Mental Flexibility Tools for Neurodiverse Learners

Have you ever had a flight canceled at the last minute? Or been called to pick up your sick child from school in the middle of your work day???

Life throws us curve balls all the time.? Sometimes, it’s just plain overwhelming, but the more quickly we can adapt to the change, the more ease we can feel.

Adapting to change can be really difficult for our neurodiverse learners, particularly those on the autism spectrum.??

One of the most important skills for anyone, regardless of neurological makeup, is mental flexibility. Mental flexibility involves the ability to adapt to new situations, change perspectives, and adjust to different ways of thinking.

For neurodiverse learners, mental flexibility can be especially important, as they may need to navigate a variety of learning environments and teaching styles that don’t always align with their unique needs.

Why is it that your child is so rigid and stuck in routines?? Why are transitions or doing something different so hard?

I remember, years ago, my brother-in-law, who is a neurodiverse thinker, was so excited to see my daughter perform with Disney on Ice.? He loved Disney, so he just couldn’t wait.? But when it was time to get in the car, he flat-out refused to budge.??

What was that all about?

It certainly felt like stubbornness, but the truth was, that as soon as things were different than his typical routine, he felt insecure and maybe even unsafe.? At the core, humans are survivors, and when we can’t quickly and accurately perceive or assess our surroundings, we feel unsafe.? If we can’t think into the future to evaluate how something will turn out, it’s more secure to stick with the routines that we know.? This is human nature.

Let’s think about students with different thinking styles.? An individual with an auditory processing disorder is going to miss or mishear information, causing them to feel a little lost much of the time.? They may tend to avoid meeting new people or going to new places because their auditory system can’t quickly and reliably tune-in to new voices and tune-out a new set of extraneous noises.?

Predictability supports their compromised auditory system.

I remember a 12-year old student who had visual processing and comprehension challenges.? He became almost physically ill when his family would go to a restaurant because he couldn’t look at the whole environment and understand what he was seeing.? He felt disoriented and unsafe.

Students with autism and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) find security in strict routines and rules.? The way they perceive the world through their senses may not feel reliable, but the structure they cling to gives them a sense of control.? And if you really think about it, you probably have little things in your life that you routinely do that give you a stronger sense of control.

The more mentally flexible you are, the more easily you can navigate life and relationships.? We see our students becoming more aware and more flexible as their underlying skills base becomes stronger and more consistent.

The most basic? foundation of learning and functioning is movement, in particular reflex movements.? The reflexes that babies are born with jump start learning by getting babies moving, even before birth.? Infant reflexes integrate - maturing into lifelong reflexes or essentially disappearing when no longer needed.? If these primitive infant reflexes continue to fire when not needed, they can cause discomfort, kind of like little neurological glitches.??

Think of the nervous system as a highway, and unintegrated reflexes as little roadblocks along that highway.? Humans are survivors, so we figure out ways to function, but just like getting around a roadblock when you’re driving, compensating for retained or unintegrated reflexes makes things take longer and feel more difficult.

The first step in building more mental and emotional flexibility is identifying the underlying skills that are not serving the student well enough? - whether it’s retained reflexes, poor body awareness and control, auditory or visual processing, memory, or attention -? These skills can be developed, and we see over and over, that when students have a strong foundation of processing skills they can operate with greater ease and flow.? They can be more flexible and roll with the punches, so to speak.

I remember a student we worked with named Anya.? Anya was 11-years old.? Her family really liked to go to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and Anya had never chosen any kind of ice cream other than vanilla. She was autistic and very afraid to branch out and try anything new.? One day, her mom came into the Learning Center, ecstatic, saying that her daughter had chosen chocolate ice cream on the family’s weekend trip to Baskin Robbins!

One of the things that we see with our students, regardless of the type of challenge, is that as we work to help them develop more consistent and stronger underlying processing skills, they become more secure, confident, and mentally flexible.? Being able to process information more quickly and accurately allows them to understand and adapt to change more easily.

Here are some things you can do at home to make life a little smoother for you and your inflexible child or teen.

