suddenly the relationship shifts and possibilities open up. Where you, as the initiator, might have spent all that time experiencing being repeatedly rejected, that child has experienced being repeatedly listened to. Making sure to not restrict or suppress that child’s autonomy by listening for and then respecting their “no” and then taking steps to enable it by continuing to offer them a choice has created a moment of genuine and chosen connection from which more opportunities can follow and flourish.

*For more on this see my article ‘What we say when we prioritise Inclusive Play https://playradical.com/2020/07/16/what-we-say-when-we-prioritise-inclusive-play/)

Thank you to Sal for her sense-reading and editing help in writing this piece and thank you to every child who, in their own way, has ever told me ‘no’, ‘not now’ or even ‘shut your face’.

Teaspoon- A Guided Sensory Exploration

Transcript:

A guided sensory exploration of a teaspoon

Take your spoon

Whatever your spoon is made from imagine that it was carved with human hands. No tools, just gently shaped over time.

Inspect the spoon; shape, colour, blemishes, texture, reflections, refractions and then bring a part of your body, perhaps a thumb, finger or chin to rest on the concave side.

Start to move that part of your body, across the inner surface.

Back and forth, round and round, you can settle into a rhythm if you find one.

Imagine your movement is shaping the spoon. Minute bits of material are falling away as you carve it into its Best Spoon Self.

The carving is done, now you’re going to polish the surface. Try to follow the surface exactly, applying as little pressure as you can whilst still moving your skin in contact with the spoon.

Take your spoon between two parts of your body, I’m going to use a finger on each hand. One at the tippity top and one at the tippity bottom.

Pick a point somewhere inbetween and start to move the spoon around that point. As you move try to hold the spoon as lightly as possible. As if you’re teaching it how to float.

If you drop the spoon the spoon will forgive you.

Now, bring the spoon to a vertical position. Move one end around in a circle. Try and match the speed of the spoon with the speed of your thoughts. If your thoughts are quicker than spoon moving capabilities, then try and slow them to match the speed of the spoon.

As the spoon moves pick something to pay attention to other than the movement, perhaps the light and reflections or the coolness of the spoon on your skin.  See if that is all you can pay attention too. See if the spoon keeps moving anyway. Start to slow the movement of the spoon and slowly make the circle smaller until the spoon is still.

Now you know your spoon its time to collaborate in an act of balance. Nose, forehead, cheek, chin, elbow, knee. Find a place to place your spoon and hold it there. To unlock ultimate spoon balancing joy hum and smile at the same time.

If you drop the spoon, the spoon will forgive you

What We Say When We Prioritise Inclusive Play.

There are lots of important fantastic reasons to prioritise play for disabled and/or neurodivergent children and young people. I’m sure you can list off a bunch of them without having to think too much; there’s developmental reasons, physical wellbeing, opportunities to develop peer relationships, therapeutic benefits, sensory regulation and educational reasons…

Own Way Own Reasons- photo shows a yellow rubber chicken sellotaped to an office swivel chair. The chicken looks like it’s screaming, but it always looks like its screaming.

But there is one reason that I don’t see come up that often, and I think its perhaps one of the most important. I’m going to use a definition from the Playwork Principles to help explain;

The Playwork principles say when a person is playing, they are

“following their own instincts, ideas and interests in their own way for their own reasons.”

What I take from this is that in play every person is exactly who they need to be. It is the space for all the potential of who a person is; those “instincts, ideas and interests”, with no judgement or pressure or possibility of failure; “in their own way for their own reasons.”

Own Way Own Reasons- photo shows a curb overgrown with weeds, a line of discarded rubbish has been arranged leaning against the curb.

As adults, when we make space, time and create opportunities for children and young people to play we are saying to those children and young people; We value your instincts interests and ideas. We value you.

In fact, we are not just saying; we value you. We are putting it into action.

The thing is, for disabled and/or non-neurotypical children and young people a lot of the world doesn’t do that. A lot of the world can actively oppose that because often those children and young people’s instincts, interests and ideas aren’t even seen let alone valued.

So many disabled and/or neurodivergent children and young people are not seen for who they are. We don’t take the time; we see something else instead or we just don’t know how to look.

Creating space, time and opportunities for these children and young people to play is something we can do to help counteract that experience of not being seen or valued. It can’t erase it, but it can create new, different and better experiences.

Own Way Own Reasons- photo taken inside a darkened room. There is a leaning tent type shelter made off bamboo canes and covered with silver foil blankets. Metallic covered balloons spill out of the shelter. Pool noodles can be seen poking out from the debris.

Putting resources into making all play spaces more inclusive for those children and young people the ones who sit outside of the ‘mainstream’ is therefore incredibly valuable.

Those play spaces can be somewhere where those children and young people are seen, heard and celebrated. Here are just a few of the ways that spaces designed purely for play have so much potential for this;

  • Play spaces can exist outside of the social norms or expectations that can be disabling.
  • They can allow for children and young people to find meaningful activity and meaningful ways of interacting with other people and the world around them.
  • They can be physically accessible in creative and meaningful ways.
  • Children can play alone, play alongside each other and play with others. There doesn’t have to be a hierarchy of social needs.
  • They can feel safe and provide a refuge from an overwhelming confusing world
  • There’s no a correct or more proper way of communicating, moving, feeling… a right way of doing anything.
  • They are places of endless possibility, that means any child should be able to follow “their own instincts, ideas and interests in their own way for their own reasons.”
Own way Own Reasons- a bamboo cane sticks out of a grassy space with an inside out crisp packet hanging on top. There are benches and a building in the background.

Every time we take a step to create the space an individual child needs to play, we show them their value and on some level in some way they internalise that, it becomes part of who they are, part of the way they exist and move through the world.

