Neurodiverse needs and play: Femi’s story

Femi, aged four, is fascinated by pairs of objects. He pays attention to certain details – colour, shape and weight are of particular importance. Once he has found two objects that satisfy his criteria, he will bang them together, enjoying the noise and vibration as he experiments with force and speed.

There is a particular place he likes to sit: outside, high up on the climbing frame, where he can feel the wind on his face and listen to the patter of the other children below him.

Femi often chooses to spend most of his day outside, occasionally heading inside to request a snack using a visual symbol. He’ll then return outside to explore new objects until finding a pai with which he’s satisfied.

Most days, he carefully navigates carrying objects to his favourite spot, where he will sit for long periods. As he revels in the pleasure of this activity, a huge smile lights up his face.

The play of neurodivergent children is often viewed through a deficit lens, focusing on what they can’t do instead of what they can.

(Murphy, 2022). Through this lens, others would likely consider Femi’s play restrictive or repetitive. As his teacher, though, the value was clear to me: at the very least, Femi was experiencing the joy of childhood, which, as a Froebelian, I believe is of value in its own right.

An effective approach to building Femi’s individual learning via play is freedom with guidance. Using this approach allowed me to find meaningful opportunities to support Femi develop his communication skills.

Snack time is a period in the nursery day when all children were required to request a snack from an adult. Using this time to develop Femi’s use of visual symbols instead of teaching cues meant that his time for free play was not interrupted by interventions aimed at developing these skills.

Femi heads to the snack table where a group of children are sitting eating fruit.

A new staff member – who doesn’t know Femi – asks the children what they would like. When she comes to Femi, he doesn’t reply. The child sitting next to him steps in to help: “He can’t talk,” she says.

Femi walks over to the wall featuring visual symbols of different snacks, which he uses to request what he would like. He hands the staff member a picture of an apple.

“That means he wants apple,” the child sitting next to him says.

Later the same day, Femi comes into the classroom from outside appearing upset. He walks over to a staff member. Another child sees that he is crying and hands Femi two spoons: “He wants his spoons,” she says.

As seen in this observation, I wasn’t the only person supporting Femi – many of the children got to know Femi well through his time in the main nursery. Their implicit understanding of his needs meant I had lots of help in advocating for Femi and other children like him.