Let's talk about something else

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 103 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were autistic, ADHD, and anxious kids and teens who struggled with staying on topic during a conversation.

Some of the kids in this group continued talking about something, even when it was clear to everyone else that no one was interested in continuing to talk about that topic.

Some students changed the topic every time they asked a question, unaware that others in the group had a hard time keeping up with all the changes and randomness, and that it really wasn't a conversation, it was more like an interview.

And some of the kids had a hard time recognizing when others changed the topic, so they continued making comments about topics that the group had moved on from.

There were also students in this group who got frustrated when the topic changed, because they still wanted to keep talking about that topic, and so they weren't able to change and shift with the group when the topic changed, as it always does.

I created the lesson I'm sharing this week for all of these students.

In this lesson, students learn how and when to change the topic appropriately, why they or others may choose to change the topic, and how to handle topic changes that they weren't wanting or expecting.

The lesson we're talking about on this episode is from module three of the SC3 curriculum, which is all about conversations. It is lesson three in module three, looking at the checklist for module three, this lesson covers: Doesn't know how to change the topic if they want to or need to, and has no concept of what the topic is or how to stick to it.

It's pretty common for students who struggle with conversational skills to have a hard time with the concept of topic. One reason is that students don't always recognize that there is a topic or what a topic is. Some students are only able to talk about things that they are interested in, and so it doesn't matter what the topic is if it's not something they're interested in. And some students don't know how to change the topic appropriately, or when to change the topic, or they don't know how to move forward when the topic has changed. There are lots of different challenges that can arise when we talk about students who struggle with the concept of topic in a conversation. We're going to talk about all of that in this lesson that we're talking about on this episode.

I start the lesson by introducing the students to the concept of a topic. What is a topic? A lot of older students know this word from language arts class, similar to when we talked about the word inferencing. This is a common word that students will hear in language arts class, reading class, even in social studies class because they're related. But just because a student knows a word does not mean they know what it means. And that's what I'm trying to get to the point of everybody knowing here is what is a topic?
We talk about how, basically, the topic is what everybody's talking about. Are we talking about vacations? Are we talking about school? Are we talking about video games? That's the topic. What is it that we're talking about?

We start by talking about us and the potential of us changing the topic, so we need to know why might we change the topic? What are some reasons that we might want to change the topic? On a previous episode, when we talked about joining a conversation, we talked about how we don't change the topic in a conversation we're joining because that's not our conversation. We are a guest in that conversation. So this might be if it's a conversation that we've been in from the beginning, or if we've been in it for a little while now, but we wouldn't join a conversation and then try to change the topic because that's not our conversation. We are a guest in that conversation.

The biggest reason that we might want to change the topic, which is also one that most students don't recognize, is if we notice that people that we're talking to are no longer interested in what we're talking about. For anybody having a conversation with anybody, that is the number one reason to change the topic is that the group, the person, the audience, has lost interest. I ask the students, "What do you think happens if we continue talking about something that other people are not interested in?" We pause for a discussion about that.

Students understand that other people might get bored, they might walk away, they might not want to talk to us again, they might start doing things like taking out their phone, checking their watch, they might start talking to somebody else. When we talk about these things explicitly, the students are, for the most part, able to come up with examples of what it might look like when someone is not interested. The challenge is that it's hard to notice these things when we're having a conversation, especially if you are the one talking. It's very difficult to talk and notice the social reactions that you're getting at the same time. It's a lot of brain power to do all of those things at the same time, and so often our students don't notice the social reactions that they're getting.

Another challenge is that students don't always know what to do about the reactions they're getting. I mentioned in a previous episode the concept of taking a detour. Just because a student notices other people aren't interested, that doesn't mean they know what to do next. The topic they're talking about may be one of the only topics they feel like they can talk about, and so if the other people don't want to talk about that, they get pretty stuck. Our first poll for this lesson is: What are some ways we can tell if someone is not interested in what we're talking about? I give three different answers for this one. One of the answers is they're looking somewhere else. Another one is they aren't participating in the conversation. And then always 'I'm not sure', because it's always okay to not be sure.

I really love this concept of people's eyes and how much of an impact people's eyes have on whether they're paying attention or not. In traditional social skills, we are taught to make eye contact. To look at other people, especially when they are talking to us or when we are talking to them. And so it follows that if somebody's not looking at us, that must mean they're not interested in what we're talking about. In my program I don't talk about eye contact much at all, except to say I don't care if you're making eye contact with people.

