Teaching Diverse Desires through Conversation

Transcription

1 Teaching Diverse Desires through Conversation

2 Diverse Desires Decades of research shows that the understanding of desire is an early and foundational theory of mind development. For example, children use desire terms (e.g., like want ) and understand the concept of desire before they use cognitive terms (e.g., think know ) and understand the concept of belief (for review, see Hutchins & Prelock, 2016a, b). Part of desire-understanding is knowing that different people can like and want different things (a.k.a. diverse desires ). This activity is designed to support the understanding of diverse desires in the context of a group exercise. (NOTE: This activity was adapted with permission from and our gratitude to Mary Pat Moeller who worked in collaboration with the preschool teachers at Boys Town National Research Hospital to develop the original version of materials; Moeller, 2014).

3 Diverse Desires Activity Follow the directions below to create the necessary materials. Then engage children (or children and adults) in a group activity in which they make their likes and dislikes public. Keep in mind: our activities are always intended to be positive and nonjudgmental exercises. As such, it is important to stress ahead of time (and throughout as needed) that there are no right or wrong answers and that people like different things and that s okay. Indeed, the point of this activity is to explore and discover the similarities and differences between people in an emotionallysafe environment.

4 Diverse Desires Activity Suggested language to introduce this activity: We are going to talk about the things we like and things we don t like. We might discover things that we both (all) like/don t like. We might also discover things one of us likes that everyone else dislikes. Let s have some fun discovering what likes/dislikes we share. Remember though: there are no right or wrong answers! Different people like different things and that is okay. Now introduce the Liking Legend. Tell the group: The Liking Legend shows all the faces that we are going to use to share what we like a lot and what we don t like as much. Let s talk about what each face means. After you have introduced each face and what it means, begin with the Food Edition and write the name of each participant in the Name row. Ask each person to take turns putting the feeling faces on the board (go one column at a time or ask each person to complete the entire row in a single turn).

5 Diverse Desires Activity When the board is filled in, talk about the diverse desires among your group. Begin by summarizing the findings. Whenever possible, try to make use of sentential complements : these are syntactic structures that have been causally linked to children s theory of mind development (e.g., Shulaing et al., 2014). Basically, sentential complements are sentences that contrast two ideas. Because the function is contrastive, the conjunction but is often used (and and is never used). For example: I thought Joey liked ice cream, but it looks like he doesn t. I see that three of us like broccoli, but the rest of us do not. Karen likes salad, but she loves sandwiches.

6 Diverse Desires Activity After summarizing the results, engage the group by asking questions that are filled with desire talk. For example: I see that Anna loves ice cream. Anna, what kind of ice cream is your favorite? Is there any ice cream that you don t like? When you go out for ice cream, where do you like to go? Mmm, you re making me want ice cream. I would be very happy to have some ice cream right now. Looking at the board, I see Joey says ice cream is ok but he really loves sandwiches. Joey, what kind of sandwich is your favorite? (and so on ) Adapt the questions for each board. For example: o What animals do you like to see at the zoo/farm? o Looking at the board, what animals do you think I would want to see at the zoo/farm? o What toys do you and your friend/brother/sister like to play with?

7 What you need The following pages printed in color Dry erase sharpie Small velcro dots Directions for best results: Laminate all pages Cut out the Feeling Faces on the last page (note: you may need to print more than one page to get enough faces of each type to go around) Affix small Velcro dots: one side goes on the board, the other side goes on the backside of the faces.

8 What we like & What we don t like NAME

9 What we like & What we don t like NAME

10 What we like & What we don t like NAME

11 FEELING I LOVE THIS! I KIND OF LIKE THIS THIS IS OK I DON T REALLY LIKE THIS ACK! NO THANK YOU!

12 FEELING FACE I LOVE THIS! I LIKE THIS THIS IS OK I DON T LIKE THIS ACK! NO THANK YOU!

13 Family-Centered Practice It is well-established that family-centered interventions can be extremely effective for improving children s developmental outcomes (Bodner-Johnson & Sass-Lehrer, 2003 Crais, 1993; Deihl, 2003; Kuo et al., 2011; Prelock & Hutchins, 2008). Partnering with families is important because: they bring valuable insights to the intervention process they help reinforce targeted social lessons across contexts to facilitate generalized learning it ensures that interventions are culturally relevant it contributes to the families support network which can have positive and substantial affective benefits families are powerful and enduring sources of influence on children s development

14 For Caregivers: Family Conversation: How Tos The following recommendations are a synthesis from the empirical literature for effectively supporting children s understanding of desire through family conversations (for review, see Hutchins & Prelock, 2016a, b): Don t assume that likes/wants are automatically inferred by the child. Rather, talk explicitly about one s own and others likes/wants during daily social interactions Increase the use of desire terms (e.g., like, want, wish, dislike, don t want ) Use talk that connects desires to: behaviors (e.g., what do people do to fulfill their desires?) outcomes (e.g., did people get what they wanted or not?) emotional consequences (e.g., how do people feel when they get/do not get what they want?) Talk about diverse desires Point out the things that most people agree on (e.g., most people like ice cream but some people don t) Point out the areas where there can be a lot of disagreement (e.g., many people like rollercoasters and many people don t). Talk about atypical desires (e.g., some people love spiders and that s ok; some children don t like candy and that s ok)

15 For Caregivers Family Conversation Starters When having a snack, talk with your child about what snacks s/he likes best, what snacks you like best, and what snacks a brother/sister/friend likes best? At bedtime, talk with your child about what book s/he likes best, what books you like to read to him/her, and what books a brother/sister/friend likes to read? When watching a favorite TV show, ask what character your child likes best, what character you like, and what character a brother/sister/friend might like. In all of these discussions, identify and contrast likes/dislikes without judgment. Help your child understand that different people like different things, and that is okay!

16 For Caregivers: More Family Activity Ideas Repeat the Diverse Desires Activity in this packet at home with family members. Read the book Likes & Wants to your child and follow the recommended activities in the back of the book. Read more! Find books that the child prefers and use the book to talk about the characters likes and wants.

17 Bookmarks Directions for best results: Cut at dotted line Fold & laminate Hole punch at top and add some string! LIKE

18 References Bodner-Johnson, B., & Sass-Lehrer (2003). The young deaf or hard of hearing child: A family-centered approach to early education. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Crais, E. (1993). Families and professionals as collaborators in assessment. Topics in Language Disorders, 14(1), Deihl, S. (2003). The SLP s role in collaborative assessment and intervention for children with ASD. Topics in Language Disorders, 23(2), Hutchins, T., & Prelock, P. (2016a). Copyrighted Manuscript. The Theory of Mind Atlas (item 59: desirebased emotion). Available at Hutchins, T., & Prelock, P. (2016b). Copyrighted Manuscript. The Theory of Mind Atlas (item 54: mental state term comprehension: want). Available at: Prelock, P., & Hutchins, T. (2008). The role of family-centered care in research: Supporting the social communication of children with autism spectrum disorder. Topics in Language Disorders, 28(4), Kuo, D., Bird, M., & Tilford, J. (2011). Associations of family-centered care with health care outcomes for children with special health care needs. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 15(6), Moeller, M. P. (2014). Presentation: Getting to know you: Promoting social-cognitive development in children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Boys Town National Research Hospital: Nuts & Bolts Series. Lincoln, NE. Shuliang, M., Yannie, S., Sabbagh, M., & Jiaming, X. (2014). Sentential complements and false belief understanding in Chinese Mandarin-speaking preschoolers: A training study. Cognitive Development, 29,