This is a commentary on an article in CNN.com about a boy with autism, Rowan Isaacson, "'Horse Boy,' family find respite from autism in Mongolia", who improved while interacting with horses and shamans. Near the end of the CNN.com article it is mentioned that whatever the child is interested in can be the trigger for communicating and interaction.

That concept parallels my experiences described below that got students into an enthusiastic mood where they wanted to participate and succeed:

I have worked with learning disabled and severely disabled kids, including autism, as a dance specialist for over 30 years. And I, too, found that when a child was totally into the rhythmic movement, that it became a means of non-verbal communication.

Here is an example of what I did with the students: We began with a group of four to six children of primary school age and me sitting in a circle, facing in, legs folded in.

We used hand clapping without rhythm instruments or music. Without speaking, I began by using my hands to clap a rhythm, with a pause, such as 4 claps, pause, 4 claps, pause, 4 claps, pause, and continuing a few more times. Each severely handicapped student had an aide who knelt behind the child and clapped the student's hands for them as needed.

Then we changed the technique: 4 hand claps, 4 floor claps, 4 hand claps, 4 floor claps, continuing a few more times. The aides helped the students as necessary.

The students became enthusiastic and really into the rhythmic clapping until they wanted to start each daily session of 20 minutes with the patterns of rhythmic clapping.

I'd like to note that at no time did I speak during the clapping. The students followed along with my rhythmic clapping by listening to the speed of the claps and watching and listening for the change in the pattern from hand clapping to floor clapping and back, again.

I noticed that by engaging the students in the non-verbal clapping they concentrated fully with enthusiasm. It is also my opinion that sitting in the small circle facing in gave each student the best view of what I was doing, and was pulled along by the upbeat group energy.

If you'd like to try some of these rhythms and movements, I recommend my book:
Rhythms and Dances for School Age Kids
For grades K-12 in 100 pages, how to teach 16 rhythmic dance steps illustrated and described, plus 9 little dances, 18 ABA and other sequencing combinations, and 4 advanced group dances - for learning kinesthetically about math sets, sequencing, and language phrasing and rhythms. Can be adapted for special needs kids.


Article by Susan Kramer