"DANCE FOR YOUNG ADULTS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM" by Lydia Hance
Since commencing Module 2 the emphasis of my enquiry has evolved from just wanting to look at the training available for teaching dance to children on the autistic spectrum to looking more at the way that dance is taught for autistic children, and the benefits they derive from it. The article "Examining Dance Classes For Teens On The Autism Spectrum" by dance teacher Lydia Hance is valuable for my research because Hance has a great deal of experience in teaching dance to autistic people and the article is written from her own personal perspective. I intend to get the views of dance teachers for my enquiry so this article enables me to get some insight into that.
In the article Hance discusses two different dance classes that she has taught for teenagers with ASD. The first one includes ten 17 year old boys and two 15 year old girls. She mentions that her goals for this class were:
"for the students to enjoy moving, increase their comfort with their bodies and to challenge them with interaction and awareness of other dancers in a defined space."
She states that she begins each class with a warm up that is either verbal or physical. The warm up is seated on chairs. Her reasons for this are because it helps the students:
"define their space and to feel secure to start moving".
"define their space and to feel secure to start moving".
I found this very interesting for two reasons. The first reason is because I had not considered that an open space would seem daunting to someone with ASD as she suggests.The second one is because some people with ASD find verbalising difficult and I would have thought that a verbal warm up might have inhibited them at the start of a class.
Placing the chairs in a circle would also mean that they would be making eye contact with their peers and I would have thought that, initially, this too might have been inhibiting. It is well documented that autistic people often have problems making eye contact. Bergland in "The Neuroscience of making Eye Contact" says that research around the world suggests that a possible reason for this may be a vestibular and/or cerebellar dysfunction. The link to this article is below:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/the-neuroscience-making-eye-contact
Hance acknowledges the difficulty autistic people face in connecting with other people and suggests an exercise to help them maintain eye contact.This involves trying to look at one another whilst doing chasses in pairs.
She mentions other ways she tried to get the students to connect with each other. These involved gentle weight sharing movements with a partner and movements in which they tried to match each other's timing and breathing patterns. Again I was surprised that exercises that required the students to touch one another were incorporated because "some autistic people resist being touched" (Autism UK independent ).
I think the thing that surprised me most about the class was the fact that she incorporated improvisation. Another characteristic of autistic behaviour is that they have "a strong preference for routines and sameness." (Autismuk.org)
From my own teaching experience of people with ASD improvisation was something that they shied away from. She does state that she structured the improvisation by giving them patterns to follow for example: "ABB or ABAB or ABCABC. She does not give any explanation of what these patterns represent.
Hance says that she was surprised by the enthusiasm with which the boys in the class responded, especially to the gross motor skill movements she incorporated, such as "jumping, leaping, hopping, balancing, rolling and cartwheeling"
She says that at times she had problems controlling the noise level because the boys were talking a lot and that she had to channel their energy to get them to focus on the class. She gives a possible reason for this being:
"due to the vulnerability they were experiencing. They were verbally processing their experience."
She makes no mention of the fact that this vulnerability might, in part, have been due to the presence of two younger girls in the class. From my experience boys like to show off their dancing prowess in front of the girls and in so doing often generate noise. If they feel they haven't mastered a movement they will also talk to divert attention away from the fact that they can't execute a movement as well as they might like.
Throughout the article, other than at the beginning when we are informed that the class includes two 15 year old girls, Hance makes no reference to how the girls responded.The whole report of the class focuses entirely on the boys. The dynamic of a mixed gender class is very different from that of a single gender class, especially when the class are all teenagers and when one sex far out ways the other in number. I feel this is something quite vital that Hance has omitted to discuss.
One is left wondering about whether Hance made any adaptations in the class for the girls and how they reacted to being the only two girls in a class with ten older boys.
She doesn't state whether this class was the first encounter with the students or whether she had been working with them for some time. We are not informed about the severity of the ASDs of the students. She does state that :
"Students with low-functioning autism don't need the technique expectations of a career-bound dancer."
I assume,therefore, that the students she is teaching are at the mild end of the autistic spectrum.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27665626/ballet-dancer-autism
Hance does acknowledge that it is important for teachers of autistic students to value the class as highly as they would a class they were teaching for vocational students because:
"it is crucial students don't feel second class. They can see right through that."
Hance goes on to discuss a second class of "nine ladies who have recently graduated from high school"
She says that:
"This group of students needed safety in order to feel the momentum of their bodies in space."
She then goes on to say that she spent a lot of time:
"facilitating improvisation with the students within different structures involving movement qualities (soft, sharp, gooey,...) responding physically to different music genres, exploring high/middle/low levels"
She doesn't give any explanation as to how this made them feel safe enough to move through the space. I assume that she means that because she was suggesting different ways for them to move it was not as daunting for the students as just putting on the music and telling them to improvise and that, as a result, they felt more confident about moving.
