Creative Response Activities for Children on the Spectrum

A Therapeutic and Educational Memoir

David R. Henley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134874743
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Creative Response Activities for Children on the Spectrum is a clear, comprehensive and intuitive guide that offers a wide selection of hands-on interventions to be used in any therapeutic or educational setting with children who are 'on the spectrum'. From drawing and writing poetry to skiing and skateboarding, this book describes these and many other creative activities geared towards children with autistic features, attention deficits, hyperactivity, paediatric bipolar disorder and other related conditions. This new resource provides an innovative blend of theory and illustrative case examples designed to help therapists and educators assess children's needs, formulate therapeutic and aesthetic interventions, and analyze creative outcomes.

I
The Creative Response

Introduction
Why Creative Response Activities

The Journey into the Shaman’s Cave

All of life’s experiences are ephemeral; they are mostly fleeting memories unless preserved in some concrete or virtual form which captures the moment’s resonance. Like the proverbial stone tossed into the pool, the expanding ripples reverberate into experiences that may otherwise be evanescent. Without ‘fixing them in time and space’ this energy eventually dissipates, losing its expansive power. Since time immemorial, humankind has responded to ephemerality by devising creative responses that attempt to record, reflect or commemorate experience through the arts and other activities. Thirty thousand years ago, shamans from the Aurignacian epoch crept deeply within the caves at Chauvet to draw and paint images of the animals with which they coexisted. Most of these monumental friezes focused on animals being hunted, and others seemed to magically ward off dangerous predators. Some subjects, however, appear created out of awe-inspiration, such as the two famous duelling woolly rhinoceroses, their enormous horns locked in a dramatic mating display. Others mix animal and human forms, a handprint which might enter the spirit to become one with the horse, the deer or the ox. What is most fantastic is how each image is drawn with an intrinsic understanding of the animal’s behaviour, elegant and expressive, with lines and shading as masterful as any art in history. The artists, having crawled with great difficulty into the deepest recesses of the cave, must have imbued the drawings with magical, cultural and personal weight. The italicized term ‘weight’ alludes to the gravity of many of the works described in this volume—of how imperative they were. Shamanic paintings were not ‘casual’, but rather part of solemn rituals which were meant to ensure survival—the success of the hunt, feeding the clan, and protection from harm required beckoning the totem spirits.

In The Mind in the Cave, Lewis-Williams (2002) theorizes that the artists chosen for these cavernous journeys were probably atypical or somehow specialized tribal members. He muses that they perhaps not only possessed determination and artistic prowess, but were endowed with ‘differentness’, including altered states of consciousness which they harnessed to give powerful form to their creative responses. One of the last healing shamans, the revered Oglala Sioux, Black Elk, described his own journey of being ‘chosen’ in childhood—when, during a prolonged fever, he was swept up and called upon to become an iconic healer (Neihardt, 1932, 2008). He experienced vividly realistic visions which elders prompted him to paint on his spirit shield—an expression of the fantastic, of being the chosen one. He reminds us that one seldom chooses to be ‘different’. This is the analogy by which we start this journey—of the creative thoughts, actions and visions of those who are different. The works that will be illustrated and described portray creative responses of children whose own psyches are as much a burden as they are a sacred gift.

The metaphor of the cave may appear contrived or dramatic, but as the case material will bear out, the analogy is fitting. Many of the children described hole up or dwell in various inner states or lairs and the reasons vary: to feel comforted within their own world, to block out unwanted stimulation of our culture’s constant avalanche of media, to work in secrecy or isolation to avoid judgement, or to commune with sensations or experiences unseen—which may be unfathomable to others. The children described are often beset by a world that is experienced with strangeness and intensity. Often, it is their otherworldly sensitivities that run contrary to established norms, placing them in conflict or out of place. Often, they are prompted into compliance by school, home or peers, leading to resistance and fight-or-flight reactions. Expressions may be reactions to these states of being—of seeing, hearing, feeling too much. Decoding what others want may become akin to learning a foreign language. Expressing sensations through alternative means often becomes a necessity, with drawing, writing, or the aesthetics of action or physical sport becoming their preferred means of communication. Being an artist and poet myself, and long suspected as displaying attention deficits, I am most comfortable with visual learning and expressing. I was once an athlete, and my body memories are as fresh as the first time I was on a wrestling mat or drawing a bow, with their choreographed movements an art form as much as any other.

Children on the spectrum have long captured my curiosity and fascination. They sparked an empathy and desire to assist them in their bid to creatively communicate the richness and struggles of their journeys. This book explores their expressions beyond those considered pathological and instead attempts to enter their world, on their terms. Creative activities hope to assist children to maximize their own gifts while coming to terms with this world and its demands. Engaging creativity gives form to dreams, fears, conflicts, anger or withdrawal, everything that comes with radical adjustment and change. Through their expressions, we may also be permitted a glimpse into another way of being and thus become richer for it.

