Touch: case study

Finding shared communication

An emotionally disturbed, non-verbal child who communicated with high screeching sound and who expressed a lot of anger and frustration by jumping on people, lashing out and banging her head was coaxed into relating with the therapist.  The therapist would do things that looked like fun and make a gentle inviting gesture to the child.  Over time the child came to sit next to the therapist for a few seconds before running off.  Then, one day, having watched the therapist rolling on the mats with other children the girl came and sat looking at the mat.  Eventually she had a go with the therapist, making a low humming sound while she did so.  Over time they developed their own games, establishing contact in various ways.  This kind of playful and affectionate contact was entirely new for her and as it was developing the child also made progress in her daily life.

One day, while at lunch the she disliked the food in front of her and began to screech non-stop.  The therapist did the one thing she knew would work, she screeched back: communicating in the child's own language.  For a few seconds they both sat and screeched and then suddenly the child began to laugh.  After that her screeching stopped being an unpleasant way of getting her own way and became a 'bridge' towards a new way of being in which sound was a shared communication.

For more, see Gossens, B: 'Children Without Words' in Discovering the Self Through Drama and Movement: The Sesame Approach, available from the Sesame Institute.