Listening First, Brain Before Body: Building Readiness Before Performance in Autism
Listening First, Brain Before Body: Building Readiness Before Performance in Autism Dr. Kondekar’s framework: Build the brain’s readiness to receive meaning before asking the body to perform One of the most important questions in early autism intervention is not simply, “What can the child do?” The more important question is: “What has the child understood?” A child may be able to sit, match, point, imitate, complete a puzzle, follow a visual schedule, identify pictures, perform an occupational-therapy activity, or produce a memorised word—and yet still struggle profoundly with understanding language, thinking flexibly, imagining situations, organizing thoughts, answering questions, narrating experiences, or using language spontaneously. This creates a fundamental problem in autism intervention: The body may be trained to perform before the brain has been adequately prepared to understand. ...