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PDA USA: The Podcast!
PDA USA improves access to education and information by creating scholarships, discounts, and resources for families. This podcast is where Amy (nonprofit COO) and Brook (our CEO) chat and heckle about all things Pathological Demand Avoidance.
PDA USA: The Podcast!
Decoding Gestalt Language Processing with Iris Wong
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Brook and Amy go on a journey with Iris Wong (SLP, @eftoolkit on socials) to better understand Gestalt Processing and how it impacts not only language, but how some people process information.
A high ratio of PDA (pathological demand avoidance) people communicate in phrases and statements (known as Gestalts) that might confuse those who process in a linear fashion. The goal of this podcast was to explain what Gestalt processing looks like, and help classrooms and families learn from those who use it.
Visit our website: PDA-USA.org for all current events, and listen to our podcast on most podcast platforms
Song is "Banjos, Unite!" by Alexander Nakarada, find at @BreakingCopyright
But first, am I pronouncing it correct, Iris? Is it gestalt or is it gestalt? And then I have to look it up every single time. And then I'm like, I'm gonna say gestalt. Buddy, welcome to uh PDA USA the podcast. Uh my name is Brooke Madeira. I'm the CEO of PDA USA, and I'm here with Amy Crewalt, our CEO, and Iris Wong, who is gonna talk to us today a little about a little bit about gestalt language processing. Um, but first, am I pronouncing it correct, Iris? Is it gestalt or is it gestalt or how do you say it properly?
SPEAKER_03I hear variations and I get confused and I have to look it up every single time because then I'm like, oh wait, what about you, Amy? How do you say it?
SPEAKER_01I've been saying it gestalt. Gestalt. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Ooh, I kind of like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like how you say the S. Only when it comes to like language processing. If I'm talking about psychology, then I'll I'll do a gestar.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I have I have German heritage. Like I'm 50% German or something.
SPEAKER_01So we're we get along. It is. We're both really I am also 50% German.
SPEAKER_04We're both very, like half of us is very angry. And like from angry people, I'm not German. I can imagine solution. That's why we all get along. We're just part of us is really mad all the time. And then the other part of us is covering it up a little bit with humor or some other thing.
SPEAKER_01But you gotta do something.
SPEAKER_00That's the English.
SPEAKER_04I know. Yeah, the English properness. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I don't know what's going on on our end, but it's a whole international um thing.
SPEAKER_01But you know, I do think it's like uh because it's interesting to me on the topic of this of how different languages, how we express ourselves, and it can sound the tone can be so different according to how we pronounce our consonants. Yes. My Germans sound so angry all the time, you know, because it's just all you know, it's just really terrifying. Um, but no, I think it's so interesting, different, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, different cultures, different things.
SPEAKER_01That's like my whole thing. This is what I wanted to get a degree in. I wanted to study language, uh, the history of language, um, etymology, like word origin, yeah, and just how it evolves and how we express ourselves. And uh it's just so fascinating to me. I'm gonna teach piano later. And of course, doing the totally wrong thing. We're doing a little bit of everything. Uh it all connects. It all connects.
SPEAKER_04It all connects. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we're gonna talk about that and how it all connects.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh, yeah, let's talk about how it all connects. I feel like I'm about to have my mind blown.
SPEAKER_01What? What? Why don't you have a PDA USA cup? I would if I did it, but I didn't. So because I don't plan to write it on here. Do you want to write something on there?
SPEAKER_04I should get a sticky note and just pop it on there. Oh, so professional. Like, seriously, that's about how professional we are. And we look we're just leaning into it because it's not part of real.
SPEAKER_01You've got to be flexible and just kind of let it all let it all hang out.
SPEAKER_03Let it all hang out.
SPEAKER_01Let it all hang out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and honestly, as a listener, it lowers the vent demand. Like, I'm like, oh yeah. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, there we go. Yeah, but I don't always want to learn something.
SPEAKER_04So all I do, and you know, I am gonna keep all this in the podcast recording because it is so authentic and real and raw. Um But all do is every once in a while I'll be like, oh hey guys, maybe I should actually ask a question that has we have written down and then we'll ask that question and we'll talk about that for a minute and then we'll see what happens. So how's that for a plan? That's I like it.
SPEAKER_01I like it.
SPEAKER_04You like it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we're probably gonna just um end up meandering a lot. It's you know, it's kind of like what we happens. We this is how our conversations always work. We can things connect.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and the new things I'm listen like learning and listening to, I'm like, it's all part of it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, like I'm just discovered a new world and I'm a late adopter to these things.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like, hey man, I get why you really like this person and they're writing now. But I have such demand avoidance. I couldn't dig into, but then I found an accessible land, so please.
SPEAKER_04Oh yay! Yay! Okay, okay, okay, here I am doing my thing, by the way. Okay, uh so Iris, Iris, tell us a little about yourself and your experience with our topic today, and also maybe a little bit about PDA. Just share something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. This is gonna be different from how I've introduced myself otherwise. Okay, I had a discovery, it happened this morning.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like such a fraud, but I think I'm a gestal processor too.
SPEAKER_03And then I'll go back into later of why I couldn't figure it out for a while, because I think I overfocused on the language part because that's how I started learning about the gestalt thing. Because from the SLB people, but I feel like they're doing like one tiny corner of this like gigantic universe. I feel like so much of the autistic experience now that I'm like trying to listen in a way that is digestible for me, and we can talk about it later. But the PDA kids, I have a PDA kid, I'm late identified PDA along the whole journey. I have a GLP kid, and the PDA kid, I kept going, like, was he a GLP? Because his pattern was so different. My daughter one is more like what you would maybe expect.
SPEAKER_02So I'm not interested.
SPEAKER_03I don't know about him, but I'm like, oh, I don't know about my GLP Nest, but I'm like, I the gestalt processing part, I'm like, oh, I yeah, very much that's interesting. I have a feeling of examples.
SPEAKER_04I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna make some discoveries today. I think, I mean, me personally at least, um, from the snippets I've heard too about, you know, gestalt language processing, I'm like, okay, you know, which is the next question. Actually, before I go off on my tangent, can you explain a little bit about Gestalt language processing so that our listeners have that context?
SPEAKER_03What are we talking about today? Yeah, that sounds good. I'll try and I'm gonna do it my own way, and then Amy will fill in because I'm not very good at headlighting because I let people who who are like able to describe things well thematically do so uh and help me out. Um, I'm gonna do it in a kind of strange way. Is that okay? I'm gonna read one quote that I found like the beginnings of beautiful because there's so much more to this whole thing, and then I'll try to describe with like a speech therapisty parent way that I understand it. I'm very simple, so it won't sound like anyone else's. And then we'll go. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, let me try it. Okay, so this is from Dr. Jamie Horics. Is that how you say her last name? Is that how you pronounce it? I listened to it on her podcast. Is that said by somebody else? Yes, I'm not sure. No, I'm talking about pronunciation.
SPEAKER_01In my head, Herricks, but we should do whatever she says in the podcast is probably how much we were pronounced it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay, cool. Well, so this this quote is um hers. And and it's from one of her Substack articles. And there's so many, there's so many things. Okay, that's what I'm saying. Why do certain phrases stay with us? For many Kestal processors, the answer is not that the words were simply copied, they were stored, held intact because they carried something larger than the words themselves. And so, like, I don't know, I feel like I think it like, you know, let's get to the whole like words are memory, words are emotion, words are embodied, words are our whole thing, but it's also not words, right? Like I mean over my time of exploring GLP stuff, I'm like, oh, but then listening more also to like non-speakers, minimal speakers, and families who have like GLPs too, that are in a very different experience, you know, have a different experience. But um anyway, so I but I yeah, because I uh how what I do before I come on podcasts or whatnot is like I listen to the two of you. So I know what like social vibes are into for my own number, and then I'll like listen to other pots just to like remember, like joggle my stuff. And so I was listening to some SLP people, and I'm like, oh yeah, there's this whole like you know history of gestalt language processing that apparently like you know, it went way far back. It was like an early autism literature with Leo Connor, I can't say his last name either, or like Barry Brisant, or I think it's Ann Peters, and then like Marjorie Long took it and then turned it into like this natural language acquisition thing and made a lot of stages. But like, in all honesty, even though I'm a trained SLP, like the stages overwhelm me. I can't remember and then in our day-to-day, as like a parent to a little GLP person who's four and a half, I don't constantly think about the stages. So, like hopefully that's also permission for the parent that's like, well, that is just a lot of like mental overload, but like and like focusing on like knowing what the meaning is or you know, yeah, so all the other stuff behind it.
