Children as God Meant Them to Be

I love the quote from St. Catherine of Siena: “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” How wonderful to be completely and totally you and to be so special that you make a difference in the world no matter how big or small you perceive yourself to be. The same goes for our children. God created them in a unique and special way, and our job as parents, caregivers, teachers, or SLPs is to help them become who God intended them to be. That may mean that they have unique quirks, need to use stimming to self-regulate, use gestalt language processing, or like to wear sparkly, fish net arm bands (like my daughter).

Gestalt language processing is when language is learned as a chunk rather than individual words. One example from my daughter is “Let go,” which came from “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. Everyone uses gestalt language processing to some extent, but autistic children often need support to break these chunks down. For more information on gestalt language processing and analytic processing please see my previous post, “Gestalt Vs. Analytic Language Processing.” Children learn language that is meaningful to them. If there is a special interest area for your child, it’s important to give them language that they can use about that special interest. That is what they are going to want to talk about! As adults, we enjoy talking about things we are interested in and may excuse ourselves from a conversation or change the topic if a topic involves something we are not familiar with or interested in. Children have not developed the self-regulation skills and empathy needed to participate in conversation in which a topic doesn’t interest them.

Another way to allow children to be who God meant them to be is to allow them to play how they desire to play! If your autistic child wants to line up cars, join them in lining up the cars. Model language that pertains to lining up the cars such as “Let’s go, car!” or “It’s a red car.” Play typically develops in correlation to language development, so as your child language progresses, their play will too. Support your child where they are and allow them to grow as they are ready.

I’m so excited to support you and your child on this journey in order for your child to become who God meant them to be!