Wait Time

When Mikey was first diagnosed, we worked with a fantastic team who helped teach us some key concepts in working with young children with autism.  Wait time was one of these important ideas.

Here’s the gist of it: when you have a conversation with another adult, it moves very quickly.  There might be one second in between when you ask a question and the other person begins to answer.

Mikey’s team told me that for special needs children, their auditory processing can move much more slowly. Combine that with the fact that it can often take them longer to formulate an answer.  Are you getting a sense of where we’re headed?

45 Seconds

Their suggestion was that we may need to wait up to 45 seconds to allow Mikey to process our question and formulate his answer. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…That is an ever-loving eternity!  It feels like an incredibly long time.

While I’m not sure we ever waited quite that long to get an answer from Mikey, the overall point is an important one.  The speed of conversation will go much more slowly.  Don’t fill in the gaps.  Ask one question and then wait…

Sometimes you’ll hear adults talking to children with special needs and they ask multiple questions in a row.  I think they do it to fill the space in the conversation, but if the child is taking some time to process, they may be answering the first question asked instead of the most recent one.  The result is that they may be giving you an answer that is not a true reflection of how they feel, leading to confusion and miscommunications.

Just ask one question and wait.  This is your best shot at getting an accurate answer.