Perhaps a little to wordy to fit on a top ten ‘reasons for play’ list, but I think it’s the only one we should really need.

Working Towards an Anti-Racist Practice (as a White Practitioner)

“Being antiracist results from a conscious decision to make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily. These choices require ongoing self-awareness and self-reflection as we move through life. In the absence of making antiracist choices, we (un)consciously uphold aspects of white supremacy, white-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society. Being racist or antiracist is not about who you are; it is about what you do.”

– National Museum of African-American History and Culture*

The Black Lives Matter movement has momentum right now. That momentum is built on decades of anti-racist activism and work by Black people.

Racism and specifically anti-Black racism is being talked about more widely than I can ever remember as a white 28-year-old living in Edinburgh, Scotland. This means a lot of, primarily White people, learning a lot very quickly, becoming more politicised and wanting to take action. What is going to hit home soon for people who’ve maybe been less involved in any kind of activism or work around dismantling the deeply embedded prejudices and structural inequalities around us… is that Activism is hard going. It is tiring and the work is never done and what’s more the energy this work takes can feel wildly disproportionate to the time you spend doing it. This only becomes magnified if you are directly affected by those issues at hand.

Everyone has their own limits and abilities and when that is recognised it becomes a strength of any movement. Looking at your own abilities, limits and strengths is key to figuring out how you’re going to make your activism sustainable. Because that’s what we need. When it comes to anti-racism the people who need to be doing the most work are white people which means we need to look at our day to day lives and figure out how we can make anti-racism a consistent part of it.

For me, my practice as Play Radical is a big part of my day to day life and will continue to be. It’s my work, my passion and takes up a large part of my time and energy. So how do I embed anti-racism into it in a long-term way? Here’s the plan I’ve put together:

  1. Talk about race when I do training

I provide training on autism, autistic access and inclusive play. I currently mention race in all of these but, I need to be more informed and explicit. For example in autism training I will talk about how Black autistic people are commonly not diagnosed or often misdiagnosed and how this then affects whether they access the support they might need. But I don’t give enough space to acknowledge or talk this and the many other ways being a person of colour affects a person’s experience of being disabled and/or autistic.  Being the ‘expert’ in this context as the person delivering training it’s easy to decide I don’t know enough to talk more explicitly or make more space for something. There is a two-part solution for this; 1. Learn more, 2. Practice what I preach- forget about experts, lean into any discomfort around the idea of being wrong or not doing something perfectly and make that space regardless.

2. Offer free training to Black-led grassroots and non-government funded organisations.

This ones pretty straightforward. I will be working on a way to formalise this as an offer and figuring out what my capacity is for providing this.

3. Challenge racism in my day to day practice

This applies to both the adults I come into contact with and the children and young people. As well as potentially supporting adults who work with those children. I think it’s worth mentioning that this is something I’ve had to do a lot in the five years I’ve been working with children and young people in Edinburgh and surrounding areas. It something I’ve done with varying degrees of effectiveness and need to continue to work on. At its most complicated in my work this means addressing racism when its displayed as part of behaviours linked to emotional distress; when a child in a state of meltdown uses racial slurs for example. I’ve worked with young white people in the past who’ve done this, where it forms part of a behaviour pattern linked to distress, anger and overload. It is essential to address this and work on it with the young person. It can’t be dismissed as just a given part of ‘challenging behaviour’. That’s not to say it’s not dealt with appropriately and sensitively- it needs to be part of a holistic approach to helping a child manage behaviour and emotions. But it can’t be ignored or dismissed. In my experience this is a long-term ongoing conversation with the young person.

4. Read/research/share work by Black practitioners

This means not assuming that work by Black practitioners, be that research, artwork, blogs etc are not there just because I don’t know about them. It means seeking out that work, paying for that work and using whatever platform I have to share it.

———–

So that’s what I’m working with right now, it’s by no means a perfect plan and is something that I will need to consistently come back to, reflect upon and adjust. But I wanted to share it to encourage and support other people who want to do better, or more but aren’t sure how. Whatever roles you have in life, wherever you live, whatever work you might do there will be away to integrate active anti-racism into your life.

To my fellow playworkers, artists, community workers and educators what can you do to embed anti-racism in your practice? Are you feeling stumped? Confused? Helpless? Drop me an email and we can talk it through. I also very much welcome any feedback and suggestions you might have on what I’ve shared here.

“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” 

– Ijeoma Oluo**

The image featured in this article is from Jen White Johnson who can be found here https://jenwhitejohnson.com/ and @jtknoxroxs on instagram and twitter.

*from the ‘Talking about Race’ resource at  https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/being-antiracist

** learn more about Ijeoma Oluo here http://www.ijeomaoluo.com/writing

Play Diary: Cups

Stackable re-usable paper or plastic cups are a favourite of mine to introduce into a space. They’re recognisable but novel; especially in large numbers or unexpected contexts. They’d be easy to dismiss but offer up endless possibilities. This play diary is made up of observations from various sessions where I’ve bought cups into the space. They vary from big groups on a school playground to small groups in a classroom to one to one sessions in all sorts of settings with all sorts of children and young people.

First there comes towers. Not always, but often. Build up knock down build up knock down.

For some that’s a perfect formula, they continue in one way until they’re done, alone or in groups, this might take two minutes it might take forty-five. For others the first tower is just launch point.

Build up knock down.

There are always more ways to build a tower. There are always more ways to knock it down. There’s every way you can get from one point to another and then there are ways that don’t care for those two points at all.

Photo shows a 17 storey high circular cup tower in a large gym hall. It is made up of clear plastic cups. On the ground behind the tower lies a stuffed toy shark and several small red cups.

Sam keeps reminding herself to breathe and talking about how she can’t believe how much fun she’s having as she aims her tower for the ceiling.

