S2 E3: Neurosensory Divergence, Autism and ADHD: Nicole Bateman chats with Helen Daniel

In episode 3 of Season 2 of "Conversations with a SEND Mum," host Nicole Bateman engages in a fascinating conversation with Helen Daniel, owner of OTB Sensory. Together, they explore the concept of neurosensory divergence and discuss the physical differences in the brain that impact neurodivergent individuals. They also delve into the importance of classroom adaptations to support neurodivergent children.

Episode Highlights:

• Neurosensory Divergence Explained: Helen provides valuable insights into neurosensory divergence, highlighting the diverse ways in which brains can function and process information. They discuss terms such as monotropic (focusing intensely on one thing at a time) and hyper-polytropic (processing multiple stimuli simultaneously), shedding light on the complexity and diversity of neurodivergent experiences.
• Understanding Brain Differences: Nicole and Helen explore the physical differences in the brain that contribute to neurodiversity, emphasising the importance of recognising and respecting these differences. They discuss how these differences can influence learning styles, behaviours, and sensory processing in neurodivergent children.
• Classroom Adaptations: The conversation shifts to the crucial topic of classroom adaptations and accommodations for neurodivergent students. Helen shares practical strategies and recommendations for creating inclusive learning environments, from sensory-friendly adjustments to personalized supports that cater to individual needs.

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Check out our Season 1 and 2 sponsor The Super Sensory Squad who support kids in understanding the eight sensory systems and emotional regulation using their penguin squad at: www.thesupersensorysquad.com and www.instagram.com/thesupersensorysquad

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Conversations with A SEND Mum podcast with me as your host, Nicole Bateman. Today I'm joined by Helen Daniel and she is a neurodivergent wellbeing practitioner. Hello, Helen. Thanks for having me. It's all right. So first of all, can you tell us what is your connection to the SEND community, please? Okay, so obviously I'm a neurodivergent well being practitioner, so I have supported neurodivergent children and young people. I am also part of a neuro spicy family, so we're fully neurodivergent in my family as well. I myself am also a late diagnosed neurodivergent adult. I have a master's in autism studies, and I've also written a book about autistic languages. Excellent. So lots of, lots of connections there and lots of knowledge from Helen, for sure, that will be really helpful. Yeah. And I also had trained as a teacher, so that's a really, I think all of those different angles coming together gives you quite a big insight into neurodivergence and SCN children and children. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So can you tell, tell us a little bit about in what, like you've, you've coined a phrase and I would love you to explain that to us on here, please. Okay. Yeah. So I've coined the term neurosensory divergence because so from when my When I was quite young and I was at school, I found it very challenging to take part in lessons, access the information the way it was being presented to me. And I really struggled with social as well, although I was really sociable. For some reason, the way that I was interacting with other children didn't seem to make them feel comfortable. And I would talk over children and get overly excited. I'd be told to sit down, be quiet, all of the things that you're supposed to do at school. And then when I went into classrooms as a teacher myself, I noticed that there were children in the classroom that were also not being served by the situation that they were in. So they were not being served by the resources. And I was having to teach them. Going along with the targets that teachers are supposed to use and also the systems and structures that we have in place now. So we have things like phonics and specific ways of teaching. And I noticed that a lot of the children in my classroom weren't well served by the way that I was teaching them. And I was trying to bring in other resources. I also had a child very early in my career who. was non speaking. So trying to bring in the resources for that child, we'd had hardly any training. I mean, like, I think three hours on send. Yeah. So it was my job to research and find out what that child needed. And then when I, there were children of my own in my family, obviously I'd done all this training to say this is how children develop. There are psychologists that we follow, Vygotsky and Piaget, that say that children should develop along a certain timeline. And the children in my family were not developing along that timeline. They were picking up, patterns of learning that were different to the majority of children. And they were doing this because they had sensory differences. And this made me so interested in sensory differences. I went on to study it during my master's and interviewed people about their sensory experiences and found a lot of research that shows that sensory divergence is a physical difference within our children. So when they are in classrooms and they are trying to adhere to the set targets, they, the targets don't work for them. The environments don't work for them. And the teachers are just having to say, because we have these structured systems, you know, you have to adhere to these targets. You have to adhere to these behaviors. And neurosensory divergence explains that we