For people who are neurodivergent, as I mentioned earlier, it's a lot of mental energy to have a conversation and pay attention to social cues at the same time, which is why a lot of our students struggle with it. It's also a lot of energy to try to have a conversation with someone and pay attention to visual input at the same time. I am someone who struggles with this as well. I do pretty well with looking at people when they're talking to me, but when I'm talking, I am usually not looking at the person or the group I'm talking to. It's incredibly distracting to try to stay on my train of thought with what I'm trying to talk about with all the visual input that's coming in if I'm looking at people or looking at the group. I will sometimes say when I'm talking about this topic of eye contact, when it comes to people who are neurodivergent, for most of us, we can listen to you or we can look at you, but please don't expect us to do both. So the topic of eye contact is a pretty heavily debated topic, which I think is pretty silly. It's absolutely a social expectation in the normal world, but I don't live in the normal world, and neither do my students. If you want them to listen, please don't expect them to make eye contact, because they most likely cannot do both at the same time.

Which brings us back to the poll question. Most of the students will say if someone is looking somewhere else, they're not interested. But that is because that's what they have been taught to think based on the whole conversation we just had about eye contact. In reality, looking somewhere else is not related to whether somebody's paying attention or not. Even in our groups, the majority of the time, students aren't looking at me. They might be looking at the table. They might be looking at their hands. We don't have technology out, so they're not looking at phones or tablets. They might be looking at other people in the group. They might be looking at the floor. But when I ask a question or when we have a conversation, everybody knows what we're talking about. Everybody joins in. Everybody has something to share and something to say, because they're listening in the best way that they can, which is usually not by looking at me. So we talk about how, just because someone's not looking at us does not mean they're not interested.

If we want to learn some tricks about pretending that we're making eye contact with people, since that's the normal expectation, we can look at people's noses, we can look at people's foreheads, we can do things like that that make it seem like we're looking at them, but eye to eye contact is highly distracting. So is looking at somebody's mouth, because if they're talking, their mouth is constantly moving. So I debunk the idea that just because someone's not looking at us, that doesn't mean they're not paying attention.

The number one clue for anybody, anywhere, that somebody's not interested in what we're talking about is that they're not participating in the conversation. That's the number one clue. They're not making comments, they're not asking questions, they're not engaging and participating in what we're talking about. That's the number one clue in a social conversation that someone is not interested. Even they're not trying to change the topic! Even that would be better than just not participating.

The only time I would say this may not be the best clue is when we're talking about people with social anxiety, like our square kiddos. But even then, they are usually doing something, giving you some sort of feedback, maybe nodding along, maybe smiling, to let you know that they're paying attention and engaged. So the number one clue is, if people are not engaging in the conversation, they've usually mentally checked out.

Another clue is that people might talk over us. They might start talking while we're still talking. They might try to change the topic. Those are both great social clues that they're done talking about whatever we are talking about. Often, students with social learning challenges prefer talking to adults as opposed to their peers, or younger kids as opposed to their same-age peers. Adults tend to be more patient with kids. Adults tend to be more understanding, more empathetic, which is great for building kids' self-esteem and giving them an opportunity to try things and to practice things. It's not so great when our kids get so used to talking to adults who typically don't give social feedback, that they struggle with doing things like recognizing when people aren't interested in changing the topic.

Often when I'm meeting new students, if they start talking about something that I genuinely am not interested in, I will tell them, "Oh, that's not really something I'm interested in," and I will see how they respond to that, because that's not something a typical adult will say to a child: "I don't really want to talk about that." We tend to placate kids because we enjoy and appreciate the conversation, or because we don't want to put them down. We don't want to be negative. But what we're doing if we don't give our kids social feedback is we are robbing them of the opportunity to recognize when someone's not interested, and for them to develop the skillset of changing the topic. So if we as the adults don't give social feedback when our kids are talking about things we're not interested in, we are not helping them socially. We're actually making it more difficult for them to engage with their peers who aren't as forgiving and polite about it. They will walk away. They will say, "I don't want to talk about that anymore." They will say, "Why do you only talk about that?" Their peers will give some pretty straight up social feedback. And if we haven't been giving any social feedback, we have really put our kids at a disadvantage when it comes to communicating with their peers.

I teach the students some things they can say to change the topic when they notice that people are not interested. And we role play this. We practice. Everybody gets to think of a topic, and then the group practices pretending like they don't care. So what does that look like? What might it look like if you were to pretend you didn't care? And then each student gets to practice some of the phrases I teach them. They get to choose the ones they like the most so that they can practice changing the topic. I'm going to keep the phrases in my brain, those are for the kiddos who are in the program. But we get to talk about, "Which phrase do you think most sounds like you, or which one do you think you would like to use?" And then we all practice.