The Scope of the Spectrum Child

Children on the spectrum, as described by Lorna Wing (1988), reflect Leo Kanner’s (1943) early criteria of autistic disturbances of affective contact, which impairs social interaction and communication with stereotypical patterns of behaviour. Since Wing’s research and experiences in the 1970s as a mother of a child with special needs, the spectrum has expanded beyond autism, to include children whose symptoms are more diverse. There is a range of children whose neurological makeup makes them hyperkinetic, manic, withdrawn, sensory deprived or vigilant, with attention differences as well as stereotypic behaviour. Being special also includes idiosyncratic giftedness, especially regarding technology or creativity. Most of these children are thus ‘neuro-diverse’, which is now described in a more normalizing tone as being members of their own ‘neurotribe’—a kind of misunderstood culture which has long been a naturally occurring form of cognitive and emotional difference. Neurodiversity, or atypicality, as described by Silberman (2015) who views the spectrum children as a minority group, one that has been overly pathologized. He gives an encyclopaedic account of the condition, including the energetic political activism that now asserts full societal inclusion of these special individuals.

Jaarsma and Wellin (2012) maintain that spectrum disorders are not a single disease but a range of natural human variations that are not something to be cured. Those on the spectrum present as a ‘curious form of human specificity’ (pg. 23), involving alternative ways of socializing, communicating and taking in stimuli, —and that these differences should be accommodated. Yet unlike many cultural minorities which might be oppressed or marginalized, it cannot be overlooked that individuals on the spectrum have suffered brain-connectivity and synaptic dysfunction. When these ‘wiring’ problems interact with the demands of the environment, the result is often varied degrees of hyper- or hyposensory sensitivity, idiosyncratic beliefs and troubled emotions. Yet in returning to the analogy to the shaman, these individuals of such rare anomalies may contribute fresh, even visionary, expressions that enrich the often-dreary normality of mainstream culture. Hans Asperger, one of the heroes of recognizing the potential of these children, seconded this observation when he described the idea of ‘autistic intelligence’, that for success in art a necessary ingredient may be the ability to turn away from the everydayness to rethink a subject with originality and create in untrodden ways (Asperger, as cited in Silberman, 2015).

Broadening the Spectrum

Throughout my career as a creative arts therapist and educator, I have worked with hundreds of children who displayed shades of difference. Because of their variability, I have tried to avoid easy categorizations and diagnoses, preferring instead to conceive of the spectrum child as being on a broad curve. On this arc are those on the autism continuum, as well as children with varying combinations of hyperactivity, attention deficits, sensory integration problems, tics, mood disorders, and emotional and relational involvements. Baker and Steuernagel (2016) see each condition as a different narrative, where markers can be codified into meta-narratives, to the extent that they can even impact federal policies. This broader approach to neurodiversity explores the child’s unique reactions to the environment, those behaviours and expressions that may be manifested in any number of atypical ways and combinations. Their narrative was one of the first to disregard the spectrum as some disease or wholly unacceptable condition but rather to see it as something fundamental to one’s personhood.

The overarching issue of the spectrum is children’s modulating hyper- or hyporeactions to incoming sensory stimulation—as the onrush of confusing messages, demands and reactions constantly come at them. Delicato’s The Ultimate Stranger (1974) was my introduction to understanding the sensory systems of children on the autistic end of the spectrum. Their task, as Delicato writes, is to ‘modulate and filter’, to resist over-reacting to what is perceived as intrusive stimulation. Discriminating as to which stimuli are relevant was the task facing a young Temple Grandin (1986). This self-described autistic and celebrity author wrote of her early life that learning to filter meaningful incoming stimuli was her greatest task. Anxiety reactions to noxious or difficult stimuli resulted in obsessive repetition. Perseverating with constant questioning became a means of self-soothing, and thus reassuring answers were received with comfort and pleasure—like any child hearing his favourite story read over and over. Obsessive questioning was also a means of decoding and adapting. By third grade the budding genius was already self-treating, envisioning a ‘comfort machine’. This, she writes, would require crawling into a coffin-type space, in which she would then ‘inflate the lining’, thus applying a gentle embrace of proprioceptive pressure—the equivalent of the autistic hug (1986, pg. 34). Little did she know that this form of self-comforting would lead to her profession—of designing animal-handling systems which would provide the contact comfort when the animals were under duress. This system revolutionized the management of cattle and other animals with an empathic regard which had never occurred to professionals in the field. It took envisioning the problem from a fresh perspective, to approach non-verbal animals (and humans) with alternative means of regulating stimuli that were perceived as frightening or incomprehensible—an obvious metaphor analogous to her own way of being.