Jamie doesn’t seek to build high, he builds wide; not towers but apartments and a public transport system.

Ethan doesn’t see a cup at all, he sees a new material to work with and fetches some scissors.

Jake is an all-powerful Crusher of Cups. We build a ‘crushing zone’ so his flavour of destruction can exist alongside his peers’ less permanent versions.

Zoe says she “knows what we’re meant to do!” but she soon forgets the “meants” of it all and lays on the ground looking at the sky through a cup telescope.

Cass is just not that interested at present.

Lou fills a cup with water, drops some bouncy balls in and spends the next ten minutes trying to seal it up. Eventually there is so much blue masking tape involved you can’t see the water or the balls. They’re pretty happy with their creation.

Finley creates a very complicated game, with very complicated rules which she explains excitedly at length.

For Rishi I’m his collaborator and competitor interchangeably; I hand him cups as he stands precariously on his tiptoes to build or I work to stack up cups quicker than he can knock them over.

Eagan holds up a stack and slowly s l o w l y lets one at a time fall through his hands onto the floor. He’s delighted by his level of control and the slow rhythmic drop.

How many cups can you balance on your body at once? What’s the sound of 100 cups falling in an empty hall?  Did you know if you have enough cups in one stack you can wiggle them about like some kind of cup-worm?

To me cups are the perfect example of how, when it comes to creating opportunities for play, there is no such thing as ‘too simple’ or ‘not enough’. Also, in a push, they can actually be useful for drinking from!

A Playful Manifesto- Now available online!

A refreshingly short blog post today as i’m sharing some news! My illustrated Call to Play is now available online to view. One of the first posts on Play Radical was the first version of this piece of writing and I’m so excited to share this update, it also features a series of my drawings and all adds up to something I feel pretty happy about!

There will soon be printed copies of available for purchase (I’ll be keeping the cost as low as i can). If you’re interested in securing a copy ahead of time please feel free to drop me and email at playradical@outlook.com, otherwise keep an eye on my website/social media for updates!

Communal Space as an autistic person or: What’s the big deal about other people?

For a long time I didn’t really understand what the big deal was about being with other people. Yes, they could be funny, kind and interesting. But frankly, as far as I was concerned, I was already all of those things for myself. The other people bit, especially when there was more than one, just felt like a chore, something that was just part of being alive, something I had to get through so that I could be alone again. That might sound very sad to some people, they might think I’m describing a pretty lonely life, but to be lonely you have to feel like your missing something, and for a long time I didn’t. I had nature, knowledge and creativity and that was good.

As I got older things did start to change a little, I did start to want company, not all the time and I don’t think I needed it in the way a lot of my peers seemed to, but I did want it, want something. I had friendships throughout my childhood and adolescence, and these were really important and valuable to me but, especially as an older child and teenager, they often didn’t feel like they were mine.

Growing up autistic in a primarily non-autistic world means constant compromise. There’s the more surface level compromise; just doing things you don’t want to do or understand the point of, but don’t really hurt you in any way (in my case putting down a book or a project from time to time and looking at a person). Then there are the deeper compromises, the ones that aren’t always told to you, but you somehow learn. Suppressing the way your body wants to move, talking differently, learning how to answer people’s questions in the way they want you to and not the way that makes sense to you. Not looking too closely, not being too weird not being annoying or boring or repetitive. Compromises that, feel pretty one directional and ultimately just mean ‘be a different person’, don’t be autistic.

When you do this for long enough you lose the memory, the feeling of who you even are. It seems to be quite common for people like me, who get diagnosed or get an understanding of themselves as being autistic when they’re an adult, to go through a pretty significant change in how they behave. This can be in very fundamental ways like how they express themselves and how they relate to others. To the people around that person it may feel like the persons changing into someone else, but to the person themselves it feels like becoming. It’s just figuring out what’s your instinct, what inherent to who you are and what is the result of so much time and energy going into trying to be someone else.

I went through this, it was exhausting, and I’m probably not quite done yet. It’s been profound, confusing, overwhelming, sad and joyful. Often all at once. There are many things that have surprised me but perhaps the most significant of these was what was figuring out what was at the core of my lifelong confusion and difficulty with company, friendships and community. And it wasn’t that there was something just deeply wrong with me as I’d always feared. It’s actually very simple:

You can’t make meaningful connections with other people when you’re not being yourself.

Of course in practice it’s not simple at all. In the context of our culture and society it’s very difficult because the ways of being that are valued and held up as proper and even truly human tend to be very neurotypical ways of being (they also intersect with race, gender and class*). The way we’re meant to talk to each other, the way spoken language is held up as the truest way of communicating, the way we’re meant to sit and look each other in the eye, the things we’re meant to enjoy, how we should sit back and be entertained, respect a social hierarchy and value different kinds of relationships over others.  And most poignant to me, the way we’re meant to play and experience art.

Access to communal space and experience is a matter of inclusion in the broadest sense. In my life I repeatedly see people who genuinely want to be inclusive, in their playgrounds, their classrooms, their community group, their theatres or art’s events. But they just miss the mark, they tick all the boxes for making spaces accessible but they’re not truly inclusive. And I’ve begun to recognise that part of that is they’re missing something from their understanding of what a shared or communal space or experience is. It’s can’t simply be a space to be with others, but…

A true communal space or experience is one where people can be themselves, together.

This means we need to acknowledge that for a lot of people in society that ‘being themselves’ isn’t something that comes easy. It’s also often not something they can do alone. In talk about how disabled or autistic people need to be ‘part of the community’ people fail to acknowledge that ‘the community’ isn’t a neutral thing. It didn’t form of its own accord with fixed rules and expectations. We all create and maintain them. And some people have more power and ability to influence this then others.