We all have things we like to talk about that other people just don't really care about. Everybody has that. I do think it's very important that all of our kids know at least one person who likes something that they like. If you think about what are their top three things they like to talk about, it's important they have somebody in their life that they can talk to about each one of them. It may not be somebody in your family, it may be a distant relative. It could be another kid at school. It could be somebody that they see in a group once a week. It could be people online, as long as it's monitored and safe. But we all deserve to have people in our lives who like to talk about the same things we like to talk about, and so it will definitely be a struggle for kids to be able to have on-topic conversations about a variety of things if they don't have people to talk to about the things that matter most to them. Everybody deserves to have those people in their lives. Sometimes we have to go find them, but I think we all deserve to have that.

Next we talk about a different reason we might want to change the topic. We might want to change the topic because we are thinking about something else as a result of what the topic is. Something triggers a thought or a memory, and we want to talk about that. In this case, that means it's a related topic change because we made the connection in our brain, and so it's related. However, we talk about how the only way people will know it's related is if we make the connection for them. It's pretty common for people in general... I have somebody in my life who does this so much that they'll just start talking about whatever the conversation caused them to think about, and so to everybody else, everybody's thinking, 'Where did that come from? Were you listening to what we were talking about?' And they absolutely were. They made an extended connection that the only way for us to put the pieces together is for them to tell us the connection that they're making.

So this is when we use phrases like: "That reminds me of," or, "Speaking of," and we put the pieces together for people. I am really good at doing this for my students. I am very good at following the invisible threads when we're having a conversation and somebody will say something that sounds really random. I can usually figure out what they were thinking of that caused them to say that thing. But I don't follow my students around in the world to be able to do that, so it's an important skill for students to be able to connect the dots on their train of thought, connect the train cars on their train of thought, so that people see how they got from Point A to Point E, and recognize that they absolutely were paying attention, and that's what led them to point E. Otherwise it just sounds really random and off the wall.

Another reason we may choose to change the topic is when people are talking about things that might be awkward or uncomfortable. It might not have started out that way, but maybe things have shifted. Maybe people have come and gone, maybe the conversation has shifted, and all of a sudden, it's a little bit awkward or uncomfortable. It could be the topic, it could be the words that are being used, it could be people's opinions that are being shared. We go into a big discussion at this point about: What are some things that people don't like talking about? What are some topics that are likely to make people uncomfortable? And we talk about this several times in the program, because it's always worth repeating. And they're always the same. Our list is typically the same. But it's important for students to have it said out loud, because there are things on this list that they hadn't even thought about. We always make a list of what are some topics that are likely to make people feel uncomfortable.

Even things like death. I am surprised sometimes at how often students will talk about things that have to do with death without recognizing that nobody really wants to talk about that. I have this kitten that I found several months ago, and I was telling somebody the story. I found him on a highway. Literally on the highway. I was telling somebody the story, and they told me a story about a similar situation, except it didn't end the way mine did with me having a kitten. And I just thought, 'How awkward is that? What makes you think that I want to hear that story?' I think that's a big one I notice that my students just don't always recognize other people don't want to talk about or don't want to hear about.

Obviously, there's a difference between if a student is confiding in somebody, if they're having a hard time and they're talking about something, they're sharing something. That's different than a social conversation. Death doesn't really have a place in a social conversation. Those are different conversations.

And then we talk about: What are some topics that are always appropriate, no matter who you're talking to? That's also a point that we talk about multiple times throughout this program, just as a reminder, a reiteration, what are some topics that you can always talk about even with people you don't know? So we go into that.

I teach the students (this is one of my favorite things) a phrase that they can say anytime to change the topic. And if they use this phrase, they can change the topic to ANYTHING. I even practice with them. I'll say this phrase, and then I'll say something like, "I really love tadpoles." I just think of something bizarre that would not be related to anything we were talking about. And so we do this. We make this really silly. I encourage them to say something silly, because it demonstrates how, as long as you use this phrase, you truly can change the topic anytime, anywhere, no matter who you're talking to, to anything.

Now I do tell them after we're done being silly that we don't want to use it just to be silly. That would get pretty annoying. We would cross over a seven into being pretty annoying if we used it too often. But if we use it in a in a real-world situation because we want to change the topic, maybe things are getting a little awkward or uncomfortable, we can use this phrase and then say something like, "Over the weekend, I went to a new LEGO store," even if the conversation was about something completely unrelated. So again, I'm going to keep that phrase in my brain as well. That one's special for the students who are in the group with me, but that's one of our favorite things. And then I love seeing students use it as the weeks go on. And sometimes I'll remind them, if I notice that somebody's changing the topic and we're not following, I'll say, "Remember what you can say to change the topic?" "Oh yeah! Oh yeah!" And then they'll use it.

So I love the phrase. It's so simple and it's so easy to use and it's so effective that, once students learn it, they tend to like to use it and want to use it.

