Interview between Speaker 1 (Meg Ferrell) and Speaker 2 (Katrina Martin)
Episode 102: Beyond The “Green Zone” & Beyond Labeling Feelings – Supporting Social Emotional Learning
Meg:
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[Introductory music]
Welcome to the Two Sides of the Spectrum podcast, a place where we explore research, amplify Autistic voices, and change the way we think about autism in life and in our professional therapy practices. I’m Meg Ferrell, formerly Meg Proctor, from learnplaythrive.com, broadcasting to you today from unceded Tsalagi territory.
Welcome to Episode 102 with Katrina Martin. If you’re anything like me, you learned about how masking harms Autistic kids. You stopped teaching Autistic kids to perform neurotypical social skills, and then you never put anything else in its place, which honestly leaves our Autistic kids in the lurch with no one supporting their learning around connection, safety, communication breakdowns, competing access needs, developing a positive sense of self, and so many other important topics.
I am incredibly grateful to have Dr. Katrina Martin teaching us how to meet that need. Katrina holds a PhD in special education. She’s the neurodivergent parent to neurodivergent kids, the founder and leading curriculum writer for Bridges Learning System, which is an incredibly innovative social-emotional learning program. She’s also the creator and instructor of our continuing education course on affirming social-emotional learning called ‘Bridging Perspectives’, which is found at learnplaythrive.com/bridge. Bridging Perspectives’ is an absolute game changer.
But first, I want you to listen to today’s conversation with Katrina, where she talks about what we can do beyond teaching kids to label emotion faces. She talks about how to use the typical regulation and self-awareness programs in a more affirming way, and what we can do instead. In this conversation, we go big picture and also get into the nuance of what outcomes we center, why, and how to do it on the ground in our actual work. I loved this conversation and I’m so excited to share it with you. Here’s the interview with Katrina Martin.
Hi Katrina. Welcome back to the podcast.
Katrina:
Thanks so much for having me, Meg.
Meg:
I’m really excited to have you. It’s always such a good, and nuanced, and deep conversation every time I get to talk with you, and I’m excited to share that with folks who are listening. So, I’m gonna jump right in with neurodiversity-affirming social-emotional learning. Why is this the area that you decided to focus on in so much of your work and in your Learn Play Thrive course? Why is this so important?
Katrina:
Yeah, definitely. So, I think I personally have been interested in social-emotional learning concepts, really, for as long as I can remember. And I think primarily that’s because neurotypical social-emotional understanding doesn’t actually come naturally to me personally at all. So, therefore I’ve always been pretty fascinated with it.
As a neurodivergent person, I see a lot of value in different ways of interacting with the world. And I, like many neurodivergent folks, have personally struggled with connecting with certain types of communicators. So, many people who are listening to this probably know the fancy term for this is the double empathy problem. For anyone who isn’t familiar with that term, the double empathy problem highlights that two people with different neurotypes — so, for example, a person that’s Autistic and a person who is neurotypical — are more likely to misunderstand one another simply because of the way that they experience the world around them.
So, for me, personally, one big way that the double empathy problem shows up is in my back-and-forth communication in conversation with other people. I am a slower processor, particularly with auditory input and formulating my thoughts into spoken words. So, often, in social situations, I am one step behind for the majority of the conversation. And so, this means that even if I do have something to contribute, I struggle to find a spot to get in as that back-and-forth flow often moves faster than I think.
So, this has led people to really think that I don’t have anything to contribute even when I do. I’m also, like, terrible at deciphering sarcasm. So, most of the time I’ll figure it out eventually, but it takes substantial mental load and often the humor aspect of sarcasm is just completely lost on me. So, I think that really my personal connection to challenges in social communication is what really initially made me want to focus on it.
And then, as an educator, I have seen social communication differences cause so much conflict and misunderstanding in the classroom or between peers. And often, it leads to the neurodivergent child feeling really bad about themselves because they have this perceived ‘lack of’, quote, social-emotional skills.
It’s never really the child’s perception alone of the situation. Often, other well-meaning adults try to explain to the neurodivergent child why their communication style was wrong. For example, telling them that info dumping isn’t a valid way to share information, and that the, quote, ‘right way to communicate’ would be taking turns and staying on subjects that are more palatable to their neurotypical peers.