Hance makes a very interesting comment about mirrors in the dance studio saying that:
"Mirrors are counter-productive in a dance class for students on the autism spectrum. They are distracting, exposing, and can be harmful for body-image, an exacerbated concern with autistic adolescents."
I think this is a valid observation and one which can apply to any adolescent whether or not they are on the autistic spectrum. I remember well my own dance classes in a studio with wall to wall mirrors. I could never perform properly because the image I saw in the mirror of myself dancing was not the ideal that I had in my head.
I found an interesting article by Kirsten Lindsmith that talks about body image for autistic teenagers. She says:
'' It's commonly understood that autistic people have problems with what is referred to as "zoom-out" focus, and, especially when dealing with people, see the parts of things instead of the whole. Body dysmorphic disorder is marked, and some would say caused, by the patient seeing their individual body parts instead of their whole body. Where a non-BDD patient would look in the mirror and see a face, a patient with BDD sees an eye, another eye, a nose, a mouth, cheeks, etc., the same way an autistic sees a face. The failure to put these pieces together leads to (or can be a result of) focusing on these individual pieces, instead of seeing how they fit together in a greater context."
The link to the article is below:
http://www.autismafter16.com/article/04-20-2012/body-images
Hance also refers to bullying issues that autistic teenagers can face by their peers because of their co-ordination differences. I have already commented in my blog "Dancing To a Different Rythym " about the statistics surrounding the bullying of autistic people and about the desires of many autistic people to be perceived as "normal" and to fit in with their peers.
She mentions an incident where one of her students told her that she had been made fun of as a child and so felt self conscious in the dance class.In order to combat this they discussed it and all made a commitment that no-one in the class would make fun of anyone else. This level of connection is quite significant, because:
"social interaction difficulties mean a child with an ASD may find it difficult to understand unwritten social rules, other people's emotions and feelings and expressing their own emotions."(autismeducationtrust.org)
Hance stresses how important it was for the students in her class to feel comfortable and have a level of trust. She gives examples of two exercises that she used to try to gain the students' trust.
The first one involved the students falling or running backwards across the room and the teacher cushioning their landing. The second one involved the students running round the room with their arms out as if they were flying. She mentions that the students found these difficult at first, but eventually, once trust had been established, were able to abandon themselves to the movement and complete the tasks without being inhibited.
Hance doesn't give any indication of how long it took for the students to reach this level of trust. Once again we aren't given any information about the severity of ASD of the pupils in the class, but assume that they are only mildly affected because of the way that we are told that they respond to the teacher and to each other.
Hance concludes by saying that :
"Teaching these students has been an equal exchange of vulnerabilty, love, and risk."
It is interesting that she herself felt vulnerable when teaching. I think that many teachers experience feelings of vulnerability at some point during their teaching.I believe that this is partly due to the fact that, however much you plan a class, you can never be sure of how it will be received by the participants and this uncertainty can produce feelings of anxiety and insecurity in the teacher. I also think that the sense of responsibility for the well being of the students and the desire for them to have a pleasurable experience in the dance class places pressure on the teacher.
When the pupils have special needs these feelings of insecurity and responsibility the teacher experiences are heightened because one is aware of the difficulties the pupils face, but unsure how these difficulties may manifest themselves within the class. This places the teacher in a vulnerable position.
I feel Hance has made some very useful comments about the teaching of the students,but there is information missing such as; the level of autism the students had, the frequency of the dance classes and the affects of mix gender classes.
This article has made me aware that, when I interview teachers, I need to make sure that I get as much information from them as possible. In order to present my reader with a full account of the enquiry I need to document the teacher's feelings about her experience with her pupils as well as looking at the pupil perspective. Because ASD is so diverse, it is really important that the target audience for my enquiry is aware of the level of the students being taught. It is also important that I obtain feedback about the long term progress the dance students have made and whether this has had any impact upon their daily lives outside of the dance class.
