
A long while back, when I first moved to Tulsa, I worked out of the Discovery Lab. At the Discovery Lab, there were Sensory Sundays from 9:30- 11:30 am and those were my favorite days to work.
One particular Sunday, a little girl walked up to me and started reciting a poem, unbroken and with great passion. Her mother walked over and apologized, "my daughter has autism. I have been bringing her to Sensory Sundays to help her with social interaction and making decisions. Sorry, she loves to tell everyone the poems she memorized. It's kind of her thing."
This girl quickly became my favorite visitor to the lab. Every Sunday I would ask her what poem she had for me that week. Always well timed and often as if she chose those words just for me, she was my oracle poet and I looked forward to her words.
Words don't always come easily for everyone. Sometimes, the best way one accesses them is by hand selecting words that have been spoken before. A well-timed word of scripture, a thoughtful piece of prose, a favorite repeated cartoon character saying can be an important piece of communication for a person who struggles with finding their own voice. For them, another's voice can stand in place of it allowing them to access words they otherwise wouldn't have.
My seven year old son is a great example of this. He didn't speak until he was older than my other children but once he began speaking, he became an explosion of words. Verbal psychomotor skills run very high for him, but if you listen for very long you will start to hear his repeated phrases that he has heard from others and built into his vocabulary or parts of tv shows or movies.
His current favorite phrase stims are, "By the way...; Do you want to know something?...; Isn't that crazy?...; and Let's not talk about this."
He covers his ears when the words he hears go against what he has been told and he chooses his script, "Let's not talk about this now."
He interrupts his siblings and conversations often to switch the topic back to something he knows a lot about with "By the way..."
"Do you want to know something?" and "Isn't that crazy?" are his favorites to use together before spouting random trivia he heard from his favorite television show.
And these particular phrases are repeated like a stim probably 50 times in an hour. It is his script and how he feels comfortable communicating with words that feel very familiar.
I was listening to Martha Beck's podcast this morning and she was talking about a phrase that her two year old daughter had picked up and began using situationally. Her daughter had overheard someone saying, "Calm down, we can do both" and because the phrase was used during a time of stress or agitation, she had began repeating the phrase anytime there would be upsets around her. Her little two year old voice would yell, "Calm down, we can do both!"
How powerful well-timed, seemingly inspired words can be echoed or reflected back to us by our children who access communication through scripts, memorization or role play!
When we get curious about why someone might repeat those certain words or phrases, we get insight into what they are communicating to us. What could sound like babble or unrelated to the immediate situation is made intelligible when we approach it with curiosity and interest.
I often have an idea, word, phrase or piece of writing pop into my head with no apparent reason, and when I am able to get curious about it- often the insight it brings me is profound.
What are your experiences with accessing language through the words of others? Which particular words have been resonating with you lately? This morning on that same podcast, I heard the phrase, "Anger is the immune system of the soul" and that really stuck with me. More to unpack on that later.
Warmly,
Jennifer Ferrante, CHt.
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