SPEAKER_04But um may maybe I'll be a helpful tool here because I am still getting familiar. I can I can be like representative of uh audience members who have no idea at all. Are we saying, so this is my understanding, it's that uh learning or expressing ourselves or uh what would it be, like attaching meaning to chunks of I mean let's start with the language. So uh using phrases that maybe in their particulars aren't communicating the message the person is trying to say, but for them, they have something else attached to the phrase or the thing they're trying to say, and so they use it to express those feelings, even if you broke the words down and you're like, I don't understand how you went from that to that, like point A to point B. Like for them, they have a whole context attached to what they're saying. Is that kind of what it is? Or Amy's here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's a good um a good basic kind of explanation of how it works functionally um for a lot of uh GLPs. Um because something that I always see too, and what I notice, like especially with my daughter, is that there's kind of like she has a mental Rolodex of scripts. And so those are the chunks of language that she has learned. Now she may have learned them from um a show, like a favorite YouTube show or cartoon, but that's how she is processing a situation that she's seeing on the video, right? So say there's a social situation or just whatever on the video. So when she comes across something in in regular life that is that reminds her of that, that's the chunk that fits into her brain. And so that's what comes out, and that helps her make sense of it as well as it helps her communicate what she's feeling about it. So it can be confusing if you don't watch the show. It's like I don't know where this came from. Yeah, yeah. But I've it's been so fascinating for me to see how it's like little puzzle pieces that she I don't like using that, but it is, it's like little, you know, let's say little Lego blocks, okay? Lego that like fit together and fit in these little chunks. Um and she can just kind of stick one in there when she feels like you know, I've seen where she gets really confused about what to say, but I can see her brain just sort of going through all those scripts in her head, and then she comes and then it comes out. Maybe she'll be something about SpongeBob, you know, because she watches the Spongebob video. But um it's but then if you go back and like analyze it, it's like, no, that makes complete sense because that's exactly what we were doing and talking about. It just looked totally different.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Long-winded ex uh way of agreeing with you.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no, that's great. I mean, this is helping me. Iris, did you want to add anything or sure?
SPEAKER_03No, thank you. That's cool. Because I could have gone on for like another 30 minutes. It's like, what is she talking about? But um, yeah, and so yeah, thank you, Amy, for for that example.
SPEAKER_04But that is the world of the thing. So that is kind of, I mean, it it sounds like I've got the picture, so I'm trying to make sure I've got all the pieces here, or at least enough of an understanding of what it is we're talking about. And maybe even some example. I mean, you did give an example, but you shared an example even in a screenshot with us recently as we were preparing for this, where you showed, you know, your daughter said something and you responded in a very well-I mean, I hate to use the word logical here, but you know, you were trying to follow the flow of conversation, but she had a different intent with what she was saying. So yeah, use that.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, I can I don't have the screenshot handy, but it's okay. I can show you. I remember what she was talking about. Yeah, yeah. But she was, yeah, because she was really excited about some, oh, some plushies, right? That she found and she wanted she her way of asking for them is to say, what if these were real? Oh. And so what she wants to do, she's processing her her love of this, of these plushies, of these characters, as well as trying to tell us, you know, I like this so much that I'd really like to have these. Um, I'd like for this to be a real part of my life, you know. But what she will say, her the way she asked was, what if these plushies were real? And I guess she had asked her dad the same question like the day before. And her dad said, Well, that would be great. So I forgot what I said, but it was like, I think I said, you know, I don't know. I guess, I guess that would be cool. I don't remember what I said, but I it wasn't what she needed to hear because it didn't follow what she had in her head in order to interact with with me about it. So she told me, um, well, I forgot exactly what it was, but you know, it was something like, um, no, dad said, uh how oh, that would be great. Try that, mom. You know, like so then I said, okay, that would be great. And that was it. She was done. Like she didn't respond because that was it was it was it was complete, you know?
SPEAKER_04Interesting. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, and yeah, I feel like there's so much here. Go ahead, Iris.
SPEAKER_03I'm smiling so hard because I have a my daughter has a real one, uh like gestalt too, where her sounds I mean, some because she's getting to I don't know what stage because she goes back and forth, but she's getting to wherever she is that like some of her gestalt just sound like what people say, so they're sounding less scripty from TV or whatnot. But she just says, um what did she say? She says, um, wait, what is the one that your daughter said? Because I'm like, it wasn't exactly that.
SPEAKER_01Um what what what if what if they were real?
SPEAKER_03Oh, right, yeah, because my daughter will say, like, give me the real one, or I want the real one. And what that means is she wants the food she wants or the better version or the thing that they like buy it for me. Idea. But she'll use like that very particular language too, which is funny that sometimes it's like similar but different. But um, yeah, but yeah, my daughter also likes me to say cer cer certain things. It's like almost like a call and response, right? Yeah. But um Yeah, yeah, and I think the gestalt language processing thing is just interesting because right, like when they talk about just the language part of it, they're like, okay, there's gestalt language processing, and then there's analytic language processing, which is you know, learning one word at a time and adding on and adding on and then longer sentences, and then nowadays they're talking more about like, oh, there's dual language processors. And so for a while I was like back and forth. I was like, is she a dual language processor or is she like you know full on gestalt language processor? And I think part of that was because like we had some like other languages mixed in with her, even though she was in a bilingual take care, and so she would insert random like other languages, which made it more confusing and then yeah, that's also off topic. But it was about how like I was like, Oh, if I really had a like staged her language, which I don't like to do, um, because I don't think it's necessary. But like I was like, Oh, I think her English Gestalt development is like further along than her Mandarin one. Cause she'll like, yeah, because I she never I and it's so weird because I also heard on a different pod where they were like some Geshalt language processors really like tonal languages, and Mandarin's a tonal language, but my daughter didn't interpret it that way. And I was like, oh, maybe it's because it's like we speak English at home and we're like kind of over the top, kind of just to make life a little bit more fun, because it's like gollymore. Whereas maybe some of her Mandarin models are just a little bit more like even. And so I feel like I mean she has just but she also watches largely, you know, English TV that's like very musical and all that jazz. And so yeah, yeah, I just think it's like a mixer, yeah, also different. That's all that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_04That's making me think that maybe because my kids and I, I know we have some things going on. Like I just we just put it that way when we're talking or when we're interacting or whatever. So the more I'm learning about GLP, I'm like, hmm, I don't know. I'm still processing it, but um we were constantly, I mean, if there's maybe like a mix of the two, I know I feel like I relate to a mixture because I've been accused before and very terrible moments, but like uh but highly emotional moment. I remember I said something because I was trying to find clarity, and the other person goes, You sound like you're what was it? I don't know, it was not nice, even what they said, but it was just it was true, but it still was it felt invalidating where they said, like, you sound like you're in a movie, you sound like you're, you know, uh basically like a script. And um I couldn't argue with that, but I had no other thing to say or frame of reference or nothing to pull from. So I'm just like, okay. So that ended the conversation, um, which later ended in divorce, shocker.