So, the thought, of course, is that by teaching everyone to communicate in the same way, misunderstandings will occur less. However, in our neurotypically designed world, communicating the same way has always meant that the onus of change is placed solely on the neurodivergent child. So, therefore, it’s up to that neurodivergent child to learn the ways of neurotypical communication and adopt them.
Unfortunately, we know that adopting behaviors and communication styles that are unnatural to your authentic self is what leads to masking, when you are really trying to keep that authentic self hidden for the benefit of others. And that, as we know, can lead to severe mental and physical health issues over time. Not to mention it’s really just not fair. There is no one right way to socialize or communicate; just different ways.
So, my focus has always been how do we reconcile these two truths? Truth one, people with different neurotypes communicate and socialize in different ways, all of which are perfectly valid. And truth two, these differences lead to misunderstanding and conflict. So, as long as you hold that neurodiversity, or different ways of thinking and being as natural and normal and a very real aspect of the human condition, the only acceptable solution is to support people of all neurotypes in understanding different styles of social communication.
And I’ve found that even though many folks have embraced the idea of neurodiversity, there was still this gap in how to support social communication across neurotypes. And that’s really the hole that I seek to fill with the work that I do.
Meg:
Thank you so much for sharing that, both your personal journey and your — and I know that you put countless hours into developing the content that you teach in your course, ‘Bridging Perspectives’. Can you walk us through the main concepts in your framework for neurodiversity-affirming social-emotional learning?
Katrina:
Yeah, absolutely. So, one of my neurodivergent traits is to dive deep into a topic. Like, really deep. So, that’s what I did with the course. When I set out to design ‘Bridging Perspectives’, I knew that I really wanted it to complement the work that I’ve done in creating shared understanding around social communication for children of different neurotypes. It also was really important to me that the course worked for people with different learning styles. So, for me, that’s just a part of being a neurodiversity-affirming practitioner. So, I put a lot of consideration into the presentation and design of the course, as well as the content.
The course is built around eight modules. It begins with an explanation of why teaching neurotypical social skills to neurodivergent children doesn’t work, and we really highlight how the double empathy problem shows up in real life. I use a lot of video case study examples and some practice that you can really follow along with. Then we turn our attention to exploring the different ways that people exist naturally in the world, focusing on communication, social interaction, and emotional understanding.
So, this is really the meat of the course. And in these modules, I cover the wide variety of ways that people engage with one another; and most importantly, how to help people who engage differently find common ground. I talk about this as building bridges of understanding across different ways of thinking and being.
Each of the modules has built in activities and reflective practice opportunities so that we can really deepen the learner’s understanding and personal connection to the material. Then, in the last sections of the course, I talk about how we can support children using neurodiversity-affirming strategies in order to develop a positive sense of self as well as how to really talk to others. So, I’m talking other practitioners and parents about how to move away from teaching neurotypical social skills to more neurodiversity-affirming practice.
So, like you were saying earlier, Meg, a lot of people, I think, really struggle with that, these questions of ‘But we really want our children to fit in and feel like they belong’. And so, how can we talk to parents and to other practitioners so that they feel confident in using these strategies and still achieving those goals. So, by the end of the course, all learners will have their own action plan for implementing neurodiversity-affirming strategies. And these strategies will support the true social and emotional wellbeing of their students. So, I’m really proud of how the course came together, and from what I’ve heard, the feedback has been really positive so far.
Meg:
Yeah, it’s been really positive. And I asked you to talk about what you included in the course not to necessarily say everyone just needs to buy the course, but to really highlight how much actually goes into piecing together a truly affirming approach to supporting our client’s social-emotional wellbeing.
Because a lot of us start at this place of, okay, now I understand that I shouldn’t teach my Autistic clients to mask for social acceptance anymore, and we have no idea what to put in its place. And it’s easy to start piecing things together or to leave it out altogether, but you do such a good job of putting together something that is thorough, and comprehensive, and applicable, and also deeply affirming. So, we’re so grateful to you for that.
I wanna jump into some of the most common questions we get from people wherever they are in this process. The first one I wanna talk about is in a practice that many providers do, which is teaching kids about emotions by helping them label the names of emotions. Can you talk about when this is useful and in what ways it falls short?
