When They are Pictures!
                                                                 Helping Your Visual Child
                                                                               Become Verbal! Part 2
                                                                                                   

 

 "Today is a green day," Sam announced, and then added, "Today is a blue-green day."  Yes, I had to agree...blue for light-hearted, and green for deep-experiencing.  Our afternoon of a shared movie, laughter, and popcorn had all those blue-green qualities.  Several years ago, when Sam first taught me the fine art of "thinking in color", he routinely regaled me with lists of color associations.  "Black is like Bob", "Brown is like...," etc.  In fact, he had given me the primer, Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days many years ago.

I have had many other visually-gifted teachers along the way in addition to Sam.  In fact, during the last ten years, many children with ASD diagnoses have oriented me to the entire spectrum of thinking in pictures...and in selecting just the right words to match their vivid experiences.

In this, our second column devoted to language acquisition among visual thinkers, we offer the composite experience of scores of children like Sam, whose "first language" was pictures.  And we will continue to explore how and when words can best be introduced as their "second language."

First, however, please look back at our previous column and review what you learned as you did the exercises designed to prepare you for "thinking in pictures" yourself.  If you do not have access to that column, you may download it from the author's website, www.communicationdevelopmentcenter.com.

If you have already done your homework, however, this quick review will remind you of what you have learned so far.  You now know what kind of thinker you are - visual, auditory, or probably, your own unique blend.  You have paid attention to your form of input during particular "episodes" of life, and you can describe it.  And, you have done plenty of observing of your child by now, and you have noticed what your child notices on many occasions.  You have spent some time noticing your own reactions to those same sights and experiences, as well, so you can make some comparisons.  You might now be able to guess how much like, or unlike, your child you are in how you think and process the world around you.

We hope that you have been able to plan some surprises for you child, as well...and that those planned events brought a smile to your child's face.  Did the unexpected "peek-a-boo," for example, elicit a happy shriek?  Did a colorful book, like Rainbow Fish, make your child reach to turn the page?  Did some sparkling bubbles encourage him to giggle in delight?  We hope so!

So, now, let's continue our journey towards verbalization with a little side trip: starting your child's own Language Acquisition Journal.  You'll be glad to know that Chapter 1, Observations of your child's delights, is ready to write, as you transfer all those notes you have already made!  Please save some room at the end because this chapter will get longer and longer the more you and your child get in sync with each other.  As your observational skills get better, your child will begin to learn that you are noticing what he notices, and your shared joy will take on a life of its own!

Which brings us to Chapter 2, Referents you share with your child.  You are ready to begin this chapter now, with your first successes in planned joyful surprises.

A little theory is in order here... A "referent" is what you are "referring to" when you use your eyes, gestures, sounds or words to express your shared experience.  If your verbalization matches your child's delight over a stream of bubbles in the air (the "referent"), it might be something like, "Oooooh!!" or "Wow! Bubbles!" said with exaggerated intonation.  It might be a whispered, "Oooo, that's pretty!" or "Piiiiiink!" depending on your child's sensitivities to sound.  Or, it could be something more whole-sentence or "gestalt": "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting...rainbows."  Each person is unique, and for you visual child, selecting the right sounds or words that communicate to him a shared experience means matching them to the "true experience" of your child.

Over time, you will know if that referent is the bubbles, or the colorful swirl in the bubbles, or their motion.  It might be the sparkles of the Rainbow Fish, or something no one but you could guess.  The true experience is whatever lights up the eyes of your child.  Finding the right "sound track" for that experience will be your task when we get to Chapter 3!  But right now, you are logging in some shared, or "joint" references.  Language development literature uniformly points out that communication happens around these points of common focus, and that our language reflects what we "refer" to when we use words to share with others.  When our children are concerned, parents are absolutely the best qualified to know which experiences are the best potential referents.  Your work over the next several months will prepare you, and your Speech-Language Pathologist, to recognize these referents and, when the time is right, to choose the best words to match the referents you and your child share.

Up until now, we have been focusing on life experiences we see in our child's day, and plan for our child.  But, of course, there are many, many other "experiences" throughout the day that occur only on the two-dimensional screen of our TV's!  Not only are they in vivid color, with catchy animation we could never compete with, but they seem to hold our kids' attention better than anything we could ever plan for them!

What do we do with videos and DVD's?  Turn them off, like we have sometimes been told?  Well, maybe... but for many of our kids, they are their most favorite experiences.  Can we live with them, and even help our kids gain valuable lessons from them?  Yes, with some caveats... When our children are young, and have not yet developed the physical control to move well in space, their attention is well-suited for letting the world "go by" through moving pictures.  As long as we select the movies for content, developmental level, and language, they can be very useful for early joint referencing... if we watch them with our children.  And that's the trick!  Movies do captivate our visual thinkers, and they do have sound tracks that our kids will hear when they are developmentally-ready.  If we watch movies with our kids, and notice what our kids like, rewind, and, maybe even recite later, we will have more joint references to add to our Chapter 2!