have different brains when you're neurodivergent and different physical bodies and sensory systems. That do not fit well in these structures. Absolutely. And I totally, I resonate with what you say and totally agree. And through the SuperSentry squad, both of us here are very passionate about that and the sensory environments and all of those things to, to have those adaptations. And you definitely see looking back, I don't know about you, but looking back on my teaching career, you look back and you think, Oh, wow. Yeah, no wonder. Like the environment was just so full, even things on the wall and things like that. It's, it can be so overwhelming depending on, you know, sensory preferences, sensory needs, and all of those things. And there are a lot of things that I would have changed about my classroom even and then how I responded and interacted. If now. Yeah, hugely. And I, it's also really, I think the most interesting thing that I found out was that. Some autistic people have been tested and they hear in more detail and some autistic people have been tested and they see in more detail. And when you look at ADHD profiles, there's less access to sensory input. So they might have convergence in their eyes or they might have an astigmatism. Well, that physically changes how you experience the world. It also alters How you access language. So, if you hear in more detail, then, when you're young, and everything's so busy, homing in on voices is much harder. So, you're not hearing as many words, you're not in the classroom hearing as many words, everything's a bit overwhelming. So, you're in your own world, and you have to build your language in quiet spaces. So if you think about a child that goes to nursery, how many quiet spaces do they get to acquire that language? Yeah, not many, none. And so their conceptual learning, everything, it changes everything because Sensory divergence just makes you follow a completely different timeline and children in my family, I noticed, were combing into different patterns. So picking up the written code, writing before the spoken code, and that became their first language. And some people pick up pictures, and that becomes their first language. It's so interesting. Yeah, that does sound very interesting. So, for teachers, if there's any teachers listening right now there are some. But, what would you say is really important? The most important thing when considering, you know, neurosensory divergence in their classroom. So if you think about a child in the classroom who thinks mainly in pictures. Yeah. And they are struggling to pick up the written code. Then. They sort of have to translate everything into pictures in order to make sense of it and then translate it back into speech. And I interviewed a few people from my masters who explained this to me, that, that someone thinks in videos and they have to think about it, translate it into videos, translate it back. They need multi sensory input. So if you present a PowerPoint and then you're speaking at the same time, which is how a lot of our teaching happens. Yeah. As soon as that PowerPoint is gone, that information has gone out of that child's head because it's not, if they don't memorize the words, they don't, what have they taken from that slide? If they don't memorize, remember well in spoken words, but they remember snippets, how much are they memorizing of that? And then If we were to give them multi-sensory information that they could hold onto so they keep hold of notes so we can feed our lesson plans into chat GTP now. Yeah. We get bullet points, you know? Yeah. We have text readers that can read at the same time as they're, you know, looking at the text. There are all sorts of things we can do, and I. I'm one of those types of learners that needs multi sensory. If I try and listen to a podcast, forget it, I can't listen to just a podcast. I need to be moving my fingers at the same time. I often listen to podcasts when I'm knitting. Yeah. Because I need to be doing something else at the same time. Or I need to be writing notes about it at the same time so that I take it in. So yeah, in classrooms, there's that side of it. And then there's something else in playgrounds as well. Do you want me to go into that? Yeah, go for playgrounds because they're tricky environments for a lot. Like, I know my son struggles. Absolutely. So if our neurodivergent children have picked up their communication differently and they've built it, it's called gestalt language learning. Yeah. And they've built it in these sort of blocks. If like a lot of ADHD children, they're so in their own world that they also end up doing this thing called info dumping, which is where you're not using small talk as much, and you talk about something that you're really interested in for an extended period. And then you wait for the other person to do the same back to you. That's called info dumping. And it's how a lot of neurodivergent children communicate and it's how I still communicate as an adult. And at the moment we frame that through a deficit model. So we say that's an inappropriate way to communicate and you need to be using reciprocal conversations. If you think back to those. What I said about children in the classroom, they're not involved in those reciprocal conversations. They're not picking up that conceptual knowledge and they can, they pick up different knowledge around their interests. They can just home into that. And so when they talk, they might run up to children and be like, Oh, I really like computer systems. What computer systems do you like? And the other children or just, just tell them all about the computer system. Yeah. The children don't know what to do with that. And there's just a disconnect in that communication, but because of the way we frame it, it's always the neurodivergent children who are seen as wrong. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that makes me sad. Like what I love about my son, yeah, he sees, so he's very visual, like he needs those visual prompts to help him. This is what we try and encourage teachers to do, or I make some things and I take them in for him if they don't do it. Yes, I'm that parent. But he'll see something. So visually, and then he'll then think of a story that links with that and someone for someone, they may not have seen that visual of like a pyramid, let's say it's a pyramid. Like he's been learning about ancient Egypt, Egyptians recently. So then he'll just say something about agent, ancient Egyptians to this person. And then they're like a bit confused, like, where's this come from? But actually I can see, because of the, I was observing at this I can see. This is where he's got it from. He's seen a picture. That's why it's linked back to his brain. He's gone, right, I'm going to talk about that. And it's great because he's just, it just comes up with things when he sees it visually, he'll then explain it. And I love it. But you, but unfortunately, yeah, it's often seen as, oh, that's a negative way. But yeah, I love it. I, I, I love it as well, and I, and I indulge it, which doesn't always sit well with other people because they think that maybe we shouldn't indulge that. I think it's, it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's how I communicate, so why wouldn't I indulge it? And also, you have to remember, these children are being raised in families that are probably neurodivergent, where we're all communicating like that. That's what they're used to. And then, the other thing is Because they're taking in the sensory information, say they're a visual learner, so you have more detailed visual learners, like the children in my family tend to be, and they home into the written code, so they're not visual thinkers in the same way. In fact, they would need to have seen something, physically seen it, in order to be able to use that in their writing at school. So if you talk about a tree, they're thinking specifically of a tree they've When you've got visual learners, they can put that all together and create beautiful imaginary scenes. And they're less detailed thinkers, but they are more overarching quite often. And when they are communicating and experiencing the world in this sensory way and, Having a completely different experience to other children. It's all feeding into their brain. And so they create these monotropic areas in their brain that are specific areas in sensory areas in their brain where it's hyperconnected. And that hyper connected area is very, very busy. If you think about plug sockets, all plugged into extension cables in one area of the brain. It's very, very busy. It's much more likely to be overloaded. And then you have the other side, where you have sensory signals that are jumping around, because we're multi sensory learners. And I am a multisensory learner. I have to take in what you're saying with your face. Yeah. The same time as I'm taking in the auditory, because I find it harder to access that information. And then that means my brain is super busy. And then, I'm easily distracted. I'm easily off on a tangent, all of these things, but my brain is physically different. The monotropic children's brains are physically different. I have a bit of monotropic and hyper polytropic. And then to process that through your body, guess what you need to do? Move your body. Move, yeah. Yeah. We've got these children in the middle who are polytropic learners. who have brains and sensory systems that are served by a schooling system. And then we have neurodivergent children in the minority who are just not being served either by the environment, not by the amount they're allowed to move, not by the resources that are offered to them. So it's a whole situation of them not really being served. Yeah. Yeah. So what's, what's the what's the solution? Yeah. Right. What's the answer? Come on. Let's, let's tell us. So we currently have an ideology that the best way for children to learn is for teachers to stand at the front and deliver information via speaking about their knowledge and using PowerPoints or some video resources. There are other ideologies and other pedagogy that says that children learn best through their own interests while moving around and finding the resources with knowledgeable facilitators to support that. Regio Amelia and different types of Montessori are sort of this side of things. Yeah. We do it in the early years. Yeah, that's true. In the early years, we're like, this is the best way for children to learn. And then in year one, we're like, suddenly, this is not the best way for children to learn. The problem you've got is, with these other types of ideologies, It's not as easy for the adults around the children to test and use exams. However, you can get at what their knowledge is by assessing as you go, but it means a complete reform like educational reform. Or. a dual schooling system. Yeah. Where, we offer this type of resource where we're at at the moment, the way we can do it now is to offer multi sensory resources and to think that speech is not always the best way for children to learn and to offer non speech based activities in the playground and interest based clubs for our neurodivergent children. And to allow neurodivergent children to build connections with each other as well, if they find other neurodivergent children that they can gel with, it's going to work really well. And then the last thing is, we need to educate the whole community. about neurodivergent sensory differences and about how they communicate and how we bring those things together in a lovely, cohesive, equitable system. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's going to take, like, it's like one step at a time, because, yeah, isn't it? It's like little steps and little changes that, like those multisensory resources, that can be done right now, can't it? With individual teachers, individual schools, then taking it further to the whole kind of system reform. A hundred percent, and So, we can bring in those smaller steps and that will make a huge difference. But actually, one of the biggest things we could do, it doesn't take anything. And it is just saying to those children, you are experiencing the world differently, validating their experience. Because we have this weird thing as humans where we're like, well, I'm not having that experience. So I don't think you are. Yeah. It's not that smelly. It's not that loud. You're okay. You're okay. It's not that, I know, even though teachers, and this isn't to say that schools and teachers aren't starting to go on that journey to understand. They are. Yeah. And they want the best for their students. I was in that classroom and I desperately wanted the best for my students. It's not the teachers. It's the system. Yeah. You're so ingrained in the system when you're a teacher that you don't realize that there's all these children in your classroom that are just experiencing the world completely differently, and therefore they're not being supported. Yeah, absolutely. I think that understanding of, yeah, we, see the world differently. We're experiencing it differently and that's okay. We don't all have to be fitting into the same, hole. I mean, even when my son was in reception, I remember a conversation being called up by the, by the teacher being like, he was being rude. I was like, Oh, why? Oh, he put his hands over his ears. And I was like, Oh was it a bit too loud, no, it wasn't loud. Now I would say to her, may not be loud for you. But it was loud for him. And I would have the confidence to do that. But what three, four years ago, I did not have that confidence. I was kind of like, okay, like, but because I was and I didn't want to be rocking the boat or anything. Actually now I would definitely, if someone said that to me right now, I'd be like, No, it's not loud for you, but it is loud for him, 100%. I had I was working at an event recently, and there was a young lady there who if cups and saucers touch, it's so distressing for her. It makes her feel physically sick. That. We're not, we're not understanding as a society how important it is to validate sensory experiences, to learn about sensory experiences. There are a lot of books out there written by autistic, ADHD, adults and young people. We should have some of these books in school libraries. Yeah. Because those children are sitting in that classroom thinking, why can't I do it? I've sat in that classroom thinking, why can't I spell? Why can't I do this? Why can't I remember? Why can't I do exams? My brain was not working that way. And, and I left school thinking I wasn't very academic. Well, I've just Yeah, right. I've just written a book and done a masters. I was gonna go and do my PhD but decided to go down the book route. It's simply not true. And also being able can look so different for different children and we just are not celebrating enough. Like I have a Facebook, free Facebook group that is about celebrating neurodivergent children and young people. You know, we, if somebody, Even small things that our children do that seem to other people, you know, small. They're not to us. They're huge. And we need to be like shouting that from the rooftops. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the children in my family, he's not really into drawing. And he drew a picture the other day. I think it was a potato or something. And I was so happy because I was like, you don't do that, so that's amazing. But for other parents that would see that, that wouldn't be amazing. Yeah. And they don't, yeah, they, cause, cause that's like something that they do all the time or whatever. Yeah. And I think as well, when we have our children who don't speak as much or speech is not their first language they're often underestimated because it's the, the understanding isn't there that actually there's a different language that they've acquired beforehand. So it might be pictures, it might be written, it might be, and so I experienced a lot of people underestimating family members and other children because they couldn't articulate things. we don't know what they know when they're not articulating it. It's only now later that I've understood all the things. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it's important. I think it's important to note that, isn't it? And to remind ourselves and others of that. Yeah. And what, and the thing that I think is really useful With your journey as well is understanding that their brains are different and that those brains can get easily overloaded. Definitely. It's a physical difference that we need to be talking about. absolutely. And that's the thing, isn't it? Well, with, with my son's brain, because of the epilepsy, you literally see on the EEG, the different brain activity in the temporal lobe, which then impacts the emotions, impacts all of those different things. You know, he's autistic as well. And so therefore the, it's. You literally are like, I mean, at least with the epilepsy, we have the, the actual EEG waves and brain, this might take someone this time, but he's got to then go through this different brain activity to then be able to access something that maybe, someone could just. Do like that, I always have to remind people yeah, this is amazing. He has to, go through that and then still do that. It's like, it's incredible because yeah, he is amazing. And, you know, even, even last week. Yeah, disco. So disco, obviously sensory overload for four years. Every year I've gone like as a one to one for him. And he's been in the room where he's getting where they had the drink. So it's quieter and stuff like that. And not actually gone into the room with the lights off with the, with the flashing lights, with all of those things. And this on Thursday, he literally went for the first time, we've been to about eight discos over the years. And he actually went in for the last 15 minutes and he was actually going with all the other kids and I cried I was tearing up because this is a massive win. Whereas like some people would just be Yeah, she's going to the disco, just drop them off. they're going to the disco, like it's not, it's not really a win. Like, I'm like, this is massive. Like literally for four years of discos, two discos a year, we've been sat in this other room. He wants to go, he wants to get involved, but he just is getting over that threshold of that literal threshold of that door to go from. From the room with normal lighting and all of the kind of things to a room with not and that looks different because it's the school hall and things like that, but he did it. I was like, that's amazing. I just cried. I was trying to say to people he's here, he's there, and a few people would have got it. Think as well, when you realise how different our experiences are as SEND families, and that quite often non SEND families might have sympathy but not empathy, Yeah. Yeah. They can't really put themselves in our shoes. They have no idea what our journey has been like. And they can quite often feel like, Oh, it's the response to knowing that our children are autistic or ADHD or it's sort of a sympathetic response. And it's really interesting to me that they always say that neurodivergent people, autistic people lack empathy. And Hold on. Another thing, when we're talking about empathy, a lot of neurodivergent people empathize in a mirroring way or, there's two different ways, there's mirroring or there's more like cognitive empathy. So cognitive empathy is where you try and solve the problem. And then mirroring is where I go, Oh, I've had that experience as well. Yeah. And people who don't empathize in those ways think both of those ways are wrong. They think you should empathize by saying, Okay, that sounds hard for you. How are you doing? And it should all be about the other person, which I can understand the reasoning behind that. However, natural neurodivergent empathising just looks like this. It's not that we're being rude. Yeah, it is, yeah. I see that. I see the mirroring massively in my son. Like his friend fell over and then he said, I fell over and I hurt my And I'm like, oh, he's trying to be so, it's so sweet. He's, he's like that. Yeah, he's doing it. but then, yeah, some people might be like, why are you telling me about your story? But it is, I, you can see why though. You can absolutely see why. Yeah. And, the thing you said, earlier about being direct, that's another thing with neurodivergent communication because they don't, because they're translating and going back and forth. And it's challenging and their processes. They're not as involved in that underlying thought process, so they're not like, Oh, this person's going to be upset if I say I don't like this present, so I'm not going to say that. They're just like, I don't like this present. Yeah. Because, why would you want to? It's honest. It's just a useful bit of information. Yeah, it's just honest then. And I remember having to teach my son to lie and then to, What sarcasm was and all sorts of things like that. Mm. You know? Yeah. But it seems counter intuitive, doesn't it? It's like, well, to be fair, you're being honest. I don't really want you to like pretend that you like something because then, yeah, you're just being honest. Yes, and we as a society are, it's weird because the whole concept of lying has become more, more norm, normalized. Then just being honest and being honest and direct is seen as rude. Yeah, but yeah, it's better than, honesty is better than lying in my policy. Right. So where, if people, so much great information and you've got more in your book. So what's your book called? So my book's called Neurosensory Divergence Autistic Languages A Roadmap Towards an Equitable Life for Autistic Children. And you can also find me on, I'm mostly on Instagram at otbsensory. Excellent. And I'm also now creating resources and talks, and I'm going out and giving talks to educational settings and businesses as well about sensory accessibility. Excellent. So yeah, connect over on Instagram, go and find the book on Amazon. And yeah, type in Helen Daniel as well. I'm sure it will come up, won't it? Yeah. Yeah, excellent. And yeah, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Helen. Thank you for having me. That's all right. It's been really, really interesting. And really helpful, I'm sure, to those listening. So thank you. And yeah, every week, every Wednesday, a new episode drops on Conversations With A Send Mum, and you can follow along, have some sneak peeks into the episodes at Conversations With A Send Mum on Instagram too. So hope you have a lovely week and I will see you next time.