Katrina:
Yeah, I think that using emotion labels absolutely works for some kids some of the time. That said, my recommended approach is to always offer multiple ways of understanding emotion to all children. The challenge that I think many providers have is that they aren’t really sure what those other approaches entail.
So, here’s why I think it’s important, though, to step outside of the, quote, ’emotion word box’ for all kids, neurodivergent and neurotypical alike. So, for some children, emotion words will be accessible and supportive of their communication most of the time. It’s quick and there is a degree of shared meaning in simple emotion words for many people.
So, in other words, ‘happy’, ‘sad’, and ‘mad’ generally often mean the same thing to the person expressing their emotion and the person that they’re communicating that emotion to. That said, most people at some point can’t put their emotions into simple emotion words. That might be because the emotion is too complex or because spoken words aren’t available to some folks during intense emotional events.
And of course, there are other people who can never put their emotions into emotion words, and this is the case for many neurodivergent people who experience alexithymia. They just don’t connect with the emotion word labels the same way that others do. So, my recommendation in order to support all children is to include emotion words as a choice for emotional expression, but to teach several ways that one can express their feelings.
Other ways of expressing emotion might include metaphors or statements. For example, ‘I feel like a bumblebee in a meadow of flowers’; or through interoceptive awareness, ‘My tummy feels twitchy and my hands want to move’; or through art, or sound, or any other way that works for that specific person. The key is to create shared understanding around the emotional expression.
So, again, back to my bridges of understanding. The goal of being able to label one’s feelings is to create that shared meaning around emotional experience, as well as what may be needed as a result of experiencing that emotion. The great thing is this doesn’t require using emotion words. So, for example, maybe you and the child have a shared understanding that when they say, “I feel like a bumblebee in a meadow full of flowers,” it means they can’t sit still and they need to be on the move.
It takes a lot of work to create this bridge of understanding, but by doing the work, you’re supporting the child to express their actual feelings and exist authentically in order to be truly understood, which is the real goal in helping children identify their emotions in the first place.
Meg:
I love those examples. And I wanna ask you about a tool that we see used a lot, it’s really ubiquitous in the schools — ‘Zones of regulation’. Can you talk a little bit about the way this program is used and what you’d like to see happening instead?
Katrina:
Yeah. So, for anyone who’s not familiar, the ‘Zones of regulation’ is a tool that categorizes a child’s emotional state as one of four different zones and these zones are distinguished by colors. So, in its simplest form, blue is sad or bored. Green is happy and ready to learn. Yellow is anxious or excited. And red is angry or overjoyed.
So, unfortunately, there are a few problems with categorizing emotions in this way. One being that not all children connect with emotion labels. And also, humans are complex and often our emotions are multifaceted. We can be sad, anxious, and angry all at the same time. So, that means that we don’t necessarily fit into one zone or another. Unfortunately, I also often see the Zones tool being used in classrooms as a way to shame children for being in the wrong zone at the wrong time.
And I’ll say I don’t think that was the way that Zones was intended to be used by the authors, but that unfortunately is the way that it’s often being implemented. We often see large posters with the zones on them and children’s names or pictures being moved around on the poster to identify them as being in a particular zone at a specific time.
And often, this is followed by, “You’re in the yellow zone, but we need to get back to green so that we are ready to learn.” And I think labeling one zone as, quote, ‘ready to learn’, it’s really telling children that they can’t have other emotions like anxious and be ready to learn. And of course we know that just isn’t true. Children can have all sorts of emotional states and still be in a space where they’re able to take in new information. And some children need to be in a more heightened state or a lower state in order to really be able to attend to new information.
I think even more importantly, this tool overlooks some really important parts of the context that might be leading to the emotional state. Often, when children are experiencing emotions that would be labeled as something other than green, it’s because their needs aren’t being met. And the zones only focuses on the child’s ability to regulate their emotions, not the needs that are causing the emotions. So, this is quite possibly leading to masking in order to please others rather than advocating for one’s actual needs in order to feel comfortable.
I will say, while I generally don’t endorse the use of Zones, particularly in the classroom setting where it’s often used to, you know, publicly shame children for being in the wrong zone, I do think using it as a simplified visual or an individual child to check in with themselves could possibly help them better recognize and communicate their feelings.