Here's an important point to keep in mind: movie sound tracks sound only like a series of giant sound bytes to our kids, rather than individual words.  To young ears, sentences like "And now... our feature presentation!" sound like a blur of auditory goodness, to be repeated by our children, if at all, in a slur of intonation.  Unless we really listen to the way the sound track sounds, an remember that, rather than the words themselves, we will miss our kids using it later when their own "feature presentation" occurs (in the form of an arrival at a favorite destination, for example).  The enthusiastic blur of sound might be part of your family's "feature presentation" for years to come, but it is up to us to recognize the "sound track!"

Most of our kids' daily lives include movies.  As long as they are part of a daily "diet" that also includes plenty of playful interaction, exploration, and physical activity, they are useful in creating a bridge to language development.  We do need to "be there" with our kids, however, for this to work. But, let's assume we are... and we notice a part of a movie our child loves.  As far as we can tell, it is the visual morphing of image to image that is fascinating to him.  What is the sound track of that segment?  If it is something we'd never guess, words like, "Better luck next time" or "Hey, guys! Let's get outta here!" followed by some dramatic music, and your child is happy hearing it, log it in Chapter 3, along with the particular segment of the movie.  You might get the chance to tell someone else about this magic sequence of light and color, with exactly those words, spoken just like they sounded in the movie... and you might be rewarded with profound eye contact, as thanks, from your child!  That's how it works!  And as your child's auditory sophistication grows, so will the possibility for more precise content to be conveyed this way!

But, "Better luck next time" may not be the language you would have planned for your child's first language experience?  It's not what I would have planned either!  What to do?  Look at some of the "joint reference" activities you've listed in Chapter 2.  Can you add a sound track?  If so, how will it sound?  If your child likes sound with his movies, it's a clue - and your cue - that your own "sound track" might be well-received.  If you are a singer, or have a melodic voice, so much the better.  Take a tip from preschool teachers, and use a sing-song voice with a nice lilt to it.  You're sparking his early interest in words, through your sound track.  You can say, "Peek-a-boo!" or "I'm gonna getcha!" or "Tickle, tickle!" to the delight of most of our kids.  And, coincidentally, these are the words we hope our kids learn to say!

You've begun Chapter 3!

Now, let's examine the right language for your child's experience, when it is more visual.  For purposes of illustration, let's presume that bubble-popping is your child's love.  What would the sound track of a bubble experience sound like, if it were designed with your child's perspective in mind?  It might be a song: "One little, two little, three little bubbles... ten little bubbles go pop pop pop."  Or it might be, "Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop," sung up and down a scale.  Or it might be, "Pink and blue and yellow and green," sung repetitively... Experiment and discover what is fun for your child.

The only real rule here is to make your language fun and melodic, like a whole wave of sound.  You want your visual child to find joy in sound, and to learn that sound can make his visual experience richer, or, at least not take away from it!  This is not the time for "teaching" words, or inadvertently, turning language-learning into "work."  And, it is definitely not the time to withhold something delightful, like bubble-blowing, until your child signs "More", or hands you the appropriate PECS card.  This is NOT the time to teach your child that language learning can be drudgery.  Hopefully, it will NEVER be the time for that!

As we close this segment of our series, let's momentarily look ahead to Chapter 4 in your child's Language Acquisition Journal, which will be about the specific language you choose for him to experience, when he is ready for it.

You have already learned the qualities of your Chapter 3 sound-bytes that spark attention and delight in your child.  When you move into Chapter 4, we will teach you how to select the specific language of the sound bytes of your child's future.  For now, however, remember your focus: you are just providing sound in an interesting, appealing way, so that your visual child is beginning to bridge to the world of sound... which, eventually, will become the world of language!

References
Dr. Seuss: My Many Colored Day, NY: Random House (1996).

                                                                           
Marge Blanc, M.A., CCC-SLP founded the Communication Development Center, in Madison, Wisconsin 10 years ago.  Specializing in physically-supported speech and language services for children with ASD diagnoses, the Center has successfully helped scores of children as they moved through the stages of language acquisition.  Contact Marge and her associates at:
 

Communication Development Center
700 Rayovac Drive, Suite 200
Madison, WI 53711
lyonblanc@aol.com
(608) 278-9161
 

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"This is NOT the time to teach your child that language learning can be drudgery.  Hopefully, it will NEVER be the time for that!"