The last thing we talk about in this lesson is the difficulty of the topic changing when we weren't ready for it to change. This is a real difficulty.

Triangle kids tend to have a lot to say. They tend to be very engaged in conversations. They also tend to be pretty opinionated, so they have a lot to say. The challenge for them is that they may not be ready for the topic to change, because they still have three things they want to say about what the topic is. Triangle kids also, typically, tend to run conversations, so if other people change the topic, sometimes they feel like that's a bit of an affront. 'Well, I wasn't ready to talk about something else.' They will often try to bring the topic back. I noticed that often with triangle kids is, even when the group moves on, they will try to bring the conversation back because there's still things that they wanted to say about it.

Circle students struggle with topic changes because it's hard for them to pivot that quickly. Social conversations are quick and so circle students have a hard time pivoting that quickly. I can think of one student in particular who was one of my prototypes for creating Circle in the book, and he will often make a comment maybe three exchanges later about what we were talking about. It's incredibly common for him to do that, and it's because his brain has not made the switch yet. So we've all switched, but he's still thinking and remembering about what we were talking about, and then he'll think of one more thing he wants to say about it, even though we've all moved on. So it's different than a triangle kid. He's not trying to hold on to the topic. His brain isn't ready to switch yet. It happened too quickly, and he just wasn't prepared for it yet.

I will always acknowledge what he says when that happens, because I want to encourage him to keep participating and contributing. So I'll always acknowledge what he says, and every time I do, it's like that's his green light to go ahead and move forward and to switch gears. He just needs to say what he was processing that he didn't have time to say before we switched.

Square kiddos are kiddos who are under the social anxiety category. This sometimes happens to them because it takes so much effort and nerve for them to speak up in conversations that sometimes, especially if it's a topic they really want to talk about and then it changes, they might try to hold on to what the topic was because they don't want to talk about the new topic and they wanted to talk about the previous topic. So they may hold on to it because that's their opportunity to engage and contribute.

It's different for everybody, but we're looking for the same outcome. We're looking for everybody to be able to recognize when the topic has changed, and to be able to move with it. Even if we didn't want it to change, even if our brain isn't ready for it to change, we want to be able to recognize that it has in fact changed, and to move with it.

The last poll of this lesson is: When the topic changes in a conversation, what should we do? Option A is keep saying what we wanted to say. Option B is to think of something to say about the new topic. And then option C, as always, is I'm not sure. Again, because it's a poll and we're talking about it explicitly, all the students know the answer is 'think of something to say about the new topic'. But making it explicit like that helps it sink in. Like, oh, okay, that's what I need to do. Especially for circle students. Making things explicit for circle students really helps it solidify. Oh, okay, that's what I need to do. I need to think of something to say about the new topic.

One strategy that I teach students is, if you still had things you wanted to say about the previous topic, but the group has moved on, you can say them in your brain. Or if you're not able to do that, you can whisper them to yourself. Sometimes we just need to get it out. We just need to say it. We can whisper things to ourselves. We can say it in our brain. We can turn around and kind of mumble it and then turn back toward the group. Sometimes we just need it out of our head, and that unfinished feeling can be really stressful. I don't want kids sitting on that unfinished feeling. I want them to feel like, alright, I was able to say what I wanted to say. I try to teach them some strategies on different ways that they can do that without making the whole group go back to the topic.

We end this lesson by continuing to practice joining conversations and maintaining conversations, which were the two lessons in this module that come before this lesson. In all the modules the lessons build on each other, but in this module in particular, we go back and practice what we've already learned and build on to it and add on to it. And so this week, we added on being able to change the topic if we choose to, and also being able to handle the topic changing.

Let's see what we're going to talk about on the next episode. It says two. Lesson two. That means that would be module one, the second week of module one. Module one is all about the concept of reputation, and week two is all about the concept of being in a group. What we focus on in week two is: What are some things that are totally fine to do when you're by yourself, nobody else is around, nobody's listening or watching, but we should only do them when we're by ourselves, versus what are the things that are totally fine to do no matter where we are or who we're around?

If you are a parent, there are probably things that your kiddo does that fall into the 'I should only do this when I'm by myself' category that you might not even be aware of, because they've been doing it their whole life. You might not even think about it. But if they do it at school, if they do it in a social group, if they do it at soccer practice, it definitely does not give them the reputation that they're wanting for themselves.

And so this is a really big 'aha' lesson for a lot of students, because we talk about things that most students are doing. And we talk about why, we talk about why these things are things that should be alone kind of behaviors. And again, there are very few students that don't do any of these in front of other people. There are even adults that sometimes do these things in front of other people. So that's what we'll talk about on the next episode. I'm glad you're here, and I will see you then.