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The following article was published in our article directory on July 22, 2014.
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The Direction of Thoughts

Article Category: Advice

Author Name: Lucas Steuber

In 1961 a modern classic of children's literature, "The Phantom Tollbooth," was published. This book, written by Norton Juster, is about a young boy who travels to a magical land where he must rescue the princesses, Rhyme and Reason, to end the feud between Dictionopolis, the kingdom of words, and Digitopolis, the kingdom of numbers. This clever book crosses audiences; as the puns, wit, and wry humor amuse adults, and the adventures in a make-believe land, engage children.

Along his journey, the young boy of the story, Milo, arrives in a city where all of the buildings have disappeared. Milo is told by a local boy who lives there that the citizens of the city had stopped paying attention to everything around them as they rushed to and from work each day. Slowly, little by little, their surroundings grew fainter and fainter until they disappeared all together. As adults, we recognize that this vignette of a city in which buildings and streets disappear is metaphorical for how we operate on a daily basis – moving about our environment without noticing anything, as if the world around us isn't truly there. Anyone who has commuted on a regular basis will be empathic to how we can travel, rushing at speeds over 60 miles an hour, along busy freeways, nearly oblivious to the scenery around us.

Children still see things. Children still notice things. This is not a bad trait. This is a good trait. Noticing things kept human beings alive for many millennia. Children have not yet learned to stop seeing things. This is a wonderful skill – except when children are supposed to be attending to a teacher's instructions. Perhaps someday we'll have a larger discussion of diversity of attention styles and provide a manifesto on the survival purpose of alertness. Until then, try this strategy: Ask the child to"point to the direction where that thought just came from."
The simple command to point to the origin of an idea gives insight into another person's thought processes. With adults, we use different language, such as the ever polite, "I wonder where you got that idea," or "whatever made you think of that?" Conversationally, we use directional expressions to describe our thought processes, from the metaphorical "follow your train of thought" to "conversational tangents." We understand that ideas have origins and that thoughts can hop from place to place.

When a child makes what appears to you to be a completely random, off-topic, possibly inappropriate comment, you don't know the basis of this idea. Asking children to physically extend their pointer finger and point to what they just saw in their immediate environment that sparked a particular comment helps you to understand the entire situation. I have been fortunate to work with amazing staff and I am continually impressed by the fast and effective methods that are employed to understand the thinking of the children we serve.

Recently in a special resource classroom, a middle school girl suddenly started talking about sexuality without any warning at all and it startled us. This level of adult themed topic did not appear related to anything and not characteristic of the student. When asked by the teacher to point to where that thought just came from, she pointed out the window and across the way to the high school football field where a teenage couple looked like they were kissing.

"Oh, of course, now it all makes sense," you might think to yourself. She was looking at the older kids kissing, but what if we hadn't asked her to identify what had instigated her questions. What if we had chastised her for not attending or for making an inappropriate comment? We do want children to make comments appropriate to the topic at hand, but don't we also want to know what they are thinking about, and why they are thinking about it?

As adults, many of us may no longer be using all of our senses to experience the world the way that children do. In fact, we may pride ourselves on our ability to remain focused in busy and chaotic work environments. We know that it's valuable to focus, but we know that it is equally valuable to notice. When we take a moment to synchronize our physical perception of the world with the children we serve, we all understand each other better.

Keywords: ADHD ADD autism SLP speech therapy speech pathology

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