SPEAKER_03Don't ever call me a movie unless I want to be a movie.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. I don't know. It it just feels, I mean, I guess it could go on to say that, you know, however we all talk or whatever we're saying, you know, try to give each other the benefit of the doubt that we're doing the best we can. Um, you know, I had another interaction recently um where it was a very intense, difficult conversation. And I'm wondering if maybe in some of the more intense um moments when we're higher stress, if we are GLP processors and there's something in between, if that's when we're relying even more on scripts, because I had to say, in order to resolve the conflict with this person, I had to say something very specific to them, which to maybe someone who like if someone just made me repeat them all the time, I would have maybe an issue with that, you know. Like I'd have a harder time, but it felt like a necessary thing they needed to hear from me in order to feel like it was resolved, like, or it was resolving, you know? And um I don't know, right now there's so much like I I just could see that being viewed as a hostile, like, oh, that's just someone trying to be controlling or um I don't know, like it could be easily misunderstood, is I guess what I'm trying to get at. Yeah? Go for it, Iris.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'll share like a personal thing, a memory of myself, and then I'll share the thing that I was learning about, but because it's new, it might not sound very articulate. But Amy, you can try me because you've read similar things and you can make it make sense. Okay, but anyway, I feel I I promise it's all related to somebody considering me. Um okay, so the memory of myself. Yeah, the whole fight thing, I think it all relates to, you know, gestal processing versus analytic processing. The more I'm like learning about this, but anyway, to talk about the memory first. Yeah, I think like former versions of me that fought, I I definitely remember telling spouse still part of the spouse, but whatever. We've gotten a lot better at that. But anyway, um, like early on, like we would have huge explosive fights, and it's like I think I'm the Gestal processor. I think he's more analytic, even though he's ADHD. But um and at one point I had to give him a script because I was the one that needed him to say the things before I felt the closure. So I like whatever he was doing just was not working. So I was like, okay. And I couldn't figure out what to even tell him to like scratch the itch, because sometimes it takes like hours to play out before I figure it out. And then like he says the thing, I'm good, and he's like, not good anymore. Because like he exert all this emotional energy trying to like please me, essentially. Well, but not really. But um, but like I what I landed on was I was like, okay, I think I have this pattern where I feel good, where if I've got a thing, I'm not complaining about you, it's my thing, and I don't want it to turn into a thing where you feel attacked. But just tell me about your closest emotional memory that sounds kind of like mine. It doesn't even have to be the same, and make it short and quick, and then I'm glad so he's good at following script. So he just did that for a season. But I mean, since then we've done it's a little better. It reminds me of that. So there's that, and then um I do like Dr. Horic's like um she talks. I don't mean I mean I just started listening to her podcast, which is so interesting because I I think a lot of it's like based off of her substack work, and this is me speculating, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong. But I think um she found a really creative way to make the information more lively because sometimes I feel like very ungifted when I read things that fly over my head, and I'm like, there's that's really good in here, but like either my mental capacity is just not great today, or whatever, whatever. But um, but they she found a way where I think she has like two I don't know, like there's a script and there's two hosts. I'm not sure if they're like digital hosts or whatnot, but they so the the style's a little unnerving in the beginning. But once I got onto like, oh, this is just a way to talk about the information in a way that's accessible now to people like me, because it's more conversational. But um I I feel like there's a lot of going back to that same topic of um when we see when we just when we break beyond like the focus on so much on the language part of it and the output of like this is a complete like cognitive processing style. It's a energy reading. And I feel like it explains so much whether it's like the conversational complex we have, because how she says it is that like I have she used so many really great analogies. I'm trying to remember some of them, but how like analytic processing can be a little bit like there's an expectation that's like a conveyor belt, like you need it to explain your point A to point B to point A to point B, like almost like a very late fashion or like a staircase. And then the whole like processing's more like circular and like more 3D versus 2D. There's a lot and I like the talk about how there's so much invisible labor going on in the world. I think I like magic and it feels a lot magical to me, but just like but just that like it explains a lot of why, like when we're in a conversation like this where we can just tang it or we tang it and all relate, and it's so deeply related, we don't have to explain ourselves versus whenever with someone else who's a more of an analytical language person or processor, they get they get really lost. Or they get they get exhausted by me, I get exhausted by them, and then like I'm trying to accommodate and make myself make more sense, and it often still doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Um you're making sense to me though.
SPEAKER_03In fact, I'm like thinking about how listeners, I don't know, but ooh, I mean, I really think the limit of this if if Iris makes sense to you, you might be a good one. That makes sense. You might be the other one.
SPEAKER_04Well, I I was just thinking, like, too, and sorry I'm interrupting. Um I'll go for it. My way, so I struggled for so long with understanding um how people like how to navigate conflict, how to navigate um, I don't know, just a lot of typical things that I think are common with autism and struggling with autism. And I ended up what worked for me is just stories. So like I watch a lot of TV, which sounds like, oh, big deal watching TV, you know, but actually I rely on TV, boom, boom. It's almost like to me, like stacking. So you take a story, you stack it down, and you see a series of interactions, you see, you know, cause and effect in various ways. Okay, I can't contextualize that though until I have more and more and more stories on top of each other. And then it felt like I hit a point where I had enough stories. Now all of a sudden I can explain analytically. And so if I need to, I can do that. Um, but it took a long time, you know, for me to get there and to feel like I had kind of a a comprehensive understanding of how to deal with um conflict and and resolution and my needs and boundaries. And so, and also that's an area of focus and of interest to me. So there's that part of it too. But but I just picture it that way that it's like it seems like I'm not doing anything, or it seems like I'm doing something that's not of value if I'm watching TV or reading tons of books. But that really was where I got all my information. I couldn't have gotten that information from an instructional manual. I needed to get it from real stories, and that's just how I am. Like I need stories. So do you think that's part of it? You're nodding and smiling.
SPEAKER_03I'll let Amy go first because I've been talking a lot, but I totally resonate with that. I'm gonna hold my thoughts.
SPEAKER_04But I'll let you be. We'll let you be. Go ahead. Okay, Amy, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do think um, I do think that could be part of it. Like when I think about a conflict I had recently um with someone, I'm not even gonna say who, but um, you know, I I felt like um I had to we were just on such different pages there. And it was like yeah, I had to have this um uh I'm really bad with words right now. Sorry, this is a terrible time to be bad at words. It's on top, it's on point. Yeah. I it was it was like I really needed to hear something specific, right? And I didn't realize it until like much later. I think you were kind of saying the same thing earlier, Iris. It's a very and but I think this could be so revolutionary for people who are working with PDA kids specifically, because if if I'm taking like listening to all of us right now and thinking of things that I've been thinking about, if we were to take a lot of these relationship, you know, things our lived experience as adults, and we apply it to our children too, think of how much more supported they would feel because we do put a lot of energy into our, you know, our partnerships and our close friendships. So we do study our communication a lot. I feel like we don't really do that as much with children who are struggling and it comes out as uh what we see as behavior, right? Um, I think a lot of times if we could just uh pivot that and just think, you know, what are they what is it they're actually trying to communicate here and how can we support that? Because I think if we um just taking like what we're talking about here in our personal lives, um how much of a difference that makes? Like we were talking about you like your friend, like whoever you were a conflict with, they you know, they needed to have that resolution. Um it needed to follow the script, or else it just was not going to, it was not going to, they're not gonna be able to move past it, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I feel that's I see that so much in my own children too. Um and um I I don't know, I just I think that this really could be so useful, like in schools, for instance. If we we have children who are gestalt processors and we don't focus on that because we don't, it's not, you know, we're not talking about it as much as we should be. If we then relate to the child who's struggling and kind of dig in deeper as far as like, okay, well, what what are the different scripts? Where are these gestalts coming from? Then we can relate to them better and satisfy that need that they have. They're just left dangling, right? Yeah um, so yeah, I just think it's I think it's really interesting when we think about how this applies to ourselves. Um, and if we can just take that and generalize it and apply that to um children too, and not just, you know, look at like we're looking at like the emotional impact on ourselves and our partners and our friends. We don't do that as much with children. It's we're all thinking about how is this affecting me? Yeah, you know, like how how is this affecting me as a caregiver, as a teacher, but not what is how is this affecting these children? So I think we could we could learn from all of these experiences, kind of compile them and talk about them more. And it really would help us support our kids. Yes, yeah, please go for it. Jump in, Hyrus.