First, we all do better when we’re prepared.? If you know your child is disrupted by change, take plenty of time to prepare him ahead of time for any changes coming up at home or school.? If you’re going to have relatives come stay in your home, if you’re going out to dinner or on a trip, multiple times, talk about what to expect.? Talk about it, visualize it, roll play it.? Get your child to talk it through.? Our students on the autism spectrum tend to be very visual, so drawings, photos, or other visuals can help.??

If your child tends to get stuck, here are a couple of integrating activities that will help them get unstuck and be more open to a bigger picture.

The left hemisphere of the brain tends to focus on details and sequential information,? The right side tends to see the big picture - the whole.? We need both perspectives for ease in learning and functioning.? When individuals are stuck, it’s often in the left brain details - they can’t see the forest for the trees.? These activities activate both hemispheres of the brain to work together.

Cross Crawls:? Either standing or sitting, have the student alternately touch one hand to the opposite knee and then repeat with the other hand.? Do at a moderate speed for a minute.? (braingym.org)

Infinity Walk: Have the student walk the shape of the infinity sign - like a laying down 8.? This may be hard for them at first, so have them follow you as you walk the pattern or lay down two objects to walk the shape around.? Hula Hoops work great, but you could also use something like the student’s shoes.? (infinitywalk.org)

These are really good activities for your kids to do before and after school and at transition times at home or school.? Cross crawls are very effective and very easy to do for a whole classroom.

In order to be flexible with information, we have to have good comprehension of the whole or the big picture and an understanding of how the parts or details fit in.

Do you ever read the synopsis for a book or a TV series before reading or watching?? Having that glimpse at the big picture gives you context for the characters and story so that you can feel more engaged from the beginning.

Remember the boy I mentioned who felt physically ill when his family would go to a restaurant?? When he walked in the door, he couldn’t “see” how the restaurant was organized.? So there was just a lot of noise, people, things, and movement in the space.? He felt disoriented and uncomfortable.

When we work with comprehension at the learning center, we’re always trying to build an understanding of the big picture.? If the student is reading a story, we have them visualize what they’re reading about and imagine the images sequentially on the walls.? We look at who is in every picture.? What is the action or idea that seems to be a part of every picture?? This helps the student see what the whole story is about.

When we’re working with planning and executive function, we always want the student to start with the end in mind.? “When I’m done, what do I want this to look like?”? It’s easy for them to get stuck in specific details, so we want them to know what they are working toward or where they are headed first.

Once you have a big picture in mind, you can start to build some flexibility.? It takes some forethought, but you can begin to build the idea of more than one way to do things into your everyday life.? An autistic child may have rituals and routines that they must follow everyday in order to feel in control and secure.? Don’t start with those hard, fast rituals, but with things that the child is not particularly attached to. ? What you’re building is the idea that you can do things in different ways.

For example, if you’re going to the grocery store, together, visualize and talk about how the store is laid out.? In the store I shop at, the produce is on the far right side of the store and the dairy products are on the far left side.? Then look at your store list and have your child help you plan out which side of the store to start on.? Help them see that because most of what you need today is produce, you’ll start on that side of the store.? You can propose different scenarios.? “What if I mostly needed dairy products, which side should we start on?”??

Use a visual schedule so that your child can see the big picture of the day and the order that they will do things.? Together, notice the transition times.??

Visualize and talk about what will happen during the transition.? For example, your child may have some free time on Saturday morning, but he has a soccer game at 11.? Stopping what he’s engaged in to get ready for soccer may be a challenge every week.? On the visual schedule, show both the free time and plenty of time for the transition.? Visualize, roll play, and talk through exactly what will happen in that transition time - turning off the iPad and putting it away, getting dressed for soccer, and going to the car.? Keep in mind the intention of: ? preparing for transitions and change in advance and the big picture of play time, getting ready time, and get-in-the-car time.

Time spent helping your child or teen feel prepared and learn to see the “big picture” along with building underlying processing skills that support learning will allow them to move through life with greater flexibility and ease.

Jill Stowell, M.S.

Author:? Take the Stone Out of the Shoe: A Must-Have Guide to Understanding, Supporting, and Correcting Dyslexia, Learning, and Attention Challenges

Founder/Executive Director Stowell Learning Centers where we help children and adults eliminate struggles associated with dyslexia and learning disabilities.??

www.stowellcenter.com?

?? Watch or listen to this episode on the LD Expert Podcast