A true communal space is life changing. It’s motivating, it’s energising, it makes you feel valued. I feel it most when I spend time with other autistic people and feel free of needing to censor myself or change who I am. But I should be able to do this in the wider world too. I meet children who’ve maybe never even been able to do this, being with other people is still just something difficult, painful and suffocating. They are constantly compromising and it exhausts them. But it doesn’t have to be this way and i don’t think they should have to wait until their an adult to figure that out. We can work to create these spaces for them as well as ourselves. For me this is about my role as a playworker and artist in helping create these spaces with and for others. It’s also about giving myself permission to seek out those spaces for myself. For you it might be in your role as an educator, manager, arts programmer or maybe your role as a parent, carer, friend or neighbour. I hope reading this has reminded you or the value of that work and perhaps given you another way of thinking about it.

Connecting with people meaningfully means being able to do so as yourself. Creating a communal space means allowing people to be themselves together. How can you do this for yourself and others today?

Untangling “Consulting” with Children

I’ve recently had the opportunity to expand my practice into what was a new area for me; consulting with children.  In some ways it wasn’t new area at all; ongoing consultation with children is a part of my everyday practice; I’m always seeking to get to know the children I’m working with and learning about their interests and needs and, if you work with children you likely do this too, perhaps without even thinking about it in those terms. But when we talk about a “Consultation” we do mean something slightly different, and those differences can make it feel like a whole new and intimidating task.

A Consultation differs from those everyday inquiries in two key ways. Firstly you are seeking specific information within a specific time frame and secondly you are bringing in an outside agenda to your interactions with the children.

Thinking about how to do this in an effective and non-tokenistic way bought up a whole set of questions:

How do you consult with children in a meaningful way, for the children involved and in terms of your agenda?

How do get information that genuinely comes from the child?

How do you communicate what you want from them and… What are you actually asking?

Throughout this work I’ve thought about, explored and discussed these questions and have come up with a few different ways of trying to answer them. These ideas have informed the sessions I’ve designed and facilitated for children and young people so far. These have been for a few different organisations and have been largely focused on hospital waiting spaces and how the child’s experience of this space could be improved but has also been relevant to some work I’ve been doing with a group of children around the play spaces in their school.

When I put all this together I come up with something like a work in progress methodology! Here’s what it looks like:

1.Interrogate your Agenda!

This is my starting point. I notice two big assumptions that we tend to make, especially when asking big or complex questions. And this kind of self-interrogation can help avoid both.

The first is simply that we assume that we know exactly what we’re asking or looking for from an interaction when actually we tend to pile up a lot of superfluous information without even thinking about it.

The second is perhaps a little more complex. It’s when we assume that the people we’re communicating with have all the tools to interpret what we are saying in the way we are saying it. People tend to find it quite easy to switch their communication or language style for younger children, but, when it comes to slightly older children and teenagers’ I’ve seen adults get a bit stumped. It may be that they’re self-conscious or nervous in front of an audience who so often get a bad rep, but I also think there’s an element of conflating explaining things clearly and simply with ‘talking down’ to people. Which isn’t necessarily true.

I start by breaking down what I’m thinking and talking about into as few key concepts as possible. In a consultation this is likely to take the form of questions. If you can keep these key concepts at the centre of what you do and say, then you can make it relevant for any group. Start simple and then build on that if necessary, but often, you don’t need to do this in a formal way. The building and going deeper comes from the unplanned interactions you have during the process.

I find that creating a graphic breakdown is a good way of going through this thinking process myself, and, it’s also a valuable tool for supporting communication and understanding for the children you are working with. For children with learning difficulties and/or cognitive and language impairments having visual communication support can also be essential for access. I draw, so have a nice easy way to do this, but putting together some photos or symbols works just as well, and possibly better in some contexts

Visual Story explaining the purpose of a consultation on Waiting Spaces in hospitals

2. Find ways to make abstract ideas tangible

If you’re asking children to think about something that they can’t see, or touch or hear in that physical space then find a way to link it to something they can see, touch or hear. When you ask someone questions about how they experience something or how they want to experience something then you’re asking them to tap into their instincts about feeling and doing. That’s difficult to do just through thinking, especially for children. For consultations I did around waiting spaces in hospitals I created a ‘waiting space’ in the room using plastic sheets and chairs, it wasn’t particularly complex and wasn’t as effective perhaps as being in the actual space, but it made the idea of a physical space where your sit and wait more tangible to the children in the room. They could pretend that space was a waiting room and then think about what it should be like rather than do all that in their head. My thinking is that this will encourage more authentic responses.

A temporary “Waiting Space” created in a classroom

3. Get them doing

An unfamiliar adult asking a group of children questions, especially when they might be introducing quite new or complex ideas, is potentially quite an intimidating figure. If the children feel under pressure to please or say the right thing, they’re less likely to give genuine responses. Getting the children doing something, and even joining them in that task can help ease that pressure. When children (and probably adults too!) are engaged in a practical and/or creative task you have an opportunity to ask questions and tease out information in a more natural way. The activity/tasks will come from the ideas you’re consulting on, this is an opportunity to be creative and playful. Focus on getting the children engaged in something first and then, when they’re a bit more comfortable you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions.

4. Have multiple ways of participating

Following on from the ‘getting them doing’ point, that ‘doing’ needs to have multiple entry points or ways of engaging. Different children will participate and communicate ideas and feelings in different ways. Building this into your session creates a more inclusive environment as it allows you to facilitate a space with children/young people with a range of needs and abilities.  To do this you can think about scale, perspective and ways of expressing self. If you have a big collaborative creative activity planned you an also set up a smaller version that a children can work on alone or take to a quieter area. If you have an activity planned using written words and images, make sure there’s also an option for children to draw or even record their voices (most smart phones have the ability to record audio). Some children will stick to one thing throughout and really commit to and enjoy it. Some will try everything systematically and some with jump erratically between everything. Having different options and flexibility will make your sessions generally more interesting and stimulating but it could also enable a child to participate who wouldn’t have participated at all if there was only one option that just didn’t fit for their way of thinking or communicating.