I would, of course, change the emotion word labels to terms that the child uses for specific emotional states. Maybe not even words, maybe it’s pictures, maybe it’s colors, maybe something else altogether. It doesn’t have to be words, and I would recommend only ever using it one-on-one as a starting point for helping children communicate their feelings rather than as a tool to help children regulate or change their emotional state. ‘Cause without that contextual information, without recognizing children’s sensory needs or activity and interest needs that are or aren’t being met, it’s really not an appropriate tool for changing emotional states.
Meg:
Thank you so much for that detailed answer. I think it’s so helpful the way that you are zooming us out and helping us look at the whole child and really wondering what is our goal here, what are we trying to achieve, and are we achieving what we’re trying to achieve? Or are we accidentally doing something different? And so, I’m curious, when you are thinking about social-emotional learning for Autistic kids in particular, what outcomes are you centering?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think the primary outcome that I center when thinking specifically about Autistic kids is for the child to engage authentically. So, unfortunately, most neurodivergent kids and Autistic kids in particular, by the time they reach primary school, have been told over and over again that they need to change fundamental aspects of their being in order to be acceptable to their peers. It’s a terribly damaging message. Of course, giving children the tools to show up as themselves is really just one part of that, but we can’t stop there.
So, here’s why I think people get a little tripped up sometimes with neurodiversity-affirming practice. So, imagine if we told an Autistic kid, “Hey, you be you. Info dump all you want. You don’t need to make eye contact if it’s not comfortable. Tell people you feel like a purple grape when you’re upset.” And you left it at that.
Of course, info dumping is a perfectly valid form of communication. Absolutely, eye contact isn’t necessary. And if purple grape is the way that you identify a feeling, then that’s what you’re feeling. So, while that’s all authentic, it doesn’t lead to authentic engagement. So, our goal needs to be to support Autistic kids — and really, all people — to learn how to create shared meaning within their social communication and emotion expression.
So, this could look like developing a script to explain info dumping to their communicative partner. The child’s giving a handout to new teachers explaining that they won’t be making eye contact because it’s uncomfortable, but they’re still listening. Or expressing to their new babysitter that feeling purple grape is how I felt when I fell down and got a bruise on my knee. So, that the context of the emotion provides information about the meaning of the emotional expression.
So, it’s really important that we recognize that the world we live in is neurotypically driven. So, while we absolutely don’t want to push neurotypical norms on Autistic children, we also don’t wanna tell them to ‘just be themselves’ and then thrust them into a world that isn’t designed to understand their communication or social attempts. I think that’s where a lot of people get really nervous about implementing neurodiversity-affirming social-emotional learning, because they know the neurotypical world is pervasive. And pushing an Autistic child into that world without support really leaves them ill-equipped to truly engage.
I do however think that the order of teaching these concepts to Autistic children is an important consideration. We have to carefully consider the messages that Autistic children have received throughout their lives and start by helping them learn what their authentic styles of communication and social interaction are. So, start by really validating the way that they exist naturally. And oly after they truly know themselves, then can we move into helping them build their side of that bridge to create shared understanding and communicative meaning with other people.
Meg:
Thank you so much, Katrina. Your clarity on this is such a gift to those of us navigating this in real time. And I appreciate those examples, too. They’re very salient. I know a lot of folks are working with families who might be asking for their kids to learn neurotypical social skills. What advice do you have to those providers for how to navigate that?
Katrina:
It’s not uncommon for well-meaning families to want their kids to learn to use neurotypical social skills. Just like the kids themselves, parents have been socialized to think that there is one, quote, ‘right way’ to socialize and communicate. So, I try to approach families with curiosity. Why do you want your child to learn these neurotypical social skills? What do you think it will do for them or to them if they start communicating or socializing in a more neurotypical way?
So, most often, I hear parents say something to the effect of, “I want them to be understood. I want them to have friends. And if they’re understood and they have friends, then they’ll be happy.” And I completely get those hopes for your child. So, what I would say to them is, here’s why I think using a neurodiversity-affirming approach will accomplish those goals. And then, I lean into a discussion about neurodiversity, how different ways of thinking and being are natural and a normal variation in the human experience. I talk about what masking is and how adopting neurotypical social skills as a neurodivergent person can lead to mental health challenges over time. And then, I start to explain that there is another way.