SPEAKER_03And my funny 3D fidget. So it's a little noisy. Ooh, it's okay. It's a dinosaur. It's cute, it's colorful. It's more versatile than like a spike, just one spiky thing. Okay, anyway. Uh yeah, Brooke, I really like I like what you booked here. But Brooke, um, oh man. This is where I'm like, I will I started saying to myself, my working memory is not my finest asset. My emotional memory is fabulous to deploy. Yeah, same here.
SPEAKER_02Factually, uh little sketchy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very yeah, quite sketchy. But anyway, okay, let's see. So, Brooke, what you said really landed with me because I'm like, I'm like, oh, I got a familiar feeling. Okay, can you remind me what you just said?
SPEAKER_04Stacking, I was talking about stacking stories. Oh, okay, okay, I remember.
SPEAKER_03But it was go ahead. Yeah, thank you. No, um, I feel like it's such a good example of the whole, you know, gestalt cognitive processing thing. Yeah. Like what your example, because I I realized when you were saying, I'm like, oh, I do that too. Meaning, like, um, um, so I'm trying to work out some like intergenerational trauma, child of immigrant stuff, but I I can't do one-on-one therapy, it's just too high demand for like tried. I can't do one thing. It's a whole other topic. I know exactly. We're all right. I can do like groups where we share stories, which is fine. It's like I like meeting you in person, brook, and like you just like what's up? I'm like, this works. But anyway, but yeah, but um, but I love movies too, and so like what I did without like I kind of knew I was doing it intentionally and I kind of didn't. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna watch all these like poems made by like in Mandarin about like all sorts of things. Some of them are very dark, like at the Nan King Massacre or whatever, but it was like showing humanity in really beautiful ways. And then like I've been reading a lot of like littered kid lit, or like, you know, don't lit. That's like talk people or queer people or like narrative origin crap, whatever. But it's it's helping me make sense of stuff. And like, yeah, that's so welcome. And I feel like it all plays into this digital whatever processing thing. So I'm gonna remove the language part of it because I feel like with that language in there, it make it doesn't crack it wide open enough. And I do what you're saying, Amy. I feel like schools need to not just focus on the language. I think it's wonderful that they're getting there because like you can't just ignore this entire way of processing. But I think if they were to focus on just like, okay, there's analytic processors, there's gistel processors. Oh, and I like what Stephanie Bourne, she's like beamy speech online, she like has this line that she used in this presentation recently that I really like. She said something to the extent of like, we're not wrong, we're just outnumbered, and I think that's so real. Oh, it's very similar to I think the Dr. Horic sentiment, too, of like there's this whole other way of processing. It's not inferior, it is so embodied, it's so full, it's like magical and beautiful and so rich. But these processors are having to like almost like expend a lot of energy and a lot of like sometimes extra processing time and all sorts of things to try to like turn their way of seeing the world and experiencing it into something that other people can understand because it's almost like two widely different languages, yeah, even too flat of a way to that. Yeah, but yeah, conflict resolution for analytical processors or cognitive whatever guess trying to do.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, I was saying that so succinctly because I totally lost what I was talking about earlier. That was great. No, that did PTA like media USA. It was the stacking stories thing. Okay, so that was what I was I was you so adding on to that, like, yeah, I find that now as I'm I'm in a new relationship and we have, you know, we're in trying to like get to know each other, right? Like, you know, and that is something that has been so helpful, actually. Is like, well, this is kind of this is really bothering me, and I don't know how to explain why, except to just tell you this other story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like from my childhood, whatever. Um, actually, what it was specifically about this, and I don't think he would mind me telling saying this, is it was about um well, actually, I don't remember the topic, but the way I was able to resolve it was telling the story about my dad and one of his former wives, and like a conflict that they had had, and how my mom had like come in and got involved somehow. And I don't know, some but I don't know. Like, well, it was it, it was there was, you know, it was about ironing sheets. And um I don't iron anything, by the way. But um, but that helped so much because then it was like you can you can take a whole example, right? It's a it's and uh you're generalizing and applying it and giving somebody a way to understand, like this, yeah, you're I'm not able to express exactly why this bothers me. But when I take this story, it resonates so much with me on this situation, and then I can tell that story, and then he was like, Oh, yeah, no, I totally get what you're saying now because it applies to what he was trying to say too. So yeah, sorry, I just had to say that like not clear. It was right there, and then I was like, context, yeah, it was a total.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes, yes, yes, context, context, context of what it's all about. It's everything like context determines so much of the minutiae of all of our behavior. And if you don't have enough examples of context, then you don't know how to interpret things. Like I remember the first series, I mean you can tell you're eager, Iris. I just I'll get this story out. No, no, no, no, no. I want to hear it. Oh, you're not eager, you're just waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03Waiting pose. Okay. I like stories.
SPEAKER_04I don't need a sorry, my eyes, I'm I'm amused by myself right now. Look at my huge forehead and my corn sword.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04All right, all right. I'm pulling it together. So, so oh no, wait, I lost it. No. Context. We sound drunk, but we're not. Okay. Context being everything. Um, oh, my first serious relationship. And why this is why conflict specifically has been such a topic of interest for me. One, I think it is resonating with PDA people to try to like figure out the human behavior and we kind of fixate on it. Um but I did not have great examples growing up of like resolving conflicts in a way that felt safe to me. I just didn't see it happening anywhere. I didn't see it happening in my parents' marriage. They loved each other, but did they resolve things in a way that felt safe to me? No. Um and then around me with other people, all I saw was a lot of power flexes, like, oh, you're just supposed to either do the thing or you're in trouble, or like I just didn't see resolutions happening that felt like they fit me or made sense to me. So the I took me a long time to get into a serious relationship. The first time was at 18. And I remember as soon as we ran into some kind of problem, I had nothing like a blank, just a completely blind terror, uh no nothing to pull from to even make a choice. And I I think that I'll get this thought out before I lose it too, is that that's what it feels like to me is it's not copying something directly and lacking individual expression. It's that I need these examples in order to pull from as part of my agency, like or as part of me so that I know what to even do in a situation. Like I need examples. Like some, please, for the love of God, give me some examples somewhere so that I know what suits. Because I want to express myself. I want to be able to do that. Um, but sometimes I don't even know myself until I'm resonating with something I'm seeing or hearing or or ha seeing someone else go through. I need that in order to even understand who I am a little bit more. There we go. Stepping off my socks. Thank you. Umbrella. See, I did this. I was like, I had a feeling. We're gonna learn shit today. Yeah. We are, and we're all just fellow processors, we've all been identified.
SPEAKER_02You're identifying, actively learning it.
SPEAKER_01That kind of brings me to a question, Eris. Um, what did you like when what made you think? Um, because you said that you were realizing that you are a ghostal processor yourself. Um, do you have a memory or um like from your childhood or like that your family told you about of when you were learning language, of how you first expressed um words?
SPEAKER_02And there's a moment where you're gonna be like, oh, she gave the not wrong answer, but like the way different answer from what you would expect.