Sheet of paper with the words “I want to” written across the top, someone has responded by drawing several bright coloured shapes. You can just make out some writing near the bottom.

5. Ask questions based on the children’s actions

Pay attention to what the children are doing in your session and how they’re interacting with the activity and ideas. Then ask questions based on this and listen to their answers! It’s easy to be really focussed on that information you’re trying to get but it’s more likely to come out in the flow of a conversation where both parties are engaged and listening than an interrogation. Link their answers to what you are consulting about for further questioning.  Always start at the simplest level and then go deeper/more complex as appropriate depending on the child.

It might look something like this;

You: Wow, I love all these animals! Is that a dog you’re drawing?

Child: Yeah, its my dog from home

You: Ahh, do you think people would like to see a picture of your dog?

Child: yes! Animals make people feel happy

It might stop there, or, depending on what your consulting on there might be an opportunity to take it further and investigate that child’s motivation or thought process. But I think you’re more likely to find those genuine bits of insight through this kind of questioning. Which leads nicely to point number six…

6.Prioritise authentic responses over amount of information.

This one is pretty straightforward but is maybe one of the hardest to do, our adult under-pressure instinct can be to push for as much information as possible but try and keep this in mind. You’re there for the children’s ideas and input whatever that is! Record everything as truly and thoroughly as you can but don’t focus on quantity at the expense of authenticity. I’ve also found that things that have maybe not seemed that directly ‘useful’ at the time later become an important part of a bigger picture. It’s also a part of respecting the children you are working with which leads nicely into my final point…

7. Be honest

Find an honest and clear way to explain what it is you plan to do with the information the children are giving you. This is important form an ethical perspective alone but also, if you’re looking for authentic responses from children then this needs to be an honest exchange both ways to work. This is also an opportunity to let the children know that you value their input and ideas.

I wanted to share these to hopefully help others working on consulting with children, but, equally, to open up a conversation. This is still a very new area to me, but it feels exciting and I’m keen to learn and explore more. I’d love to hear from anyone reading this about their thoughts and experiences. Comment below or drop me an email at playradical@outlook.com

Autistic Nuances; A personal perspective

This month I wanted to write something a little different.April is a month of ‘Autism Awareness’ campaigns; the good, the bad and theconfusingly misguided. I am fully behind those who call for this month to beabout acceptance not awareness. I hope celebration will follow, and then, oneday, maybe our society and culture will function in a way that doesn’t needsuch declared months because access and inclusivity will be an intuitive part of how we live. In the meantime however, I want to share with you a bit of my personal experience.

I’ve had various mental health and neurological diagnoses, official and unofficial, throughout my life. The one that makes most sense to me, has been the most helpful and has helped me understand myself in relation to the world around me is Autism Spectrum Disorder. This often surprises people, but it shouldn’t. If there was a better general understanding about what Autism actually is, it wouldn’t. Key to this is the fact that one thing autism is, is a diagnosis and by that definition; a list of criteria that a group of people meet. But this will never fully describe or explain those people in all their complexity and individuality. So today I want to share with you a different kind of list, this one is incomplete and messy; it’s not a list of positives or negatives, just truths about the way I experience the world with my flawed and fantastic autistic brain. They’re all things that I’ve noticed that I share with other autistic people and I’ve become aware of as ways I often differ from non-autistic folks in my life. I hope this will give you a little insight into what Autism can mean, at least, for me.

Content warning for brief mentions of self harm and attempted suicide.

Pattern

Pattern feels like a sense to me. My brain is constantly finding links between things, figuring out how they fit together, figuring out if there is a different way they fit together. I can sort through a lot of information quickly and pick out what’s important. This means I tend to spot things other people don’t. This makes me good at analysing and problem solving. It also means I can really struggle to ‘let things go’ when it would probably be the healthier thing for me to do, because if something feels out of place, like it’s not connecting right, I need to find out why. I can also become overly preoccupied with the Big Ideas and forget about the real people making up the components. I’ve noticed recently that I can often spot the missing piece of information that is causing someone not understand something. I feel a wonderful sense of calm and contentment in moments where I feel I’ve solved something or helped someone in this way and I get a brief glimpse of the way everything is connected.

[digitally drawn image of the top half of a face wearing glasses and a baseball cap looking up at an abstract composition of circles and lines. The image has a bright orange background with bit of blue, yellow and brown]

Strong feelings

I rarely feel neutral about anything, ever. I have deep seated instincts and feelings about things most consider arbitrary; which bus seat should I sit in, what colour should something be, what the right order to unload a draining board is. I find it hard to wrap my head around the idea of feeling neutral about something. Perhaps a lot of this is related to that strong internal sense of pattern, I think it’s also just about being very present and aware in my environment and a need to find ways to manage all that sensory input. As well as those everyday ‘non-important’ things I have a lot of Big Emotions too. Overwhelmingly so. I never just feel ‘meh’ about a conversation I’ve had; insteadI might feel overflowing with joy and excitement, giddy, utterly baffled orinfuriated. When I meet someone I immediately like or dislike them and,especially with the latter, then have to work very hard to put my initial assessment on hold and get to know someone. It will often take me a long time to unpick the subtleties of what I’m feeling and understand it as I’m usually initially just overwhelmed by its Bigness. It’s kind of like looking at a map of the world and being able to see big shapes and bright colours but not being able to read any of the words of symbols.

