Kim Takacs, from Together We Bloom, and her co-presenter, Sam, spoke to Kindergarteners and 1st graders this week about “Celebrating Communication Differences.” On 4/14, 2nd through 5th graders’ presentation will focus on “Perspective Taking and Neurodiversity.” Here are some notes from the presentation:

• Some of our differences we can see and some we can’t - differences in our brains is one example of a difference that we cannot see. Differences in how our brains work is called neurodiversity.  
• Our brain controls what our bodies need to regulate. Students shared personal examples of types of movement that helps their brains to focus. During the presentation Sam showed us that he sometimes needed a movement break with his fidget to help him regulate his body. 
• A theme of the presentation was ways we communicate, and how people communicate can be different (i.e., words, gestures, sign language, tablet). 
• Sam shared that he is autistic and that he is a non-speaker who uses a letter board and keyboard to type what he wants to say. He shared that when he was younger his mouth and fingers did not work well and he did not have a keyboard to communicate so people thought that he didn’t have anything to say, but that was not true. He wants people to know that just because non-speakers don’t use words to communicate, they still have thoughts and dreams, they think and understand, and have the same feelings as others. He wants people to not judge non-speakers and get to get to know them. 
• We read, “A Day With No Words, “ by Tiffany Hammond. Tiffany and her son are autistic; and her son is a non-speaker. She wrote a story about their life using their iPads to communicate. Some people use pictures instead of words to communicate so we practiced using a picture communication board to read the story and Sam typed out each page to read to us. 
• Another takeaway was that we can be friends with people who communicate differently from us and that we can be friends with others even if our brains are different. We learned that it is important to listen to others even if they communicate differently from us. 

    Thank you to the PTA and our administrators for making it possible to hold these valuable assemblies at Seth Boyden. I hope these notes from the presentation will help you to continue the conversation at home with your child about disability, differences, and neurodiversity. Our PTA will be sponsoring a caregiver virtual workshop with Together We Bloom about talking with our kids about disability and neurodiversity on May 14th 8-9:15pm, so please save the date. To learn more about Together We Bloom, here is their website: https://www.togetherwebloom.org