SPEAKER_03Okay, here I go. That there's always a part where I'm like, here I go. Okay, um, so no, because my parents have also in I've inherited their working memory stuff. And so they don't remember anything. And I also don't remember. I know I have emotional memory, but I don't remember what I said. I remember like when I almost passed out because the other kid passed out, you know, like stuff like that. Like I have a lot of like childhood like dots, but you know, and it's like it's general feelings, right? But but I'll I do like this question because I I want to answer, and then you can tell me if it makes any sense because I w I want to share, like you said, like it doesn't make sense, Brooke, until you kind of like hear from someone else. And all the all the stories, all the examples, I resonate with that so much, even like me figuring out how to be an SLP, I had to watch a bunch of stuff. And I kept looking for things to watch because I was like, I need to watch it, not to copy it, but yeah, then it just like mixes up within myself, yeah. It comes out the way I needed to. Yeah. Or even how to be a neurodivergent adult and like a mask-ish. Yeah. Anyway, okay, I'm well done. But okay, to come back, Amy, to your question. Okay, so this is a funny response that I haven't told anyone yet because it just came upon me like this morning. Okay, but um all right, let me see if I can put it to words, which I think we're all like pausing and trying to put it to words because we're all processors trying to put it into words. Right. Right. So like that's the challenge. Anyway, we're putting energy and experience into words. And it's like, how in the world do you do that? I don't know. Okay, okay, let's try. Let's try, let's try. Okay. So um, this is roundabout. I have had some little like hangups. I don't know if that's the right way to put it. I've been trying to figure myself out in a few different domains. One of them is um this writing thing. I'm trying to write kid lit. Amy, you know about this. Uh specifically middle grade. Anyway, um, I could oh, and I started recently working with this freelance kid lit editor. That's fabulous. And like she can handle like my chaos. But it's not chaos, it's getting stuff. But it's like I know the themes I want to put into this book. I know what the characters feel like, I know all the conversations they've had and all the details between them, but I can't tell you how they get from point A to point B to point C to point D. And I like can't do this like linear like plot thing, but she's helping me. It's just like this, my analytic like kid lit coach guide is helping me to like well, not be more neurotypical, but like how to actually get the thing on the street. Yeah, but I feel really helped. So maybe this is an analogy for like in other situations, whether it's work or school, we can still be political people.
SPEAKER_04No, I love that. I actually think that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03I don't I like it when like I have an experience as like the receiver in a different industry where I'm like, oh, this applies to this other thing too. But how do you? I need more examples, but you know, anyway, this is one difference. Um there was another hang-up I was trying to have. Not try to have there was something else I couldn't figure out about myself that I can't remember at this very moment. Try to have. Actually, that's what somebody else talk about it. Somebody else talk about something and it wasn't. Well, okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01You were talking about Kidlet. I have to show this. What is that? Tell us, tell us what we did in school a couple weeks ago with my kids because they were having one of those like really PDA days. Like nobody wanted to do anything. So I managed to like see what yeah, what is what is everyone interested in right now? You know, yeah, how can I tie all this together and get the chaos kind of so I was I was trying to get them to read a book. It was about honey bees, and that was not working. So then I was like, okay, you know what? We we haven't done a lot of um literary like study yet. So I started saying, okay, let's let's write a book. Okay, let's write a whole story. Um, what is it gonna be about? And then Alice, because we've been looking doing the bees, the most accessible thing to her was like a bee. Okay, fine, a bee. So what kind of bee? It's it's a crazy bee. So it does look like she's a wonderful little artist, but it whole it turns into this whole thing of like, you know, someone's like, okay, well, what are the characters? And is he no he's apparently a boy bee. So we started doing like all these different notes of like, you know, we're studying the plot and the setting, the crazy bee goes to a disco party, and they and they all dance crazy inside the hive. Like, this is you know, kind of awesome, all these different things. And then so my son is really into roller coasters, so he decides that the prize for the crazy bee contest, disco dancing contest that the bees are all having. The prize is gonna be trip to the amusement park, um, which is all it's made from roller coasters made out of honey comb and stuff. Sounds like a dream. I know.
SPEAKER_02Take that TV.
SPEAKER_01That was one of those times too where it was like I was because I had to ask them, I had to ask them stuff to get them to interact and you know be part of this whole creative process. But just the things that they will throw out as part of how they are processing, you know, the things that are they're really interested in. Um, I just found it really fascinating. So your whole like, you know, writing kids that I'm like, well, this is my attribution to kids like but that's cool. I think that's really, really fascinating. Um, but the reason why I was asking about like if you remember how you acquired or if you had any stories about it with me. Um I first learned about GLP with my daughter, um, realizing because she didn't have a first word. She had a first phrase. Um, it was when we used to have a dog, and we were taking, she was only 14 months old, and we were taking the dog out for a walk, and she pointed at the dog and said, Let's go. That was the first she had not said a word at all. You know, lots of no sounds, um, but never an action. I was like, no, he fell out. But that's relatable example. But what's funny is, and I remember talking because my mother was still alive at that point, and I said, wait a second, you were you weren't kidding, because she had always said that I didn't. Have a first word, I had just started speaking sentences. And I thought she was completely out of her mind, you know, because she always, you know, she always found the hyperbole, you know, so she was just going being being mom. But no, that must have been what happened. I just started like just like what I saw with Alice. Because and it's interesting because I think both of my boys are also GLPs, but um, it can't it started so differently, like they they had more um these maybe they are dual processors because they started more like an analytical analytical process processor with like one word at a time. Um, but I think it quickly moved into more like chunks for them too. But Alice was definitely like it was all scripts, and um it was just so fascinating to watch her when sorry, to talk over you.
SPEAKER_04Uh my kids, I'm just like uh they will talking to them. You do have to have a very laid-back approach, I feel like, when you're interacting with the GLP, you know. And when I say GLP, my brain, I'm thinking about those stupid diabetic shots that are happening in the booth. I think about that every time. Like it just happens to be the same letters. Oh okay, yeah, intrusive thought. Um, so so the I'll be you have to be kind of relaxed to even get to the point. And I say that somewhat hostily, because the journey can be part of the point as well. So if my kids walk up and they're spewing a bunch of random things that they've been hearing on, you know, whatever it is they're interested in right now, which is usually something that I'm like, okay, like, you know, you do you, fella. Um, but it you hear these random things and you could just get like impatient if you could get easily impatient if you're looking for the result right up front or the destination quick. Like, we're just not quick destination people, maybe. It's really there's so much journey that's gotta happen here to get to something. So anyway, that was my thought.
SPEAKER_03That's a great point. Because that happens to me too. And then now that you've said it like that, I'm like, oh, they are trying to communicate something like very deep, very real, very circular, very like all the dimensionals. And if I yeah, if I don't listen that carefully, I just feel like, uh, okay, okay. And my kid will somebody be like, Why are you why are you acting so bored? Like, I just response from the thing I'm trying to get.
SPEAKER_04I do make fun a little bit, and maybe I need to think about that as I'm I might be kind of teasing sometimes because he's sharing something from a YouTuber that I have no respect for or very little. Some of the people they watch are cool, um, but some of them, or I guess let me put it this way. So recently he's been on a thing where he's listening to a lot of like like critical takes of things. And that's a little bit triggering for me. I I don't like to listen to things that are overly critical all the time. That's why I don't watch the news very often, if ever. Um, so I have to kind of stop myself a little bit from thinking about it through my experience or my lens and being like, you know what, I'm sure right now he's just developing that skill. Like he is listening to these people criticize. And yes, it's a lot all up front, and to the point where it's you know heavy for me to hear it, but he that's how he's developing the skill. He's diving in, it's completely encompassing him. And I got a child knocking on my door, so I'll be right back. Yeah, someone else talk for a minute. Hold on, I'll pop.
SPEAKER_01Well, what we have on our um list of things to talk about.
SPEAKER_02If I started pulling up the list, I was like, should we?