Access to joy

This partially comes under the “Strong Feelings” but it deserves a mention on its own because I think this is one of the best things about being autistic. I can find joy anywhere and everywhere both internally and externally. I don’t really get “bored” in the same way lots of people seem to because I don’t need something to do. Just being and thinking and moving give me so much. Looking at pictures of things I love can immediately transport me; I have a collection of postcards which I can look through over and over again. I can watch through scenes of movies in my head, often just the equivalent of a 10 second clip (that bit in ET where Gertie and ET meet for the first time and there’s all that screaming is never too far from my mind and brings me so much joy). I play with words and phrases in my head and laugh to myself, I wonder about and spot accidental and maybe ugly-to-most compositions of concrete, metal, road markings and colour in my city environment and feel full of light and beauty. Whilst I have a lot of people in my life who I love to spend time and share with I don’t need someone else to feel all this, and it’s pretty much always in reach.

[digitally and poorly drawn image of E.T. screaming with hands up. The words ‘Pure Joy’ are written in blue arched above E.T. The background is yellow.]

Food

Food is a consistent ongoing stress for me. It combines sensory issues, organisation and recognising and responding to my body’s cues. Sometimes the idea of eating a certain food that is usually fine will suddenly feel ridiculous and impossible. Sometimes I get restricted to only eating certain foods (cereal for every meal anyone?). Sometimes I really enjoy food, which makes it all themore frustrating when I’m struggling to manage all this. I find it hard to knowhow much I need to eat so eat to much or not enough and I also struggle with gastro-health in a general non-descript way which is probably exacerbated by all this and a partial cause at the same time. Going out for dinner with people to a place I don’tknow or can’t look at the menu for online is really challenging. If someonereaches to take something off my plate in a communal food situation, I can’t handle it because I’m probably putting a lot of energy and thought into processingwhat I need to eat and then someone’s gone and thrown in a variable out of my control.To summarise, food is hard, and messy metaphorically. If its messy literally too that’s probably going to cause me a few more issues!

Self-destruction

This is a tricky one and perhaps is a lot more to do depression but the way I experience it is definitely impacted by autism and it’s very common for autistic people to have mental health diagnoses such as depression and anxiety. I can get very low very quickly, over time I’ve come to learn these drops are closely linked to overwhelming sensory input or a knock-on effect of having to work really hard to be around people in ways that feel unnatural to me. I can suddenly go from things feeling mildly stressful but manageable to desperately trying to will myself out of existence. This can then manifest into self-harm thinking or general impulses towards self-destructive behaviour. I’m at a point in my life where I’m not in danger during these times, I know how to look after myself and understand that it will pass. In this sense I think it’s maybe different to ‘typical depression’. My depressive type episodes are a direct symptom of dealing with the world as an autistic person.

[digitally drawn image, the background is dark grey and the image is made up of multiple overlapping arrows in black, grey and white pointing inwards to an empty spot in the middle of the image]

Crisis

I’m pretty good to have around in a crisis. If something bad happens, something with a big emotional impact, I won’t break down, I won’tneed to ask why or need immediate answers instead I’ll be able to simply lookat ‘what needs to be done’. I think this is possibly one of those things that feeds the autistic lack of emotion idea, but that’s not what it is. I often geta delayed emotional reaction to things like loss and danger. Here’s an example;a couple of years ago a member of my family attempted suicide. For me, and most around this person it apparently came out of nowhere. I spent two weeks looking after this person, partly alone, dealing with supporting the person emotionally, physically and logistically. I was able to do this whilst other family members went into denial, became too emotionally overwhelmed to doanything or just panicked. I don’t for a second think badly of those people for their reactions, especially because my not having those reactions wasn’t difficult or something I had to consciously think about; it’s just not how I work. A few weeks later, when things were settled down a little and I was back home, I was hit by all of the feelings all at once. I found myself unable to move for sadness.

Connection withnature

This poem I wrote explains this one best:

under your guidance

I breathe light

my heart

shoots out roots

and anchors

I never feel more content then when I’m alone with nature. I feel safe and comforted by plants, trees, animals, waves and rocks. I’ve call trees my ‘optimism catalyst’. Most of the times I remember crying in the last few years have been when I’ve been stood with trees and feeling like we’re part of each other.

[digitally drawn image shows a simple figure with arms wrapped around the trunk of the tree. The person is smiling with eyes gently closed. ]

Knowledge as lovelanguage

I recently read an article about autism* which described knowledge as a love-language of autism and the idea resonated strongly with me.When I talk about meaningful interaction for autistic people in my work I describe how autistic people often connect with people through sharing their experienceof the world rather than their experience of each other. Sharing knowledge,whether that’s talking about things I love, showing someone one of my favourite films or pieces of art, or interacting with them through something I’ve created is my main way of showing love and connecting with people.

* https://blogs.psychcentral.com/aspie/2019/03/271/

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Our ‘awareness’ month may be coming to an end but to all my fellow autistic people, auties and aspies I see and appreciate you all.

Playful Communication Part 3: Wordplay

Previously I’ve written about the importance of recognising and valuing different forms of communication and the need for us to allow for expressive as well as functional communication. In this piece I’m going to take a specific look at language as a form of expressive communication and in particular what this can look like in the play of autistic people.

In troduction

For most people language as a form of expression is something that is encouraged; writing poetry, prose and music is not only valued and celebrated but considered an act that is essentially human. This is often forgotten when it comes to autistic children where “non-functional” language can get brushed aside by surrounding adults as not meaningful, worth listening too or in some cases even seen as damaging to the child. But autistic people should be allowed and encouraged to enjoy and play with language just as their neuro-typical peers are. In trying to prevent this use of language we are denying an individual a culturally and historically significant part of being human. I would also argue that playing with language is one way in which it can become meaningful to an individual. Therefore as people are most comfortable and content when able to communicate in a way that is meaningful to them, limiting this playing with language is only going to hinder their ability to communicate and be heard.

