Meaning Emerges

There are many activities we do with children that they don't understand at first. But if we repeat the activities often enough, they gradually become meaningful. This year we kept a running tally of our days in the Gray School. Every day we added a tally mark, then we sang our song ("How Many Days Have We Been in the Gray School?"), and then we counted our groups of five to find the answer. At first the Lark did not seem to understand this activity, but now he does. He understands that we add only one mark for each day, and that if we count up all the marks, we can see how many days we've been in the Gray School.

The important point is, there are a lot of activities that they don't bother doing with the "self-contained" kids at the Lark's school, because they think it wouldn't be meaningful for them (like Star of the Week and Art Awareness and poetry and class performances and class pets), but if the kids had been doing them since kindergarten, then these activities would have become meaningful by now.

Story Time

Today during story time we read some Shel Silverstein poems. (Paula suggested we try Shel Silverstein, and it was a great suggestion. The Lark really enjoys some of his poems and drawings.) Anyway, after we were done with that, the Lark said, "Let's tell a Box Toot Toot Video Broken story" (or something like that). Maybe he noticed that we hadn't actually had a story (or maybe he was just thinking about breaking videos). I said, "Okay, how should we start?" And he said, "Once upon a time, there was...." He didn't know how to continue, so I said, "What was there?" And he said, "A box." Then I said, "Okay, once upon a time, there was a box, and...?" And he said, "It was a Toot Toot box." And on we went. I had to provide lots of support, but the Lark told his own story--and it really was a story--about how he broke a video and then it didn't work so we had to throw it in the trash. This was such a triumph for me! Narrative thinking is one of our most important goals, since it is really the most basic way we understand the world. And the Lark actually managed to tell his own story today.

Raising the Bar

The Lark seemed to be getting tired of some of our activities--certain song-games and "act-outs." I was trying to think of new activities, but then I remembered one of the many things I learned from doing RDI: you don't need to keep coming up with new activities; you just have to keep adding new challenges to the ones you're doing. This worked really well today. For instance, there's this one tiny little "scene" we perform, in which I'm usually the narrator and the Lark does the actions. Today I had the Lark do the narration (it's very short and simple) while I did the actions. He seemed to enjoy this, and he did such a good job. He left out a bit, but he got the main idea, and his intonation was perfect! I also asked him to lead us in our morning warm-up activities (seasonal songs with movements). I gave him a list of the songs and let him initiate and guide us through each one. Again, he did a great job.

As part of our calendar activities, every day we locate the current day on a big calendar, and then follow the instructions we find written there. It's usually a two-step instruction (e.g., find the last day of May and draw a stop sign on it; find the first Saturday in May and draw a star on it). Today for the first time the Lark was able to complete the first step and then remember and perform the second step without any help and without even looking back at the instruction.

Imitation and Narrative Thinking

For some time, the Lark has been in the habit of climbing or descending stairs and counting as he goes. Yesterday he added something new: he climbed to the top of the stair, and when he reached the top, he gave a big, theatrical sigh, as if he were exhausted. Then he went down the stairs and did the same thing. He may have taken this from our Lion Hunt story (which we do every other day) in which we punctuate each step of the arduous journey with a dramatic sigh and a wipe of the brow. So he was able to imitate the gesture and take it from one narrative context into another. Pretty cool!

Narrative Comprehension

We're working on three different stories in the Gray School now. The Frog Story, which we've been working on for some time, is coming along. We've been focusing on two narrative dimensions--motivation of the characters (the frogs are very hot so they jump into the water) and outcome of actions (they feel much better). We don't use a book. We just tell the story together using figures and props. I think for a final project I'll videotape Marco telling the story with props and show it to the family.

A few weeks ago we added a story about a Lion Hunt (like the well known Bear Hunt story), which uses rhythm and hand gestures and again, no book. In this one we're focusing on two more narrative dimensions--visualizing the images and tracking the sequence of events. If and when I get the feeling that the Lark actually is visualizing the images, we'll try making our own picture book with all the scenes in the correct order.

Just this week we added the Three Little Pigs (simplified to the One Little Pig and the Big, Bad Wolf), again with no book but with figures and props. In this one I'd like to focus on the characters and the interaction between them, hopefully building toward identification with the little pig. I don't know what we'll do for a project yet.

