Neurodiversity and the Art of Listening- Part 2 -

Note: Earlier this week I published the first part of this blog on Neurodiversity and listening. It focused on problems with auditory attention, and you can find Part 1 here.

Another Conversation

A few days ago my son came home from school, and we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: How was your day?

Kid: Mr. (Band teacher) has some loose screws.

Me: What do you mean?

Kid: He was banging on one of the snare drums in class, and a bunch of the screws came flying out of the drum.

Me: Oh, I thought you meant he was a little crazy.

Kid: No, that would be Mrs. (another teacher). She gave us extra homework tonight.

Me: Because kids were goofing off in class?

Kid: I don’t know….but the Goofy bus broke down this morning.

At that point it was becoming pretty obvious that this conversation was just accumulated facts. Knowing facts is just the first step in understanding, and it’s great that he was paying attention to see what was going on around him. What tripped him up was processing the facts he knew.

Processing

Neurodivergent thinkers don’t just struggle with poor auditory attention. Like I said before, there’s a difference between hearing and listening. Even if the words get to the neurodivergent brain, there’s often another hurdle to jump in the form of processing. Neurodivergent thinkers process information differently, and it takes longer to do it.

When the words get to the brain, the brain has to decide what to do with it. For a neurotypical thinker, this takes only seconds and looks like hearing the words of an upset friend, analyzing why she’s angry, empathizing or relating to her situation, and then responding to her anger. For a neurodivergent thinker, it looks more like this: “My friend is angry… I have no idea why…” and the brain can never get past that point.

Active listening is a multistep process, which is another problem for many neurodivergent thinkers. We hear the message, process the message, understand the message, relate to the message, and then respond to the message. Communication is a skill learned through repeated use. However, for many neurodivergent thinkers, there are just too many steps in active listening, and there are new and different challenges with each step. This is also where some of the social challenges arise for neurodivergent thinkers. If you don’t understand or relate to the message, how can you possibly respond appropriately?

Teaching Listening

So if active listening is a learned skill, we should be able to teach it, right? If only it were that easy. There are relatively few evidenced-based listening comprehension curricula sets out there. This includes few legitimate books, lesson plans, or activity packages that are proven to teach active listening. There is material available to help students PRACTICE active listening and help break down the steps, but unless the child generalizes that skill into real-world conversations, it does little good.

I cannot count the number of therapists, teachers, and behavior specialists I’ve watched fall into the trap of teaching children ways to show others you’re actively listening, but not how to listen. I’ve been guilty at times too. We see a child wiggling in their seat, staring into space, closing their eyes while talking, or making noise. On the outside, it looks like they’re not listening, so we try to teach them to look at the person talking, make eye contact, nod or make other body motions that might show they’re listening. But are they really processing what’s being said?

There’s a video link below that shows exactly what it looks like when we teach skills that make us look like we’re listening instead of teaching listening skills of attending and processing. Disclaimer: While I love this example, the person in the video does use a choice word twice at the end, which I do not approve of. You can decide if you want to watch it or not.

Tools

In part 1 of this blog, we looked at tools to help neurodivergent thinkers (or anyone) pay better attention to someone speaking. Here are a few more tools, coping strategies, and skills that focus more on visual cues and other ways to help with processing issues.

Stop expecting people to look you in the eyes. Some neurodivergent thinkers hear better when they’re watching a person’s lips move. They’re not lip reading, but there’s added visual support to the message they hear. Others have learned the trick of looking at your eyebrows so it looks like they’re looking at your eyes when they’re really not. If a neurodivergent thinker closes his eyes while you’re talking, it could be that they are shutting out visual distractions to hear you better.

If the TV volume is an issue, turn on subtitles. For older neurodivergent thinkers, this is another way of getting visual support without going into sensory overload.

Break things into steps. Any listening activities taught in school will probably break the task down into steps. If the listener is overwhelmed or seems to be struggling to process your message, break it down into smaller pieces. Ask questions to make sure they understand, that they are relating in some way (that’s probably the most common point at which there’s a breakdown in my experience), and help them figure out how they want to respond.

Finally, visual cues! If you’re talking about the schedule, point to the calendar, the clock, or the visual task list. If you’re telling them to put on a coat because it’s cold outside, put yours on too, hand them their coat, or point specifically to their coat. Take a picture of their room when it’s clean and hang that on the wall. The next time you tell them to clean their room, there’s a visual reminder of what it SHOULD look like when they’re done. Visual cues can work wonders when you’re communicating directions or tasks.