What neuro-affirming actually means
How I decide what to work on, and what I leave alone
I describe my practice as neuro-affirming. So do a lot of people, including a lot of people who mean very different things by it.
Writing the word on a website costs nothing. So here is what it means when I use it, in enough detail that you can hold me to it.
Difference is not the same as difficulty
A child can do something differently from most children and be completely fine. Different is a description. It only becomes something I would work on if it is getting in the way of something that matters to that child.
So before I set any goal, I run through five questions.
If the answer to every one of those five questions is no, there is nothing to treat.
A child who lines up their cars for an hour is playing. A child who would rather eat lunch on their own is not automatically lonely, and a child who watches the same two minutes of a film on repeat is getting something out of it.
Usually the something is joy, which is reason enough.
When I would not intervene
This is the part most development content leaves out, so I want it stated plainly.
Rocking, flapping, humming, fidgeting and pacing are regulating. Taking away how a child regulates and putting nothing in its place does not help them. The only time I would look at a repetitive movement is if it is hurting them, and then I am looking for what it is doing for them and what else could do the same job.
Plenty of people listen better when they are not looking at your face. Attention and eye contact are not the same thing, and I would rather have a child who is actually taking something in.
Hands that are busy are often hands attached to a child who is coping.
If I cannot explain how a goal makes the child's own life better, it is not a goal, it is a preference of the adults.
A child who has gone quiet and still is not necessarily regulated. Sometimes they have just worked out that objecting is not worth it.
Before we work "on" the child
When something is hard, these are the questions I go through before any of them land on the child:
Most of the time at least one of those works, and the child never needed to change at all.
Independence does not mean doing it the usual way
I am interested in whether a child can do the thing, take part, and have a say. I am not interested in whether they got there by the standard route.
What this means for the free guides
I need to be straight about a tension in my own work, because it is a fair thing to raise.
I give away milestone charts and age-based toy guides. Milestone charts are useful. They are also, by design, a comparison against an average. The format can quietly suggest that different equals behind, and behind equals something to fix. I do not believe that, and I do not want my resources implying it.
So the guides say, and will keep saying, that milestones describe a range rather than a deadline, that children arrive in their own order, and that a difference only matters if it is getting in the way of something the child wants to do. The play ideas beside each one are opportunities rather than exercises. There is no correct way to use any toy in them.
It is not therapy, and no child needs a particular toy to develop. What a good toy buys you is a reason to be on the floor together.
See the milestones and toy guide →
If you want to talk
I see children in Perth and by telehealth. Autistic children, children with ADHD, children with developmental delay, children with a trauma history and children with FASD all come to see me.
If you want to know how I would work with your child specifically, ask me.