SPEAKER_03Well, we were talking lists are very analytical. I feel like this like sometimes parallels that whole like executive functioning world that sometimes I talk about too, where I'm like, I don't like talking about the timer, the checklist, like all that stuff, but I like talking about the people like Sonny J wise that goes like, you know, there's no moral higher ground to be one executive functioning way. But I feel like that there's a parallel here to this too. Like, yeah, there's no moral higher ground to be analytic versus like no, it's just and we just need to acknowledge that both exist. It's like strangely, like the upside down. Well, it's not not an upside down situation, but you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I do wonder how many um issues we have with people. It just comes down to being different communicators, you know, and just how we process language. Um and especially when it comes to that, you know, what we were talking about earlier, it's like there's there's something that it's almost like a ritual that needs to be completed in the brain, and it has to be done through communication. One of the things that my daughter does too that I find fascinating, it has nothing to do with language, but um well, is if she's missing something, she can't find something. The only way she can like process her grief about it, and it in a way that will not lead to you know further meltdown, right? Is she's gotta go and draw it. So say she's like she's she lost her purple socks, her favorite purple socks at the trampoline park. So, and she could not get over this. I mean, it was like a two days of just crying, screaming, upset, talking about these purple socks. She finally went and just drew this the purple socks and put it up with on a like she made a wanted poster. Oh, that's adorable. And then she was able to do that and she put it up on the door, on the front door, you know. So like I lost my socks, you know. Um but I love that. So that allows her, it's like it completes something, some sort of circuit that is, you know, needs a resolution, and that helps her. It's almost like the visual representation just helps supply what she's missing. Um so yeah, it's just I find that really fascinating too, as part of it. Like it's it really is, I think it's it's something that just we have we are ritualistic people, right? I mean, it's kind of one of the things about this, and we really are are regulated by things being predictable and having things, you know, and stuff. So rituals really factor into that. And so yeah, it's like something that I think is in our brain is just incomplete, and we have to complete it or else we can move on. That's one of the things, too. I will waste so much energy trying to parent my child when I am not realizing she just needs to complete this sequence or else she can't move on. Like I keep interrupting it and not realizing I am aggravating it so much more because I'm on a different, I'm trying to complete a different sequence that has nothing to do with this. Completely ignoring the fact that no, this has got to be completed or else we are not gonna go anywhere. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03She's she's so wise.
SPEAKER_01She is so wise, they are wise. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04My my oldest, so we just we had to put a cat, one of our cats, down. And this is not the only recent thing that's been like, you know, I have a highly emotional, my oldest is, I mean, they're all emotional, but I should say, like, my oldest is especially sentimental. And so finding a way for him to resolve when things are gone or lost or changed has been a bit of a journey. But one of the ways that has worked for him is like taking photos. So if you say Alice draws the picture, uh, my oldest will take wants me to take a picture. So when we were at, I was at the vet and um I video called or whoever wanted to talk, you know, I kind of leave that open-ended for my kids. And my oldest wanted to see, you know, on the video um the cat sitting there before we did anything. And he says, I need to screenshot this. And so, you know, he took a picture. And I mean, that that makes maybe more sense in the sense of like, yes, of course, people want a photo of a loved one or a loved one, you know, but he has even used that for um there was this metal, um, I don't even know how to describe what it was. It was just like this metal exercise thing that was sitting in our backyard forever and it was rusted, needed to go to the garbage, and he got sentimental about that, about me putting it in the trash, and he asked me to take a photo of it. So that might seem sort of bizarre to people. Like, why do you want or I don't know? I'm thinking maybe it would give people ideas that if you notice that your child is uh getting stuck, you know, maybe this could be a way to help them to resolve it is find a way for them to create this. Like, I don't know if memento is the right word, but it's almost like an anchor point for the thing or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Gives them something to hold on to. So it feels like it still exists in a way that they value and it's not just gone suddenly, you know.
SPEAKER_03So thanks to say, thanks is there. Yeah, because I like what you're all saying. I'm like, this is so much better than just talking to myself in my own brain. Like talking to the podcast people in my own compliments. Wait, anyway. Oh, thanks. I'm glad you liked it. I never know. Um, oh gosh, oh my god, see, I might have lost it. But um, yeah, your child is so wise too. But also, it made me think of something funny because I'm in this other group chatty thing where people were talking about how like when people change their hair, it can be very distressing and griefy for the child. But I really want to fix my hair ashy gray because I want to look older. This is a whole other thing. But I'm like, maybe I should just capture what I look like right now. But anyway, whatever, whatever. But but but um your your term anchor point, I I remember hearing like Dr. Horwicks also talk about that too. I know this is like a one-person like fan club right now because I'm so excited with this new information for your fan club too. So but you're you're using all these cool terms that that person uses too, and it's like that's really cool. But that's how you like transverse the like whatever waves of the universe.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, I'm on the wavelength, you know.
SPEAKER_03Brookie knows so much. He kept saying, like, I don't even want to sit here.
SPEAKER_04Yes, you just didn't thought I was gonna sit here, and then I'm like, wait a second. No sitting here, no sitting here.
SPEAKER_03Uh what was the other thought? Oh, there's a butterfly. I don't know anymore. Somebody at the shit again.
SPEAKER_04My terrible thing, I'll forget things like and then I have to literally like talk myself to uh say, like, I mean, it's so cliche, but it actually works for me. If it's meant to be, I'll remember it again. And like, actually, though, it does work for me and I will or not. And then I'm like, whatever, fine, gone. You're in the past. Get out of my life memory or thing that I couldn't remember. Anyway, Amy, did you want to say something relevant?
SPEAKER_03I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember can I say it's so fast? Because it won't, it might not be meant to be later. Yes, yes. It's relating to something Amy said a while ago. Way a while ago. But it ties into all the threads, and you too will get it. Okay, so you know when you were talking about classroom stuff, it made me think about another Dr. Horrix thing. Yeah. Where um she was, she or her whatever hosts that talk about her substack. They were talking about how like in schools or in educational settings, we'll just go with educational settings since so many PDAs are in like not schools, but um how schools are so overly focused on like the emotion wheel or the point of the color or whatever, right? And so the the the the whatever the thesis was how like gestal processors don't process it as like a single spot speckle of like this is my finding point of my emotion. Um but they get socialized into okay, I am distressed by all the sensory overwhelm and all the energetic ways I'm reading and like then everything, the gestal of the experience. And there's no way I can convey this to you. But I've been socialized to understand that like this analytic processing kind of framework is sort of just centered in the sort of environment educational environment. So if I do point to the angry one, you'll give me a break. But it's just so interesting, because then there was also a different line, I think in a different podcast episode to the same person about how like sometimes we get used, they describe it a different way, so I'm adding some words, but how sometimes like if we just think autism in a very flat way, like it can be seen as like collection of behaviors where you know diagnoses of whatever things that lead up to a diagnosis or whatever, which is useful. But that if you can really, really truly understand this whole Kitchdalt processing thing, it's it's so much richer. And then you also Yeah. Oh, there was this other fascinating thing about power dice. Throw them all out there is just anyway. There's there's a lot, I'll stop. No, it's just very cute to listen to the original source because I can't explain it quite as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, you're doing a better job than you think you are, so thank you. I'll say that. But I think it is kind of traumatic too, taking this way of processing, and then you're walking around and you see everybody doing it this other way, and you're like, uh, how do I cram this into this, you know, and then it turns and you try, and then like parts are bulging out of like because they're coming out of places that they're not supposed to, and everybody's like, uh, or a lot of people are like, uh, I don't know what the what what's going on with you. You're confusing, and then you get yeah, pushed away, or they're no longer impressed. You go away. You were cool, now you're just confusing and scary.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, well, I think it's it's interesting how it like when I think about how Gestalt processing, like you were talking about Iris, how it's really more of a cognitive like processing registry. And one of the first things that made me like start thinking in those terms too is that um, because I'm a musician and when I was learning um music, I don't remember learning music, it was just always like there. Um but my again from my mother's stories, um like I um would climb up on the bench because she was a piano teacher. So she thought that her student had left, and I climbed up on the bench and was repeating like the same melody that her last guy had had played. Um, and so that I think about that is like that's the chunk, you know, that I was like repeating. Um and I see it so much in in music now too, especially as a teacher. Um that like I have I have a student who came to me um and he had been learning um the finger positions instead of so that's like you know, there's different methods that you learn to teach piano. Um but I find that that is one of the hardest to um what do you say, unlearn um when a student comes to me with like just they've been learning the the finger positions versus like actually the building blocks of music, like the you know, reading the the notes and actually knowing the names of the notes because because especially when you have a GLP who is learning a like the number the finger positions, they're learning those chunks, and it's much harder to generalize those into uh into other areas of of music because then it's just like no, I just have to hear or hear, um, and and then it so you so it's interesting right now because I'm trying to untangle this and be like, okay, but yes, you can do these five finger positions. However, if you're gonna learn all these individual notes, we've got to kind of take those out and kind of parse them out. But the point being, I just that was one of the first times in my in my journey of understanding that it goes so far beyond language acquisition, it goes into how we learn information and process it um and and memorize it too. And that was one of the things as a musician. I didn't learn music the way other my peers were learning because I was doing it like in in chunks, um which I was able to compensate for a long time by doing that. Um and but it will only take you so far because you've got a lot of things. So yes, that's one of the challenges, I think, of being a GLP. Like there's so many wonderful, like creative things about being a GLP, but I think that one of the challenges is trying to get when you get you can only go a cert to a certain point in certain fields and areas where if you just have the chunks of information and you don't have the little individual pieces, um, it makes it harder to move forward. Music is one of those.
