Dr. Geoffrey Waldon, a neurologist working in the UK, developed THE WALDON APPROACH from his detailed observation of thousands of children during over 30 years of practice. What follows is a short summary of Waldon’s innovative and insightful ideas.
We were lucky to have met Geoffrey Waldon in 1970 when our son Robert was two years old and diagnosed as retarded, remote and with challenging behavior. We were advised that when he became too hard to handle we should put him in a home and get on with our lives. Today Robert lives independently with his wife and two lovely daughters and has a good job as a web developer. The children under your care now too have the opportunity to benefit from Waldon’s Sensory Motor Approach.
‘Meaning comes from movement’
If infants do not make full use of their movement in play, this may affect the development of their understanding. Through regular, short but intensive lessons, the Waldon Approach aims to restart a cycle of movement and learning in order to reduce anxiety, increase motivation and adaptability and foster the growth of their general understanding.
General Understanding compared with Cultural Particular Understanding
Children’s General Understanding comes from their own self-directed movement. It is the same for all children and it is the core and the foundation of all other learning.
Cultural Particular Understanding arises when general Understanding is socially shaped to enable the child to learn and conform to the customs and rules of the society in which he lives
General Understanding Cultural Particular Understanding
No right or wrong Lots of rights and wrongs
Rules are created by the child Rules are externally imposed
No adult teaching Adult directed
Full of experimentation Full of directed learning
The long effortful way is best for The shortest route is best for
the gain of maximum experience maximum efficiency
Powered by child’s own ‘motivation’ Powered by adult direction
Reinforced by pleasure gained directly Reinforced by adult approval
through child's own effort and activity
Adult approval not required or expected Adult approval is provided but is unrelated to the child's efforts but rather to its social acceptability
Secondary impediments – Barriers to learning
Waldon distinguishes between 'primary impediments'which are the intrinsic problems affecting development, and 'secondary impediments' which are learned behaviours arising from the difficulties a child faces.
The secondary impediment is the action the child takes as a result of his difficulties and results in learned behavior which persists beyond the original problem
These separate functionally into:
Anxiety-avoiding behaviours such as having a tantrum, stiffening the body, averting the gaze, indulging in inappropriate social behaviour
Self-delighting behaviours such as rocking, spinning and head banging
Cul-de-sac behaviours - self-limiting repetitive behaviours, fiddling with materials and keeping with the familiar
A behavior may fulfill more than one function – and all of them make it more difficult for the child to expand her general understanding.
These secondary behaviours are learned by the child to signal unpleasure or to develop pleasure while minimizing effort. Both reduce the possibility of Fundamental Learning.
The secondary impediments may survive as habits even after their initial cause, environmental stress or over-demand, is no longer present.
The Waldon Lesson - Overview
The Lesson provides an environment which simulates the early non social learning of the normally playing child. That is to say a child in solitary play (usually with a responsible adult nearby). The lesson is a period of intensive play activity for the child, lasting up to an hour, and designed to increase the drive and motivation to act positively upon the world. It encourages effortful movement in order to strengthen existing understanding and to increase the child’s ability to play on her own.
· The Waldon Lesson supports learning in children who struggle to learn on their own and reduces the need for secondary anxiety-avoiding and self-delighting behaviours.
· It is designed to enable the child to experience movements and activities which will strengthen his General Understanding and her bodily integration.
· We work without speech. There is no language or social praise or reinforcement which can often confuse and distract.
· The facilitator is behind or to the side of the child and prompts and assists in the performance of the task.
Lesson content
The Waldon Lesson follows the way in which understanding develops in a typically developing child – see chart below
Early movements and the growth of the drive to move are reinforced through banging, scraping and picking up and putting-in activities. These are effortful, two-sided and multi-directional activities, engaging the child in large movements throughout their near body space so as to foster integration and encourage focus and attention.
Continuant behaviours are exercised - picking up and moving objects from one place to another in a rhythmic, repeated but varied way; a 'carrier phase' critical to further learning and development, typically emerging in the first half of the second year.
This is differentiated over time into pairing, separating, sequencing, piling and scribbling activities – normally emerging by 24 to 27 months. They may be regarded as precursors to:
The learning-how-to-learn-tools which are matching, sorting, seriation, brick-building,
drawing and coding and develop from 3 to 7 years of age (and onwards). In turn these lead on to
Reasoning, including classification, logical Inference, understanding spatial and functional relationships and the use of arbitrary symbols as for example in reading.
The lesson is a short (up to an hour) intensive period of play activity for the child, designed to help increase drive and motivation to act positively upon the world. It strengthens the connection between expenditure of effort and the pleasure to be derived from 'doing'. It is intended that, over time, the positive experiences in the lessons will incline the child to become more active, more open to engagement both on their own and with others, and to be less inclined to use anxiety and defensive behaviours. During the lesson the child will have some novel experiences, which it is expected will be repeated and expanded over time during undirected play.
Talking is not encouraged until functional understanding of speech is in place.
Adjunctive therapies are encouraged where the parent or teacher believes that they may be useful. The Waldon Approach can also be used as an adjunct and is consistent with most alternative approaches such as DIRFloortime and RDI.
References:
Posner DS. Review of: W. Solomon, C. Holland, M. J. Middleton: Autism and Understanding, the Waldon Approach to Child Development. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders: April 2016,Volume 46,Issue4,pp. 1498-1499 Open Access http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-015-2658-4
Solomon W, Holland C and Middleton MJ: Autism and Understanding – The Waldon
Approach to Child Development. London SAGE Publications 2012
Solomon W, and Greenbaum E: Case Report on the Use of the Waldon Approach on an
Adult with Severe to Moderate Intellectual Disability with Autistic Tendencies. Frontiers in
Public Health, 29 March 2016 Open Access
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2016.00050
Stroh K, Robinson T and Proctor A: Every Child Can Learn – Using Learning Tools and
Play to help children with developmental delay. London SAGE Publications 2008
Waldon G. Understanding Understanding 1980 revised 1985 Unpublished Paper: http://www.autismandunderstanding.com/waldon-approach.php
Waldon G. Untitled Book - early and incomplete draft - Unpublished
http://www.autismandunderstanding.com/waldon-approach_05.php
Useful Web Sites
http://www.autismandunderstanding.com/
http://waldonassociation.org.uk/
http://janeblattatwork.com/
A new website www.waldonapproach.org is in preparation and will be ready soon
Walter Solomon 2016