Declarative Language Handbook: Using a Thoughtful Language Style to Help Kids with Social Learning Challenges Feel Competent, Connected, and Understood

Product Information

Helps with social emotional development and self-regulation (e.g., "I notice that you're upset. Let's take a couple of deep breaths together." instead of "Calm down!") Linda describes declarative language as a positive, thoughtful communication style that emphasizes understanding, patience, respect, and kindness, and as you’ll hear, it is an ideal communication style for neurodivergent children and kids whose nervous systems are triggered by demands or imperative communication styles. Declarative language also gives you a chance to model your thinking to your child. It gives them an opportunity to hear your thoughts, understand your thinking, and to see your perspective.

It's less likely to trigger fight, flight, or freeze responses because it uses fewer demands than questions (e.g., "Look, grandma and grandpa are leaving. Let's wave goodbye." instead of "Do you want to give grandma and grandpa a hug before they go?") How to introduce declarative language communication and how it can support a child’s learning and development Yeah, and you mentioned imperative and you even included a little bit of a grammar lesson in there, which I appreciated. So just to explicitly put out there, what imperative language is, can you just describe that for us and give us an example of what an imperative phrase would be?I am. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. As you were talking, I’m thinking one of the tilts in my book differently wired is this idea of becoming fluent in our kids. And so I think this is a part of that is really understanding, as you said, how to communicate in a way that our kids will be receptive and really understand the meaning of what we’re saying in the best possible way. And I also love that it is this idea that everything is an opportunity to learn, like literally everything that happens when using this approach. It can become a way to learn to grow to make connections to develop more fluency. And so I think it is really powerful in that way. And I just want to say to the listeners, I feel like we’re talking around this a little bit and we are going to get into it. Give you some real specific examples of what declarative language is and how to start using this in your world. But I have one more question before we get to that. So when we were planning for this conversation you shared with me that you use co-regulation with a declarative language constantly and never one without the other. So could you talk about the relationship between declarative language and co-regulation? Support and self-care for you – being in touch with others who are having similar experiences can be enormously helpful and local families may have invaluable tips relevant to your area (please search our resources directory for support groups near you). It’s also important to ensure you are caring for yourself as well as possible. Declarative Language Handbook: Using a Thoughtful Language Style to Help Kids with Social Learning Challenges Feel Competent, Connected and Understood by Linda K. Murphy Recognising and regulating emotions is something most of our children find very difficult. Whilst our children are young, the adults around them will need to be very vigilant in spotting the signs that anxiety is escalating. As our children grow older and their emotional intelligence develops, they may be able to recognise their emotions and deploy their own coping skills more effectively. Books can be a good way to learn about emotions, and enable our children to develop understanding and skills, in a more indirect way. There are some general book ideas that may be helpful with this in the resources section.

Essentially, you're shifting away from being result or product focused and instead focusing on building important skills in areas such as executive functioning, language, independence, and social interaction. So let's take a closer look at some of the other benefits of using declarative language. The Benefits of Using Declarative Language Chunk questions or requests (space them out one at a time) rather than saying or asking many things in one go. Allow time for your child to answer your first question or respond to your first request before adding any follow-ups. Yeah, an imperative is a demand, or a command in the moment that asks the other individual to do something, or to perform in some way. So it could be to say something to do something. So examples might be stand up, sit down, say this, do this. But very discreet, it tells the person what to do, it tells the person what to say. But it really doesn’t give any additional information about the greater social context. It doesn’t get at any of the sooner I’m talking about what it’s not also, but it doesn’t really get it any of the language that we use to build relationships with other people. And it doesn’t talk about our observations together, our experiences, our memories, our ideas, our opinions, our future plans, it really doesn’t get at any of that wonderful communication that helps connect us to each other and build relationships and what it does, essentially, and I know we’ll get into this as it when it places that demand on our learners, it can trigger at times that fight flight freeze response, which as we move down the road might present as challenging behaviors to others maybe on understanding what’s going on. And you’re just seeing the end result. We’ve been working on using this strategy in all parts of our day for awhile now, and I have to say, it really makes a huge difference. It is non-threatening and opens up space for the child/student to assess the situation and problem solve for themselves. In general, we’ve seen WAY LESS emotional reactions and MUCH MORE personal responsibility.What if people mostly used language with you to tell you what to do or to tell you that you should have done it better? I think you'd agree, that would get discouraging rather fast! For individuals with social learning challenges, this is too often their experience. Through this handbook, Linda guides us to notice how a shift in our use of language (from imperative to declarative) can fundamentally shift how children relate to us and the world around them. Through many practical examples and tips for developing our own use of declarative language, Linda provides us the tools to build positive, pro-active relationships with the individuals we parent, teach or counsel." Asking for help: saying that you don’t know or can’t remember how to do something can be a great way of making a demand more indirect. Training 1: Declarative Language: Using a Thoughtful Language Style to Help Individuals with Social Learning Differences Feel Competent, Connected and Understood

Training 2: Co-Regulation: Creating Competence, Balance and Positive Connection Through the Ups and Downs of Learning Yeah, I too, have seen or noticed a sea change may be a slow one. But I started Tilt almost seven years ago now. And the landscape is so different from when I first started doing this podcast and started doing this work. And that is really exciting for me to see. And there does just seem to be a lot more openness and curiosity about how can we better support neurodivergent kids and really meet them where they’re at even just the approaches to doing that. And so it’s more compassionate is more about CO regulation, it is with more understanding of the nervous system and you mentioned fight flight or freeze response. And so it’s exciting. One of the things you talk about this being really supportive for kids who have social learning challenges, how would you define social learning challenges? Encourages curiosity and social wondering in children. Rather than teaching children to simply carry out our commands, this communication style provides opportunities for children to use language in a more authentic way. One aspect of social development that I work on with a lot of my clients is the concept of social wondering. While many children can ask questions (e.g., who, what, where) when they are directly prompted, the underlying skill in this case is wondering about the other person! If you aren’t wondering anything, you don’t have any reason to ask questions. On the other hand, when a child is curious, asking questions comes more naturally. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, reducing imperative/commanding language can be critical for working harmoniously with some children (neurodivergent or not!), but particularly with PDA kids. On the other hand, one of the biggest pet peeves that autistics have with allistics is their frustrating tendency to not speak clearly and say what they mean!Yeah, that’s great. Would you share with listeners where they can connect with you? You mentioned your blog, I’m gonna have a link to the one exchange at a time post that you mentioned, but anywhere that listeners can connect with you and engage. A repeated theme in our case studies is that PDA turns “parenting norms” upside down, so our own mindset and mood are key factors in developing a toolkit of helpful approaches. Some key pointers are: Yeah, and the other thing I think all of this creates is very much a partnership, where we are the guide, and the learner is open to our guidance. And once you have that anyone can learn anything as long as both people are in that mindset. I think where learning gets hard is when maybe the teacher is not guiding but directing. So it leaves less space for the learner, or where the learner is shut down to learning for various reasons, learning stops then. So when you use this style, you know, we are thoughtfully guiding, but our learner becomes open to that guidance, and that’s just a really important part of it. I personally find that the easiest way to get started with declarative language is to think of ways to start your comment off with words and phrases like let's, I noticed, I wonder, or I see. Then once you get the hang of it, you can move to other types of phrases.