Bibliography
AUTISM EDUCATIONAL TRUST (2015) A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS, http://www.autismeducationtrust.org.uk/resources/teachers%20guide.aspx
ACCESSED APRIL 2015
AUTISM UK INDEPENDENT (2010) http://www.autismuk.com/?page_id=61#1 ACCESSED ONLINE MARCH 2015
AUTISM UK (2015)http://www.autism.org.uk ACCESSED ONLINE FEBRUARY 2015
BERGLAND, C (2014) THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MAKING EYE CONTACT, THE ATHELETE'S WAYhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/the-neuroscience-making-eye ACCESSED ONLINE APRIL 2015
HANCE, L (2011) DANCE FOR YOUNG ADULTS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM,DANCE ADVANTAGE http://www.danceadvantage.net/autism-spectrum/ ACCESSED FEBRUARY 2015
L LINDSMITH, K (2012) BODY IMAGES, AUTISM AFTER 16, http://www.autismafter16.com/article/04-20-2012/body-images
YOUNG, C (2014) DANCER WITH AUTISM SAYS BALLET CHNGED HIS LIFE, FOX NEWS,http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27665626/ballet-dancer-autism
Placing the chairs in a circle would also mean that they would be making eye contact with their peers and I would have thought that, initially, this too might have been inhibiting. It is well documented that autistic people often have problems making eye contact. Bergland in "The Neuroscience of making Eye Contact" says that research around the world suggests that a possible reason for this may be a vestibular and/or cerebellar dysfunction. The link to this article is below:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/the-neuroscience-making-eye-contact
Hance acknowledges the difficulty autistic people face in connecting with other people and suggests an exercise to help them maintain eye contact.This involves trying to look at one another whilst doing chasses in pairs.
She mentions other ways she tried to get the students to connect with each other. These involved gentle weight sharing movements with a partner and movements in which they tried to match each other's timing and breathing patterns. Again I was surprised that exercises that required the students to touch one another were incorporated because "some autistic people resist being touched" (Autism UK independent ).
I think the thing that surprised me most about the class was the fact that she incorporated improvisation. Another characteristic of autistic behaviour is that they have "a strong preference for routines and sameness." (Autismuk.org)
From my own teaching experience of people with ASD improvisation was something that they shied away from. She does state that she structured the improvisation by giving them patterns to follow for example: "ABB or ABAB or ABCABC. She does not give any explanation of what these patterns represent.
Hance says that she was surprised by the enthusiasm with which the boys in the class responded, especially to the gross motor skill movements she incorporated, such as "jumping, leaping, hopping, balancing, rolling and cartwheeling"
She says that at times she had problems controlling the noise level because the boys were talking a lot and that she had to channel their energy to get them to focus on the class. She gives a possible reason for this being:
"due to the vulnerability they were experiencing. They were verbally processing their experience."
She makes no mention of the fact that this vulnerability might, in part, have been due to the presence of two younger girls in the class. From my experience boys like to show off their dancing prowess in front of the girls and in so doing often generate noise. If they feel they haven't mastered a movement they will also talk to divert attention away from the fact that they can't execute a movement as well as they might like.
Throughout the article, other than at the beginning when we are informed that the class includes two 15 year old girls, Hance makes no reference to how the girls responded.The whole report of the class focuses entirely on the boys. The dynamic of a mixed gender class is very different from that of a single gender class, especially when the class are all teenagers and when one sex far out ways the other in number. I feel this is something quite vital that Hance has omitted to discuss.
One is left wondering about whether Hance made any adaptations in the class for the girls and how they reacted to being the only two girls in a class with ten older boys.
She doesn't state whether this class was the first encounter with the students or whether she had been working with them for some time. We are not informed about the severity of the ASDs of the students. She does state that :
"Students with low-functioning autism don't need the technique expectations of a career-bound dancer."
I assume,therefore, that the students she is teaching are at the mild end of the autistic spectrum.
I would challenge her view that autistic people don't need the same technical expectations as a career-bound dancer. I have personally taught students who are on the autistic spectrum who have exceptional dance talent. I also know some professional dancers. Philip Martin-Nelson is a prime example of someone who was severely affected by autism but went on to become principal dancer with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The link to this article is below:
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27665626/ballet-dancer-autism
Hance does acknowledge that it is important for teachers of autistic students to value the class as highly as they would a class they were teaching for vocational students because:
"it is crucial students don't feel second class. They can see right through that."
Hance goes on to discuss a second class of "nine ladies who have recently graduated from high school"
She says that:
"This group of students needed safety in order to feel the momentum of their bodies in space."
She then goes on to say that she spent a lot of time:
"facilitating improvisation with the students within different structures involving movement qualities (soft, sharp, gooey,...) responding physically to different music genres, exploring high/middle/low levels"
Hance makes a very interesting comment about mirrors in the dance studio saying that:
"Mirrors are counter-productive in a dance class for students on the autism spectrum. They are distracting, exposing, and can be harmful for body-image, an exacerbated concern with autistic adolescents."
I think this is a valid observation and one which can apply to any adolescent whether or not they are on the autistic spectrum. I remember well my own dance classes in a studio with wall to wall mirrors. I could never perform properly because the image I saw in the mirror of myself dancing was not the ideal that I had in my head.