SPEAKER_04Um that's interesting. So I'm jumping in because I'm thinking about how you know, unschooling, and that's what we're doing with my kids, and trying to explain. So, my oldest, he likes to, again, he's kind of in a critical mode right now where he's keen on pointing out the gaps and things. And so he said, Well, my his brother said, Yeah, he wants to go to college. Well, that's not gonna happen. Like, he's real confident like that. I said, What do you mean that's not gonna happen? And he's like, Well, look at him. What is he doing? Like, he's not doing college y things, basically. So why would I expect or why would he expect? I said, Well, um, I know what about you? What are you doing? You know, and I didn't mean that in a challenge, actually. I wasn't trying to take his thought and make it small. I was trying to reflect back to him, like, well, how are you learning? And what do you think gaps are missing? And I I guess what I'm trying to get to here is that as I've been doing the unschooling thing and comparing that to what school was like for me, it felt like getting snowed with like a bunch of specifics without context cues. And I think that's why, in a way, we can seem like we're behind for a long time because we just don't have enough big picture information and in order to even place the little pieces in. And so I guess that's kind of how, in a way, without having words for it, I've been approaching their learning is like, okay, they they might take all this time, and I'm emphasizing, you know, that they feel regulated, that they're safe, that their you know, bodies are as healthy as possible, um, that we have calm, that we have experiences. Like I want there to be variety, but it's a very unstructured, loose thing, um, so that they can build as much of a big picture as possible. And then at the very end, and this I hear this from a lot of unschooling families, it gets tightened up. So once they figure out um what area of interest they really have, then yes, there are gaps that need to be filled, but it's so much smoother if it can be done in that way, I think, for PDA kids, especially. It's like, okay, they have this broad base, especially if you've been able to um prioritize regulation, self-care, like learning about themselves. Um, we have all this stuff going on on the inside. And so anyway, I don't know. Again, I'm like, I hope this makes sense since I'm talking about it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna count on it, on it doing so. But I feel like my role as their parent isn't to teach them a bunch of specifics, it's to model this way of living that's like, okay, this is how we live in a way to feel peaceful, to feel good, to be able to gather information. Then like 10% of us is spent tightening it up, learning the linear process of things, filling in gaps. You know, um, you need to, oh my gosh, my child is freaking knocking on my door as I'm trying to talk. Someone else talks.
SPEAKER_03I have an idea. Yes, please, Cyrus. And I'm not Cheryl. I did listen to the Cheryl conversation. That's gorgeous. Because I like all of her metaphors are so great. I get and I don't tell her that. But anyway, I came up with a metaphor. I don't know if it works, but it's too kind of what Brooke was saying, or the visual I got. Where um I used as a kid, I used to, I'm not good at crafts, and neither am I good at music, but appreciate both very deeply. And they're still meaningful to me. I'm a yeah, very um engaged recipient. Okay, whatever. Uh but yeah, when I was a kid, uh it would take like colored yarn to like um like the kind of yarn that would like have all the different rainbow colors in the same thread. And um, I would do some like weaving thing. It was like super basic. But um and I think I'd try to make like coasters or just squares. I don't even know what they were or rectangles, but um, I remember like because I wasn't very good at it, like you know, when you started out, I would have like all different sizes of like little loops, and there'd be like holes and whatever, but sometimes like after it was like cut out, somebody else would take and like kind of like stretch it out a little bit and like eat a bit, and you know, I don't know. Kind of sounds like you know, a tapestry experience a little bit of like letting them go broad or letting them go broad and then to and then kind of think of it. And then your musical thing, it like reminded me of how like, yeah, so many GLPs, especially the little ones you can see easier, they're so musical, right? Like they are really interested in the rhythm or the tone. And I'm like, now if we're talking like links or things referred to, I'm like, oh, one of the pods that I really liked as from my SLP self, but I like her name's Karin, and she's an SLP who's just extremely musical, um, is a musician. And so her whole thing is like singing everything. And she finds that like little GLP ears are So like interested in tone and musicality and all that. And she leads with that, like even more so than the words. And um, I like her on her pod, I think it's called the Gitched All Get Together on socials. She's Grossando Communication. But I just like how she started um I like her episodes the most, not the ones with providers. I like the ones where she interviews a parent and she's fine. And she likes just to be really real about asking, like, hey, well, could I have done differently? You know? So for any providers out there, go listen to that. Right. But it also like it just and like, yeah, I'm not I tried to be musical as a kid was not was terrible. I hate practicing. I'm like, eh. But anyway, like but but but but I do find like, you know, I feel like other autistic audiopedia, whatever adults often talk about, like how deeply like music can bring them back to a place. So like there's certain songs that are like I'll go back to and like I'll know exactly where I listened to it and how it got through me through. That's it. Whatever. So I'm like, that's kind of related, kinda, but that's how I am with shows.