Some words

Before I jump in, I want to define a few words I’m going to be using in the rest of this essay, these are words commonly used by autistic people, allies, parents and professionals alike. The basic meanings people use don’t tend to vary that much but the way people approach or understand each one does. These definitions won’t be exhaustive but will hopefully give you an understanding or what I mean when I use these words.

Stimming

This word comes from ‘stimulatory’ in “self-stimulatory behaviour”. It’s not just autistic people who do this, but we tend to do it particularly often and it can fulfil many different functions. We also do it fantastically well. It can help regulate the senses, manage anxiety or other difficult emotions, be a part of feeling excited or joyful or be done simply because it feels good. Stimming usually takes the form of a repetitive behaviour that engages one or more of the senses such as rocking, jumping, hand flapping and humming.

Echolalia

This is a form of communication where someone repeats phrases or words they’ve heard. It can be immediate; you might say to a child “do you want to go on the swing” and they might say “swing” back to mean yes, where another child, not using echolalia, might just say “yes”. Or it can be delayed, with phrases or words repeated back moments, hours, days later. This could be because they’ve been processing what was said during that delay, or they might be using what was said before to convey meaning in that present moment. Either way it might look like the child coming up to you an hour later and saying, “do you want to go on the swing” and meaning “I want to go on the swing can you push me.”

Scripting

There are two main kinds of scripting, echolalic scripting and social scripting, although they cross over. Social scripting is using learned or repeated phrases to navigate social situations. The kind I’m going to be talking about here is echolalic scripting which I would describe as where echolalia and stimming meet. People will use lines from films, tv shows, books, songs, conversations they’ve had or overheard to ‘script’ with. They may repeat long streams of dialogue or a short bit over and over. This can be for enjoyment, self-expression or as a way of engaging with someone. It’s common for people to draw on a bank of learned phrases or dialogue (‘scripts’) which they associate with a certain emotion or situation when they find themselves experiencing that emotion or situation.

Now let’s get into the serious play stuff.

In Play

[colourful line drawing showing two children, one is half way through saying “knock knock” and the other has just shouted “batman!”]

Poop Jokes for President

Of the 16 play types described by play theorist Bob Hughes, what I’m talking about here fits best, although not quite snugly, into the category of ‘Communication Play’. Hughes defines this as;

 “play using words, nuances or gestures for example, mime, jokes, play acting, mickey taking, singing, debate, poetry”.

 You know how some kids just love to talk about poop, sing about poop and call you a poop? That’s a form of communication play. Ever had the pleasure of listening in on a bunch of kids making up format-defying knock-knock jokes? Also communication play. What about the kid in a corner talking to the puppet on his own hand? Communication play! (also; me for the first year of secondary school). When I talk about playing with language, I am referring to a kind of communication play which, when seen through an autistic lens can fracture into multitudes of shapes and forms.

In spite of their wonder and complexity these forms of playing with language often go unnoticed or dismissed; especially when the adult’s viewpoint is skewed by the “functional language only” bias discussed above. If a child who uses language isn’t using words to communicate in the acceptable or ‘correct’ way, then it can be presumed they are doing that out of ignorance. When actually, they may be using their words exactly as they intended, you just don’t have the tools to recognise or to interpret it.

To help with this, I’m going to take a look at some of those shapes and forms of autistic wordplay that I’ve observed and experienced.

Talking as Stimming

Have you ever observed someone rolling a word around their mouth like a gobstopper? Most recently a conversation I was having with a young person came to a standstill as the word “booth” caught them. They elongated it, dragging out the ooooh and shortened it, expelling it like a cough. They altered the pitch wobbling it in the middle, smiled and giggled. This is where talking can be a form of stimming; more about sensing than communicating. Try it now; take a word and say it out loud, say it in your head whilst imagining saying it out loud, mouth it, taste it, spit it out quickly, stick out your tongue with it balanced right on the tip, almost falling… pull it back in, explore the entire surface, look for hidden cracks and fractures, get inside and discover what it’s really made off. Imagine doing all off this and not feeling silly or self-conscious, imagine this being something that brings you immense joy and satisfaction and then being made to feel silly or self-conscious.

[colourful line drawing with three variations of the same face saying ‘booth’. One looks up to the sky and whistles it, another sticks their tongue out and another shouts it]

As stimming can be used to fulfil a range of different needs talking as stimming is not always going to be about play, but it can be, particularly when the person stimming is relaxed and if they are happily responsive to or engaged in someone else joining in. What may start as stimming as a reaction to anxiety about being in a busy playground may become playful as it enables the child to relax and then morph into a part of the child’s play as they try out new words perhaps ones which relate to that which is happening around them. A child may smile and squeal as another speeds past them on a scooter a little closer than expected, and then beginning vocally stimming, saying ‘oh dear watch out oh dear watch out oh dear watch out” over and over again. To an outsider, based on the words and repetition alone, it may seem like the child is distressed but actually it might be a humorous comfortable and playful reaction.  If the above scooter-scenario happened to me right now I can guarantee my brain would shout ‘shocked and appalled, shocked and appalled, shocked and appalled.’ Just typing this is making heart is beating a little faster and a goofy smile appear on my face. It’s very unlikely I would actually be shocked and appalled, but this phrase is something my brain always goes too, likely because it amuses me. When I’m on a playground most of the time I would resist saying this aloud but if it was a child I knew, who also stim-talks I probably would, and it might become a playful exchange.