I found an interesting article by Kirsten Lindsmith that talks about body image for autistic teenagers. She says:
'' It's commonly understood that autistic people have problems with what is referred to as "zoom-out" focus, and, especially when dealing with people, see the parts of things instead of the whole. Body dysmorphic disorder is marked, and some would say caused, by the patient seeing their individual body parts instead of their whole body. Where a non-BDD patient would look in the mirror and see a face, a patient with BDD sees an eye, another eye, a nose, a mouth, cheeks, etc., the same way an autistic sees a face. The failure to put these pieces together leads to (or can be a result of) focusing on these individual pieces, instead of seeing how they fit together in a greater context."
The link to the article is below:
http://www.autismafter16.com/article/04-20-2012/body-images
Hance also refers to bullying issues that autistic teenagers can face by their peers because of their co-ordination differences. I have already commented in my blog "Dancing To a Different Rythym " about the statistics surrounding the bullying of autistic people and about the desires of many autistic people to be perceived as "normal" and to fit in with their peers.
She mentions an incident where one of her students told her that she had been made fun of as a child and so felt self conscious in the dance class.In order to combat this they discussed it and all made a commitment that no-one in the class would make fun of anyone else. This level of connection is quite significant, because:
"social interaction difficulties mean a child with an ASD may find it difficult to understand unwritten social rules, other people's emotions and feelings and expressing their own emotions."(autismeducationtrust.org)
Hance stresses how important it was for the students in her class to feel comfortable and have a level of trust. She gives examples of two exercises that she used to try to gain the students' trust.
The first one involved the students falling or running backwards across the room and the teacher cushioning their landing. The second one involved the students running round the room with their arms out as if they were flying. She mentions that the students found these difficult at first, but eventually, once trust had been established, were able to abandon themselves to the movement and complete the tasks without being inhibited.
Hance doesn't give any indication of how long it took for the students to reach this level of trust. Once again we aren't given any information about the severity of ASD of the pupils in the class, but assume that they are only mildly affected because of the way that we are told that they respond to the teacher and to each other.
Hance concludes by saying that :
"Teaching these students has been an equal exchange of vulnerabilty, love, and risk."
It is interesting that she herself felt vulnerable when teaching. I think that many teachers experience feelings of vulnerability at some point during their teaching.I believe that this is partly due to the fact that, however much you plan a class, you can never be sure of how it will be received by the participants and this uncertainty can produce feelings of anxiety and insecurity in the teacher. I also think that the sense of responsibility for the well being of the students and the desire for them to have a pleasurable experience in the dance class places pressure on the teacher.
When the pupils have special needs these feelings of insecurity and responsibility the teacher experiences are heightened because one is aware of the difficulties the pupils face, but unsure how these difficulties may manifest themselves within the class. This places the teacher in a vulnerable position.
I feel Hance has made some very useful comments about the teaching of the students,but there is information missing such as; the level of autism the students had, the frequency of the dance classes and the affects of mix gender classes.
This article has made me aware that, when I interview teachers, I need to make sure that I get as much information from them as possible. In order to present my reader with a full account of the enquiry I need to document the teacher's feelings about her experience with her pupils as well as looking at the pupil perspective. Because ASD is so diverse, it is really important that the target audience for my enquiry is aware of the level of the students being taught. It is also important that I obtain feedback about the long term progress the dance students have made and whether this has had any impact upon their daily lives outside of the dance class.
Bibliography
AUTISM EDUCATIONAL TRUST (2015) A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS, http://www.autismeducationtrust.org.uk/resources/teachers%20guide.aspx
ACCESSED APRIL 2015
AUTISM UK INDEPENDENT (2010) http://www.autismuk.com/?page_id=61#1 ACCESSED ONLINE MARCH 2015
AUTISM UK (2015)http://www.autism.org.uk ACCESSED ONLINE FEBRUARY 2015
BERGLAND, C (2014) THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MAKING EYE CONTACT, THE ATHELETE'S WAYhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/the-neuroscience-making-eye ACCESSED ONLINE APRIL 2015
HANCE, L (2011) DANCE FOR YOUNG ADULTS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM,DANCE ADVANTAGE http://www.danceadvantage.net/autism-spectrum/ ACCESSED FEBRUARY 2015
L LINDSMITH, K (2012) BODY IMAGES, AUTISM AFTER 16, http://www.autismafter16.com/article/04-20-2012/body-images
YOUNG, C (2014) DANCER WITH AUTISM SAYS BALLET CHNGED HIS LIFE, FOX NEWS,http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27665626/ballet-dancer-autism
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