I've decided not to use books for a couple of reasons. First of all, if the Lark likes a book, he tends to memorize it--in lieu of understanding the story. Obviously this is not what we want. Second, there are so many ways to engage with a book without ever engaging with the narrative--there are the pictures, the words (even the font), the cover, the feel of the pages, etc. We really want to focus on the narrative without any distractions. Third, with a book, the story is exactly the same every time. When we tell the story from memory, it's a little different every time, so the Lark can see for himself that there are many ways to tell the same story (building flexibility). This may also provide a good memory exercise, which would be good for both of us :) We'll see!

Pharaoh's Fury

This morning the Lark was swinging his hand back and forth in a pendulum-like way. I asked, "What's that, Lark?" He looked at me, and instead of telling me, gave me a clue. He added a "whooosh, whooosh, whooosh," one whooosh with each swing of the hand. "Let me guess," I said, "Pharaoh's Fury?" And he told me I was right. (Pharaoh's Fury is a carnival ride that swings back and forth.)

I took this as a sign that our ACT-OUT program is helping. The goal of ACT-OUT is to help the Lark develop his capacity for mimesis. Mimesis is when we act something out with the intention of communicating or consciously externalizing a mental representation. This is a basic form of communication, more basic than spoken language. Children engage in mimesis when they make pretend. A wedding ceremony is a mimetic event--the bride and her father take a long, slow walk down the aisle, symbolizing the life they've had together; they separate, symbolizing the beginning of her new life; the ring symbolizes the bond of marriage; the kiss symbolizes the physical union. Mimesis exists along with spoken language. People who develop spoken language without mimesis (like many people with autism) miss the whole mimetic subtext of spoken language (i.e., body language).

For people with narrative comprehension deficit disorder, developing the mimetic capacity is important because it is during mimetic activity that young children begin to integrate the many dimensions of experience (setting, characters, actions, intentions, etc.) into a coherent narrative. That is, this is where mimesis ends up--in sophisticated pretend play. But it begins with the ability to externalize and share mental representations by means of physical actions. Which is (I think) what the Lark was doing when he added the "whooosh whooosh" to his hand gesture so that I would understand it.

Puzzles

The Lark has suddenly become interested in doing jigsaw puzzles. He even brings them to me and asks me to "play" them with him. He's also happy to do them when I suggest it. I'm not sure what to attribute this development to, but I'm hoping it's a sign that our narrative thinking activities are bearing fruit. In the narrative thinking activities, we work on being able to integrate several different pieces of information into a coherent whole. When we do a puzzle, we take separate bits of information--shape, color, picture details--and hold them in mind together while we decide where to put each piece. We also have to hold in mind what our goal is and where we are with respect to that goal.

In any case, it's fun to be able to do a more organized activity with the Lark, and one that moves a bit beyond his private little set of interests.

Reciprocity

The Lark has been making lots of progress when it comes to reciprocal interaction. This is really encouraging, and it just feels so good when it happens. The other day he asked to play a game we used to play years ago but haven't done in a long time--make a "Marco sandwich." He lies down and we pretend to add ingredients, one by one, tickling him with each addition. He helps me think of things--salami, pepperoni, mustard, pickles. Sometimes we add silly ingredients--bugs and worms. Then we pile on pillows or beanbags, pretending that's the bread. Then I jump on top of him and tickle him. Well, he requested this game, so we made a Marco sandwich. When we were done, I said, "what should we make now?" And he said, "a Mowbow sandwich!" Interestingly, once I lay down and waited for him to start, he realized he didn't know how to perform the other role. I could just see him suddenly stop and get confused. So I helped him a bit. But the important thing was that the impulse to reciprocate was there.

On Friday, two other new things happened. At one point, during a break, I tickled the Lark, and he quite spontaneously tickled me back. So I tickled him again, and he tickled me back again and smiled at me. We went back and forth this way a couple of times before it sort of petered out. This was really exciting. Then later we were at a coffee shop having a treat. We were sitting side by side on a divan. The Lark has his arm around my waist (he's very cuddly in general). He gave me three little squeezes in a row. I smiled at him. He looked at me expectantly. So I gave his arm three little squeezes in a row. Then he squeezed my waist four times. So I squeezed his arm four times. Then he did another little pattern for me to follow, and so on. This seems like such a little thing, but it's actually such a big deal. The Lark has been able to follow patterns easily for a long time, but the fact that he came up with the idea to initiate a little game, the whole object of which was to be reciprocal, was so nice. And the fact that he knew how to indicate, but doing something and then looking expectantly, that he was starting a game and he wanted me to know it, shows so much growth in his understanding of intersubjectivity.