There are social implications when attempts to read the seemingly inexplicable emotions or intentions of others that may be utterly confusing. For Grandin, the nuances of communication were difficult to absorb, resulting in having to be defended. Trying to ‘let go’ of off-kilter responses, of faux pas, even after the interaction was long forgotten by the other, resulted in rumination. For many individuals along this arc, inner thoughts become a constant loop, as obsession becomes a critical defence and means of compensation. Without their fragile defences, I have observed many children resorting to withdrawing into their inner worlds. Some become ‘refuseniks’ when disturbed—meaning everything offered by parents or teachers may be distrusted or outright rejected. Other reactions to stimuli may include approach/avoidance conflicts—where engaging a person or activity is perceived as meaningless, strange or even a dangerous undertaking. The child attempts to decode and assess the dangers inherent in even the ministrations of well-meaning others. Yet the challenge also comes with unique positives. The creative responses explored vividly illustrate a worldview that is radically different than the norm—one that may be beguiling and deserving of dignity and respect. While these children’s paths are often painful and difficult, contemporary culture has finally raised an awareness of emotional, learning and ‘being’ differences, with increased tolerance and inclusiveness for what these individuals endure and can create (Grandin & Panek, 2013).

The Creative Response

This is where the creative response activity enters the equation—that whatever is felt or perceived can become a fuel for creativity, regardless of how unfocused, hyperactive or even delusional the behaviour. With the provision of a secure maternal and familial base, therapeutic support and creative outlets can reframe a child’s deficits to translate them into positives. Arousal levels, intrusive thoughts or difficulty with personal interrelations can all be creatively transformed into expressions, which Kramer (1971) has termed ‘symbolic equivalents’. She has written that the process of creative exploration is seen as being intrinsically therapeutic. Because demands for behavioural and social compliance pose as constant stressors for many children, creative outlets remain a conduit for self-expression, where there is no wrong answer. While creative endeavour also requires much fortitude and mindfulness, children often succeed when they find their own interests on their terms—not just as a defence or escape. Creative work becomes a basis for expansion, a point of departure where the creative response enhances social, relational and functional problem solving. Idiosyncratic artistic, athletic or recreational activity becomes a kind of rebuttal to the so-called norm—a reshuffling of the narrative that meets the child’s needs regardless of societal expectation. To have a taste of acceptance, along with creative freedom, has lasting emotional and intellectual effects. I have met and worked with many individuals who are on the spectrum, some of whom are now young adults, with three of them still corresponding with me after twenty years. There is a consensus that their formative experiences of searching out their creative selves still resonate deeply within them—paving the way for achievements that are remarkable considering their struggles.

The Spectrum Range

Spectrum issues are commonly first encountered during childhood, blossoming further through latency and early adolescence. Increasingly, one may also encounter individuals who have adapted sufficiently during adolescence to utilize their often-latent intelligence at university level. With early intervention initiatives has come greater access to support services, such as psychotherapy, behaviour training and socialization programs, leading to more young people on the spectrum being college bound. These young people are often identifiable despite their identities being confidential. It has been fascinating to witness how their issues were muted, given years of behavioural therapy and psychotherapy. Many displayed the mildest of symptoms until encountering obstacles that are typical among those on the spectrum: issues with social interactions, difficulties with low-reward activities, and chronic time management and organizational problems. Many who were behaviourally trained by rote or conditioned found it difficult to think critically and assimilate ideas which did not require a concrete ‘correct answer’. In my classes on the creative arts, many struggled to build an argument—of why something is felt or thought. Beyond my at-risk university freshmen, some individuals on the spectrum also began applying to the undergraduate programs in fine arts and clinical art therapy training programs, both of which I have directed in Chicago and New York. Individuals were sometimes referred to as ‘wounded healers’, as individuals may gravitate to the helping professions to assist others. Personal experiences with trauma, spectrum issues or other challenges could be reframed and lent to others with great empathy.

While young people of all ages on the spectrum have shared commonalities, almost all of them have far-ranging differences in their capacity to adapt and function. Though the issues may be similar, the source of their spectrum issues can unexpectedly be linked to any number of causations or aetiologies: genetic predispositions, being prenatally exposed to infections or viruses, being relationally deprived and neglected, or possessing a neurochemical imbalance. Many remain anonymously or idiopathically on the spectrum. The conditions remain a mystery—that countless neurochemical, genetic or environmental factors intermingle, to present with identical diagnoses—a fact that is simply astounding. It is perhaps a lesson to move beyond nature/nurture multiple causations and deal phenomenologically with the person in front of us.

The Artist Self-Absorbed

One such individual, shown on the frontispiece, is Joaquin, a young man who is intensely working alone in the studio. He was treated for over a decade by the pioneering art therapist, Edith Kramer, to whom this book is dedicated. She began working with Joaquin during hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I. The Creative Response
• Part II. Towards a Theory of the Psyche
• Part III. The Artists
• References
• Index