[Quick Tip] How to Embrace Special Interests & See More Progress
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Why do we often shut down autistic children’s special interests?
Unfortunately, so often we really shut down an autistic child's special interests, those high focused areas that they're really interested in, their deepest passions. We often shut them down. And that's because that's something that we were taught. We were taught, you know, you have to talk about different topics of conversation. You can't talk about one thing too much. And that led us to using therapy approaches where we would basically tell them that, you No, let's talk about something different. So today I'm sharing with you a very nice and heartwarming story about a seven-year-old whose special interests I embraced and how much progress we made in speech therapy because of that.
What's up, everyone? And welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
How did the therapist first discover the boy’s passion for maps?
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys.
And we're here every week to bring you neuro-affirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this.
Years ago, I worked with a seven-year-old autistic boy and he would come in and he loved talking about stores. Like he knew every store, where every grocery store was. He knew where every clothing store was. He was really into maps. So that was his big thing was maps. And he would often come in and his mom would say, no, no, no, stop talking about that.
What steps did they take to turn a simple map into a therapy tool?
Stop talking about that, right? So one day I decided... that we were gonna go with it and i took like eight pieces of of printer paper and taped them together and started to draw this map of los angeles which i'm sure was not even close to to scale because i'm not only terrible at drawing things to scale but i'm also just terrible at geography in general and can't even get to the grocery store near my own house without a gps that's kind of how i where i stand with geography so anyway I'm asking him obviously lots of questions about like what street goes here and then what's on this corner. And we ended up over the course of like the next six, seven, eight months creating this incredible map where every time he would come in for therapy, we would add to it.
So there would be a day where we're talking about food or something and I would say, okay, yeah, let's talk about where all the grocery stores are. And He would ask me, what grocery store do you like to go to? And what do you buy at that grocery store? Right.
How did using the map boost natural conversation and engagement?
And then I would ask him, what grocery store do you like to go to and what do you buy? And he had a candy. He knew like what every store that had different candies. And even if it wasn't a grocery store, there was a candy. Like we would talk about Nordstrom Rack and he would ask what I like to buy at Nordstrom Rack. And I would say, I like to buy shoes. And he would say, I like to buy Sour Patch Kids.
Right.
So it became this super fun activity where the conversation just flowed so naturally. And this is a boy who sometimes it just felt like I was just trying to pull language out of him.
What changes in the boy’s speech and interaction were observed?
Like he would do activities with me, but he definitely did not seem like he was having fun. Like answering questions in general would be difficult for him. And that's probably because they were just really boring, structured questions that I was asking him. We would rarely have back and forth conversation. But when we embraced this special interest of maps and we just went all in, the conversation happened naturally. His eyes lit up. He had so much passion for it. He genuinely wanted to ask me questions and know more about where I went for different things. And he got to share so much more about himself. And it was just...
What key takeaway should clinicians apply when working with special interests?
an awesome activity. So there's just a reminder for you that sometimes if you take a child's special interest and you embrace it, you will be shocked by how much that actually improves your therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in to Making the Shift. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to us if you could like, subscribe, share it with a friend. Our only goal is to spread neurodiversity affirming approaches all over the world, and we can only do that with your help. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why do we often shut down autistic children’s special interests?
0:00–0:51
2
How did the therapist first discover the boy’s passion for maps?
0:51–1:30
3
What steps did they take to turn a simple map into a therapy tool?
1:30–2:38
4
How did using the map boost natural conversation and engagement?
2:38–3:14
5
What changes in the boy’s speech and interaction were observed?
3:14–3:54
6
What key takeaway should clinicians apply when working with special interests?
3:54–4:24
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)