Scripting Anarchy

Anyone whose spent enough time around autistic people will probably have had the same conversation over and over again. Or will at least think they have. It might be exchanging the same few lines of dialogue from an episode of Thomas the Tank or it might be lines that you’ve learnt from the other person over time from an obscure sci-fi movie you’ve never actually seen. Someone might have a set of questions they ask again and again to get the same answers from you. Much like talking as stimming there is no one reason people do this, but it can be a part of play or a way into play with another person. It can also be a way to establish communication with someone to enable a different kind of play, or an invitation to bring someone else into the script.

When at its most playful this kind of scripting becomes subtly anarchic. You may find yourself in what you think is the same conversation but if you pay close attention there are small changes being made, little explorations and experiments. It may be the words themselves or the way they are delivered. The more you get to know someone the more you might find you can introduce a little anarchy yourself, you might change a word or mix in another concept. If the other person isn’t ready for this, they may well ignore it, that’s okay. A young person I know scripts with SpongeBob Square pants and a lot of the time they will ignore if I try to introduce a deviation. But on occasion, when they loudly sing “who lives in a pineapple under the sea” and I reply “Winnie the Pooh” (to the SpongeBob tune) it stops them in their tracks. They’ll give me a look that says; ‘challenge accepted’, and then we’re playing. We go back to the beginning of the script, both curious about what’s going to happen next, this time when I respond “SpongeBob square pants” it’s somehow funnier than the deviant version. This can go on and on and build and build. Imagine phrases and words as building blocks that are being stacked higher and higher in a tower; they can be knocked down suddenly, pushed slowly, intentionally picked up and placed upside down as an experiment to see if they will remain standing. The anticipation of a fall and element of surprise is part of the fun, but so is the different ways you can build, different colour and shape combinations. I’m not quite sure how to cram humour into this metaphor. But that’s there too, some of those blocks are real comedians.

[line drawing featuring a person in the corner with a concentrated look holding out a small building block. next to them towers a stack of different coloured blocks with scrawls on them.]

Audio collaging

For me this is the ultimate form of autistic word play. It can involve everything I’ve already written about here and so much more. It’s a perfect example of the idea of the sum being greater than the parts. The parts are those echolalic words and phrases, bits of scripting, intonation, pitch, speed, mutations, hums, shouts and whispers. The sum is a kind of audio-collage that contains all these parts but is heightened and expanded by the interactions between them. This can be solo play or collaborative. When it’s collaborative it’s neither monologue or dialogue but something else altogether. The player(s) will cut and paste concepts together, looping, repeating and rearranging. From the outside this might seem inscrutable or completely random, but it’s likely neither if you’re able to tune in; something that will take a lot of time, listening and detecting for most.

There are a few things that fuel this kind of play; sharing and exploring particular interests or ideas, making connections, playing with social conventions and expectations and humour.  The interest is often what starts the play off; chat about trains, Dora the explorer, road signs. Things which may seem mundane to someone who doesn’t share that interest but are a source of joy and inspiration to the individual. The connections are made through that out of the box or unexpected thinking, referencing another interest in an unexpected way. Exploring and discovering connections between things is something that is pleasing to many autistic people. When it comes to social conventions, despite popular belief, it’s not always the case that autistic people don’t recognise social conventions, often they just don’t see the point of following them or doing so causes stress and discomfort. For a child who spends all day at school trying to follow other people’s rules that aren’t intuitive to them, coming up with different answers to the questions “how are you” and acting it out with someone over and over might be very enjoyable.  Finally humour, perhaps the hardest thing to try and explain, because our personal sense of humour so intuitive. But there is definitely an anarchic, surreal and abstracted sense of humour that a lot of autistic people share and that can be a key part of this kind of play.

[Colourful line drawing of a person happily flapping their hands as different squiggles and shapes fly out of their mouth like fireworks. There is even a little surfer riding a yellow wave]

In Practice

If these are new ideas to you, well, that was probably a lot to take in. So I want to leave you with a few simple things you can keep in mind to facilitate and enable this kind of play and creativity.

Coping with repetition

A lot of people find repeated conversation, particularly questions annoying. If you feel that way then that’s okay, you’re definitely not alone. What is not okay is to treat the person who communicates and plays in this way as a nuisance. If you can’t engage then find a way to be honest about that, it might mean simply saying; “I’m sorry, I can’t do questions at the moment”. It may feel blunt or insensitive but its more damaging to act as if the person has done something wrong by ignoring them, talking over them or doing things like rolling your eyes and tutting. Feeling like the way you instinctually communicate, or play is wrong is extremely damaging to the individual. It’s also good to remember that autistic people spend a lot of time adapting to the way non-autistic people communicate and being expected to do so without question.

AAC & expressive communication

When someone uses a method of adaptive and augmentative communication (AAC), such as sign, sign assisted speech, pecs or a digital text to speech programme, the focus on making sure they use it correctly- where correctly means functionally- tends to be even heavier than with speech. Remember that they may use it for expressive communication too and they should be allowed to do this.

SpongeBob Who-Pants?

There’s a really easy way to engage and play with someone who communicates using echolalia and scripting; learn what they are talking about! It’s all already out there for you, often just a YouTube search away. Learn who Patrick or Peppa or Dora or Oliver is. (pink talking starfish best pal of SpongeBob SquarePants, Pig, Spanish speaking young girl with monkey friend, train friend of Thomas). Seeing a kids face light up when they realise you understand something about this world that they love and understand through is pure joy.

In Conclusion

Language can be a tool of play as well as pure communication, the term ‘word play’ is familiar to most of us, but the fact that it can mean so much maybe isn’t. Next time you come across a chid stim-talking, scripting and collaging… slow down, listen and see if you can tune in. If you’re lucky you might even get an invitation to join.