Neuroaffirming Therapy Practice
Over the last few years, the Neurodiversity movement has gained momentum in our culture and wider society and across the world. We are often asked what this means for our therapy practice and how we ensure that we are supporting the individuals we care for with the most up to date, evidence based and inclusive approaches. Our therapists are committed to treating our clients and families with respect and integrity whilst caring for their needs with evidence-based treatment. This means that we stay up to date with the research into all areas of speech, language and communication and learn from our reflective practice to continue to enhance our therapy provision. Let’s look at a few things that being “neuroaffirming” means for our practice and what that looks like in practice.
We respect neurodiversity. Our therapists engage with clients of all neurotypes and are trained to deliver therapy which is respectful of an individual’s neurotype including things like sensory preferences, movement breaks and willingness to use a variety of activities which are accessible to children who have short attention spans and require a high level of movement and support.
What this looks like: Our therapists will have fun with bubbles, playdough, sand and water if this is what your child likes. We will include this in our therapy and still achieve targets across speech, language and social interaction. We will move around, crawl on the floor, change activities promptly, support transitions and keep your child engaged even when they are not sitting still.
We learn through play. Evidence suggests that brains which are engaged in enjoyable activities learn better, so all of our intervention will look like play and this is on purpose.
What this looks like: Your child will think they are playing and not like they are learning. For example, they will think the aim is throwing a bean bag and shouting a sound, while we ensure that they are learning motor planning and speech sounds. Or they will think they are playing with kinetic sand or playdough while we are teaching them verbs and prepositions.
We value Total Communication. Total Communication means that we respect and place equal value on all modes of communication including spoken language, sign language, eye contact, vocalisations, hand-leading, gesture and body posture as well as a variety of low tech and high tech AAC systems including using objects of reference, symbols, photos or robust communication software.
What this looks like: We respond to all communication. We do not withhold things to wait for a specific form of communication. We model without expectation all the time and respectfully allowing space and time for children to process and learn in their own time and we are there to support this by pausing, not filling spaces and actively listening and observe to understand and tune into a child’s unique expressions. This helps us to learn how to better interpret their messages and better support them to enhance them for people who are not as attuned to them as we have become through our interactions.
We Believe in Regulation before Communication. If a child is unable to regulate, they will be unable to communicate to the best of their ability. This is why understanding a child’s regulation strategies and their unique signs of dysregulation help to guide therapy and mean that we must keep our agenda secondary to their regulation in order to allow for the best learning opportunities for children.
What this looks like: We may spend the initial part of a therapy session engaging and interacting gently and alongside and allow time for the child to settle into our presence before asking them to do anything adult-directed. We may not do anything adult-directed at all but instead offer a variety of options for them to explore which are carefully chosen to target the skills we wish to encourage.
We use a strength-based approach. When we focus only on difficulties, this impacts all of our intervention and can impede good progress. For children to develop confidence, we need to use a growth mindset towards challenges and celebrate strengths in order to use them to help us tackle the challenges.
What this looks like: Our therapists will not spend all of the session working on skills a child cannot yet demonstrate. During a given session, the child will be able to engage in activities that highlight his or her strength in between more challenging tasks. This is by design, because increased confidence and positive self-thought can have a positive impact on progress. For example, children may engage in a low-challenge game before or after a highly focused or challenging activity.
We believe in neuroaffirming practice. But this does not mean that we know everything. We are continuously learning and we will always seek to learn from our clients and increase our awareness of their experiences so that we can better support them. We are proud to be on this journey and look towards a more inclusive society in the future. If you have any questions about this topic, we would be very happy to explain more about what we do to learn more about neurodiversity and continually enhancing the therapy we offer at The Orchid Practice.