SPEAKER_04I'll be like, uh, I'm gonna put I don't listen to music as much. I always thought it was such a weird I'm I'm I accept who I am, I accept how I am. I love to sing, um, but music does not do for me what it does for other people uh in the same way. Like I'll listen to music as like uh just enjoyable activity thing, not as a grounding thing. If I want to feel grounded, I will watch a familiar show or read a familiar book. That is my grounding experience. And I do or picture where was I when you know, when I was watching this last, um, what activity was I going through? And I I now I'm remembering too. You're talking about memory, and uh and I think like for me, memory for me becomes very tricky because so much is attached to context that if someone says words, hey, do you remember in 1923, which wasn't alive then, but you know, like I need that's my first hurdle. My first hurdle is I didn't exist. My second hurdle. But yeah. My second hurdle is that I'm just like, no, I need to I need to be able to picture what was going on, what the X like I need the picture, but it's really hard uh to even like even if someone starts saying words again, like using words to say, well, remember we were this there and this was happening and that was happening, and maybe if we're lucky, that'll sink in and I'll picture what they're saying. I'll go, oh yeah, okay. But it is very hard for me because I am so connected to just the visual context of a thing that to recall it, I have to be able to travel there. And I don't necessarily have that shortcut, you know. It's like, oh, I don't know, something happened last week, sure, something happened five years ago that was apparent. That freaks me out a little bit. Sometimes I'll be stumble across a piece of history of my own history, and I will completely forget. I'm like, wow, this feels like I was living a different life, and I have totally forgotten it. And that scares me a little bit. But anyway, we've been talking a while. Look at that, even with just very little uh structure. We went for an hour and freaking 15 minutes. I know.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, this is modeling a gestalt way. The gestalt taking you with us. Can I just sort of like add on to what we were talking about with memory? It it was I was thinking about this earlier too, and talking about with um gestalt processing, we have a lot of ecolalia, right? Um, and I have a great story about echolalia and Alice, but I don't have time now. But um it was when we moved to California, and oh man. So but it reminded me of my mother when she had dementia, and she started you know her time on memory, so but she her language changed so much. And she started really having like very specific and limited scripts um that she could access in order to communicate, um, which nobody understood. You know, this was five years ago, and I I didn't know anything about GLP at the time, except that I knew, you know, starting to learn about it with Alice, but I was noticing like she, and we were like kind of you know, laugh about it at the time, it was like, oh, she'd say, oh, amazing, amazing. But she really like that was all she could access at that point. But it was also so grounding for, I think. Um, but just to kind of tying trying to tie to trying to tie her threads together, but like, you know, how this affects autistic people, PDAs, through the lifespan of like in different areas of life. And I think it is very interesting how you know we can look at look at all these different pieces of you know, how it affects our children, how it affects us and whatever this middle part of life is. And then um later too, just different ways. But if we have a much deeper understanding of it, it allows us to understand how to support um our our families and our people so much better because we're not just looking at it as how are we communicating our words. We're really it is a much deeper, like, how are we communicating all of these emotions that you know are for a lot of us are just way too big to hold, especially, you know, think about a child having a huge meltdown because they're just trying so hard to communicate why something is upsetting them. And we you know, we're trying to we're struggling to like understand and access that. This is like I feel like GLP is really like a shortcut. If we understand it more and we apply that to our children and then going out, you know, we're talking about it with our relationships and our lives, and then I'm looking at my mother too, when at the end of her life, and that was you know, something that was for her, it was so soothing to be able to just you know express her amazement, you know, like yeah, you know, so um just I the reason why I feel like this is so relevant to PDA is what do we always you know hear about in the group all the time is uh you know, and all the families that we work with, it's like behavior, right, is just always the the what people are coming to us about.
SPEAKER_04Like that's one of the bigger struggles, specific behaviors, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, how to support it, and I feel like like what I've talked about with Alice, there's just times when she's just gotta do that sequence, she's gotta get that that thing done. And I think that really could open up so much for providers and families um to to kind of reframe a lot of things with this. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Iris, I'm gonna let you go ahead and jump in because I gotta find out. I forget it shorter lived in my mind.
SPEAKER_03I'll forget. I respect that. Okay. Uh uh, yes, dementia runs in my family too. But it but it it made me think like, oh yeah, I was like, oh, how different is the experience of dementia for like an animal person versus a Kishan? I wonder, right? And like, yeah, but your story is so beautiful. That's true for sharing honoring her. That way, and then oh gosh, where was all the oh, I feel like the the I'm starting to get some visual metaphors where I'm very proud of myself. So I'm not a metaphor person. I like Cheryl for her metaphors, but anyway, uh I was like, I feel like Amy, what you're trying to, what you're trying to, what you're what you are doing for us is like, okay, so I've never been able to make a wobble like those crochet things. I don't think I ever will. I have one that's very dusty in a shower because I had ambitions. I'm never gonna open it because it looks too scary. But I feel like you're trying to like, you're you're you're pulling all the threads. Yes, the thing that the people see. Distilling like a thing. Distilling it down.
SPEAKER_04That's what I'm trying to do too. How do we take this and make it something useful for other people? Here we go. Let's distill it down. Um I was yes, into hopefully something that doesn't stink.
SPEAKER_03I have a stinky plan in the air, but that's a whole other thing.
SPEAKER_04So, so my thing, are you done with your thing?
SPEAKER_03I don't want to get over out thrown like one super fast one, just go out the whole day because I'm literally holding it on my phone.
SPEAKER_04Oh no, okay, perfect.
SPEAKER_03But when you were talking about like visuals and pictures, it reminded me of like there's this blog that I follow now, it's called The North Star and the Compass. It's on Facebook only, but it's um by someone named Shuba, and they do a lot of s with like disability justice things, but I and they're a parent of like uh a black non-speaking GLP kid, but they use a lot of pictures and videos that they voice over themselves as an avenue of unschooling. And I just think it's really interesting because it may not be what they're doing, but I'm like it it like helps me. I don't even know if this is a right, it helps interrogate, like, you know, what are we doing? What are we not doing? Yeah. Different ways to live and be in kind of like what you were saying, Amy, like this whole cracking open the kistal, not cracking open the kish doll because three Easter eggs to be cracked open, but just like it to see it in a different lens and in like more holistically, not just the language bit and how it's different. It like helps people see our whole humanity, right?
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03Anyway, thank you for waiting.
SPEAKER_04No, that great that is a great uh springboard and probably a good way to tie this up because my children will keep interrupting me. Um I guess I want to say too what I'm what I've gathered from this conversation is okay, hold on, give me a second here. So PDA people might be especially inclined to be you know crystal processors. Um there is something to that as well about pressure. So sometimes getting too that that that that that too linear can feel like pressure. Um and so much of our society and our culture, whatever, is relying on linear processes, I feel like, in order to gauge like progress, security, so on. So I would say if someone's listening to this and they're trying to think like, what can I how what can I take from this? Not only about like understanding children, I would encourage like maybe the it would be nice if the society itself became more uh gestalt processors because I know it helps me a lot. It helps my kids a lot. I think it helps everybody a lot when we don't get too fixated on specific moments. And I say that because a lot of times when people are troubleshooting, I almost feel redundant when they're troubleshooting behaviors. You know, they're really, really looking intensely at this thing that happened. You know, they might be looking immediately upstream, which are all part of the process. That's fine. It's fine to think, you know, let's look upstream, let's look at what happened right beforehand. Um, PDA seems to be especially slippery, though, and there can be something completely unconnected to a behavior, or to us, we can't see how it connects. And so I always go pull, I ask people to pull back, okay, well, let's let's look bigger picture. You know, what's the whole lifestyle look like? Because we could get we could lose the forest through the trees very easily with PDA. And if all we're trying to do is fix a series of behaviors, we are going to miss the whole freaking point, which is we need a different kind of life, you know? And I know that we can't all just immediately accommodate that. That's totally fine. It's not asking for magical processes from anybody, but you can't even think to troubleshoot along those lines if you're not thinking about that as a possibility. Like, I I just don't I can't think of workarounds for something if I don't you know I need to work around it. I'm I could just be thinking, this is the way it's supposed to be, and my kid's not fitting. And how do I fix that? And it's like, well, you know, and I know that's a lot of advocacy is trying to pull away from that. Like, stop for a second. We get it, this immediate thing is distressing, it's very difficult, it's hard, it's causing X, Y, Z to happen. But if you want a bigger long-term solution, you're gonna have to pull back, you're gonna have to look bigger. So I think gestalt processing is part of that. It's like, I don't know. I feel like it's healthy in that way. So boom. Take that linear processing. Boom. Yeah, let's beat up on some other process. Boom. We're knocking down just like my child would. Okay. All right, I'll wrap this up. I want to say, Iris, I know you were you were nervous and all that, but this was a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed it. I think we're gonna ask you sometime in the future. We'll give you time to recharge. But you'll we we might ask you to be a regular guest because of how fun this was. So put them on your britches. Put them on your britches. Be ready for that. You can always do regulars. Yes.
SPEAKER_03We have a cat meet and greet.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, I have two cats right by me right now. I have one under the desk. Mine would have muted me and logged me off, so that's that. Like, anyway. All right, I'll give us a rest and thank you again. And um, just yeah. Thank you. Bye, everybody.
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