Last night PanKwake woke me up to a litany of movies she wanted me to get her…oh and a DVD player for her bedroom too.
So this morning I finally gave in bought that DisneyLife subscription I have been hearing so much about…even though we already have the Disney Channels on our cable package.
The thing is that even watching videos can be educational…
Especially for a child like PanKwake with reading difficulties.
For us, it becomes about encouraging her to re-tell the story. It is about things like…
- Sequencing…did she get events in the correct order?
- Comprehension…is she understanding the events?
- and…the hardest of all for those with high-functioning autism…Prediction…can she extrapolate how characters might be feeling or what might happen next?
There are other advantages too…socialization. Sitting down to watch a video as a family can be challenging for a child on the autistic spectrum. But she loves to torture Cookie Monster with Disney videos…although he tolerated Frozen pretty well. We shall have to see about Moana. Of course, her day is coming…once she can manage actor and not just cartoons…she will be forced to watch Princess Diaries and the Muppets. Turn about is fair play after all.
Heck, even just getting her to focus…attention span…for close to two hours is a life skill that is vital.
But it is the retelling…the organizing her thoughts that is the big one. That is an important life skill as well as a huge pre-reading one. The easiest way to get her going is to have her tell someone who has not seen it…or to make an error. PanKwake loves to correct me when I get something ‘wrong.’
Of course with Radical Unschooling…it is about using every day activities…life itself…to facilitate learning for your child. And movies are as good a tool as any. For all those reasons and more…
So in addition to DisneyLife it look like I might be buying her a DVD player…
Pink of course…Would PanKwake really have anything else in PinkTopia?!?!
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 