978-1572305441

William 95
It is also essential to have a good idea of the linguistic tools the
child uses, or does not have access to, when engaging in a conversation.
What conversational devices does the child employ that are troublesome
for other people to tolerate and that need to be limited? What linguistic
tools are missing and need to be applied by asking for feedback
and clarification? I ask a lot of questions to get around ambiguous references.
I try to slow the speech down if it is too fast or speed it up if it’s
terse and there are long pauses. I frequently interrupt to encourage the
child to get to the point and not spend so much time on the details. I
will take the physical context that the child refers to and ask about people
in that context. This constant feedback teaches adolescents to be
more aware of the skills and linguistic devices needed to have a coherent
conversation, so they can keep those rules in their head and use
them on their own.
* * *
Treating the pragmatics of conversation is a matter of gentle persuasion,
of challenging the conversation but at the same time being respectful
of the child’s level of development. It’s a process of not asking
too much but not being afraid to challenge and expect more than what
is usually given, of seeing the world through the child’s eyes by taking
that imaginative leap but also holding our own world in mind as we
gently encourage the child to move from one to the other. If the language
game can become more public and less private, more open to a
shared context, then the capacity for relationships improves. It is a matter
of enticing children with autism and AS to enter our world and show
them how much fun it is and then gently closing the door behind them
so they don’t have to go back into the world of subways going every
which way. This type of gentle challenge may give them a choice between
the sense of the word and the presence of the world and allow
them to go back and forth at will. To live without metaphors is to live
among the particulars, to inhabit a tapestry of details, intricate and fascinating
in their design. But it is limiting in that the experience cannot
be generalized and categorized. Some things are best left uncategorized
to be sure. To have the choice to see the myriad detail here, and then to
categorize there, must surely be a privileged place from which to experience
the world. Would that we all had that talent.