So, by using neurodiversity-affirming strategies, we can support your child in being understood while also being their authentic self. We can help them learn how to socialize in a way that’s true to them, and identify people who like them for who they really are, because that’s what it really means to be a friend and have friends. And when we’re able to find success in engaging authentically, we can get our needs met without masking, which ultimately is what leads to happiness.
So, I am a parent myself, and I’ll tell you that one challenge with being on the receiving end of a message like the one I just shared is the potential for feeling judged and ashamed for previously holding your child to these neurotypical social skills. That’s obviously not what we want. So, one thing that I often suggest to people is that they consider providing written resources that families can review on their own and then slowly work through the conversation over time. So, this can really reduce the pressure and help families come to the conclusion that you’re actually on the same page with what you all want for their child.
Meg:
Thank you. I love how you’re really holding that parent’s deepest desires and wants and needs for their kid, and also considering their experience of this journey of going from Point A to Point B together with us. It’s a tricky and really important opportunity that providers have when they’re working with families and often no one’s ever explained anything to them.
So, Katrina, your course ‘Bridging Perspectives’, it’s at learnplaythrive.com/bridge, and we have it registered for continuing education credit. With so many different continuing education boards for a whole lot of different professionals, it’s deeply practical; and honestly, there’s not anything else out there like it. Can you share a little bit more about what the course covers and what you’re hoping providers will feel after they finish it?
Katrina:
Yeah, I think ‘Bridging Perspectives’, really puts together what I think all people should know about social-emotional understanding. So, of course I designed it for clinicians and educators, but truly I think the world would be a much better place if everyone had a better understanding of the wide variety of ways that people communicate, socialize, and experience emotions. I think the title of the course really encompasses the goal — ‘Bridging Perspectives’ — and over the course of all eight modules, we intend to build a bridge of understanding between unique perspectives.
I really try to decenter neurotypical by showcasing all of the varieties of ways that people of all neurotypes communicate, socialize, and understand emotion. And just like we do when we teach children using neurodiversity-affirming practice, once we’ve developed a good understanding as adult learners of the myriad of ways of being, then we can really consider how to go about finding common ground between people.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, so I really try to equip you with the tools to figure out solutions to unique situations that will present themselves to you when you have two different types of communicators. My hope is that providers who complete the course come out of it feeling like they have a better understanding of their own social communication styles and ways of understanding their own emotions.
I also hope that they feel better equipped to recognize those subtle social communication efforts in the children that they work with. And ultimately, they’ll leave with a toolbox full of ideas to support all people in breaking down social communication barriers and really bridging understanding between perspectives.
Meg:
We are really grateful to you for all of the work you put into creating this course, and we are really, really proud to share it with folks. So, again, they can find it at learnplaythrive.com/bridge. Katrina, what else are you working on now? And where can folks find you online?
Katrina:
Right now, we have a couple of big projects in the works. So, as many of you know, at Bridges, we currently have three different programs that are used by clinicians and educators all over the world to support social-emotional learning for neurodivergent children and their allies. There’s HAVEN Bridge for younger children and their families; SANDE Bridge for preschool-aged children and kids that would benefit from simpler language; and our flagship program, SEA bridge for primary-aged children.
So, I’m excited to let you know that over the next year in partnership with native speakers, we’re working on translating our programs to really make them available to more children throughout the world. So, we are making them available in Spanish and in Mandarin. We’re also working on a brand new program to support neurodivergent teens and adults. So, lots of exciting things are in the works. You can always find out what’s going on, what’s new on our website at bridgeslearningsystem.com. I’d also invite anyone who really wants to stay in the know with what we have on offer. We often have lots of freebies coming out. So, sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
Meg:
Thank you. We’ll be sure to link all of that in the show notes as well. And sometimes I do get this question, but your social-emotional learning programs that are meant to be used directly with kids are independent of the continuing education course. So, sometimes people are like, do I have to have the program to take the course? No, nor do you have to take the course to get the program. So, one is like therapist education and concepts; and the other is this beautifully made program that you have created to use directly with clients.
Katrina:
Absolutely.
Meg:
So, I’ll link to everything in the show notes. And thank you again, Katrina, for all your work on this topic and for your time today.
Katrina:
Thanks, Meg. Thanks for having me.
[Ending note]
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