Respecting neurodivergent play: what does it look like?

After working in various early years settings for 16 years, I started childminding with my wife in 2022. It was important to us that we be a place that especially welcomes children who “don’t quite fit in” in mainstream settings. We currently say we strive towards being neurodiversity-affirming. To put it plainly, instead of seeing autism, ADHD, dyspraxia and other developmental conditions as things that need to be fixed, rather we recognise them as a natural part of human diversity.

Building relationships

We don’t limit “normal” kids interests and strengths, why do we tend to do so with neurodivergent children? To try to address this question, I will focus on one of our first mindees, A. He has recently been diagnosed as autistic and his parents have given permission to share what we have learned alongside him to hopefully help other educators.

Before A started with us his parents suspected he was autistic and shared as such. While it is never our place to diagnose children, we can observe children’s strengths and areas where they could use support. Conversations with his parents, reading reports from his previous setting and observing him during a few stay and play visits early on made it fairly clear he was a sensory seeker and loved exploring trajectory whether through throwing or rolling objects. He also struggled with core strength and coordination. (He was also a gestalt language processor/echolalic, but this is not the focus of this blog!)

As we had just opened our setting and working with our first crew of mindees, the first few weeks were about all of us getting to know each other and figuring out a flow to our days. During this time I looked for ways to get him engaged in heavy work that he enjoyed.

Following a neurodivergent child’s play and interests

I lucked out fairly early on by modelling rolling a tyre down the slight hill in our back garden. He thought this was amazing and was immediately keen to try it for himself. Fortunately, this was just the right amount of challenge for him! It was difficult for him to do it at first: he struggled pushing or pulling the tyre up the slight hill but especially holding the tyre up whilst walking to the opposite side of it at the top of the hill. But it wasn’t so difficult that he gave up. He got frustrated plenty, but he kept at it for a good while, multiple times a day.

All this practice of course led to him getting better at doing this and I would say for the next 3-4 months he spent 30-60 minutes a day rolling a tyre down a hill. As I write two years later he still gets around to tyre rolling at least a little each day.

Doing all this he was:

• Engaging in heavy work (a necessity for all children but especially sensory seekers), getting tons of proprioceptive input in his muscles and joints while pulling and pushing the tyre up the hill.
• Crossing the midline every time he had to hold the tyre in place whilst walking to the other side of it before sending it back down the hill.
• Extra receptive to new gestalts/scripts we modelled – “it hit the tree! (table/blocks/bush/etc)”
• And most of all, relishing following a strong interest – exploring trajectory of objects he throws or rolls – for a good chunk of time each day. I am positive that him knowing he could play like this for so long each day played a huge role in him settling into our setting and strengthening our relationship in these early days.

Respecting every child’s play

This was clearly a win/win/win situation to me, but I couldn’t help reflecting that this was a relatively “countercultural” approach. I have worked in plenty of settings where autistic children’s strong interests were seen as hyper-fixations or “obsessions” that were to be worried about, “worked on” to varying degrees or at best, tolerated. To be blunt, many people currently recommend holding autistic children’s interests ransom via a ‘Now and Next Board’: “now we are going to play something you don’t enjoy and next you can do bubbles.”

A Younger Me could have been persuaded by an outside specialist to not let A wallow in this play, or that what would really serve him is to “teach him how to play” like other children. I am now firmly of the opinion that this would have been counterproductive, harmful to our relationship and would have stolen valuable development opportunities from him.

I have since learned that play is play whether it’s “typical” or not and we have little hope for building real relationships with young children (much less truly settling) if we can’t learn to see and respect their play. To not understand a child’s play is to not understand that child. To reject a child’s play is to reject that child.

Let’s be real though, many young neurodivergent children are hard for many educators to understand. We aren’t given proper education or training on why some children move, behave or play the ways they do. This can make us feel out of depth about what our role is with a child.

We don’t have to immediately understand every child’s play or interests, but we do have to stop the widespread assumption that there is only one right way to play. I don’t know how many people would say this explicitly, but on the whole our field often works on this assumption. The way neurodivergent children, particularly neurodivergent Black or Brown children, move and play is often looked at as “different,” somehow less than and something that often times need to be managed rather than supported and respected.

Reflecting on your approach to neurodivergent children’s play

As a childminder I have the luxury to operate my setting as I like. I reckon many people reading this are working in schools or nurseries with more moving parts that can make changes in pedagogy a bit more complicated. I don’t know your cohort or context, but my reflective question would be:

What is currently stopping you from letting a neurodivergent child in your setting wallow in their special interests?

• “In all honesty, I don’t understand their play” – this is okay! Part of being a skilled and reflective educator is being honest with others and most of all ourselves. Instead of pretending otherwise, we can take the time to learn more about play from autistic and other neurodivergent people and let this knowledge inform our practice over time. Check out some of the links at the end of this blog.
• “They would just do it all day!”– would they really? Have you taken the time to find out? If they somehow did (which I highly doubt), why would this be an issue?
• “We have a timetable for the whole class or group and we want them to be part of it” -this is real and I get it. I would just suggest finding pockets of time where this child can get into their interests in more depth. I am confident you will find successes that will give you the confidence to keep going in this direction.
• “We have specific goals we need to work towards on their EHCP” – whatever these goals might be, you can absolutely find ways to work towards them via their special interest. Why make our jobs harder? When children are following a special interest (and know that we respect it) they are more emotionally regulated, and consequently in a place where they will be more receptive to much more from us and peers.

A has been with us more than two years now and is getting ready to go to school this September. Though we have provided a place where he has greatly strengthened his coordination, core strength, communication, social and emotional skills, he is no less the sensory seeking, autistic young boy he was when he first came to our setting. Our role is to help all children develop authentically, not waste valuable time training them to act “more normal.”

Further Resources:

• Autistic Play is Appropriate Play: by Quincy Hansen, an excellent personal blog from an autistic adult writing about the way autistic children’s play is too often pathologised and micro-managed.
• Neurodivergent Play: a short video we did explaining a bit of what we do and why, with examples from our provision.
• A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Directed Neurodivergent Play: by Kerry Murphy
• David Cahn’s YouTube Channel: “We are childminders in the UK, and we also make videos about child development, neurodiversity, and the importance of free play.”

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