Dora the Explorer and the secret of getting an Autistic/Sensory kid to transition

This isn't our TV.  It belongs to someone who might just be
as fond of the show as we are, though, since they took the
picture and then made it available for use HERE.

I long ago decided that my rule of thumb for judging kiddie programming is that if it offers more developmental benefits than reasons to want to turn your TV into a college-style fish tank, you aught to forgive it for being your child's annoying obsession.  It is with this in mind that I forgive Dora the Explorer for Map's voice (which my husband can do a distressingly good impression of when driven to), for the fact that my son thinks if anyone in the family is carrying a bag, we will be able to produce whatever he wants at a given moment, etc. 

See, Jamie -- like many children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Sensory Processing Disorder -- has a hard time with transitions.  It doesn't matter what the transition is, the issue is the process of transitioning itself.  Seriously.  He can be transitioning from something he doesn't care for to something that is desirable to him,  have it be his idea, and still short-circuit over the transition.  I don't know about you, but when a child interferes with THEM SELF, I take it as a pretty good sign that their behavior is not simply 'behavioral'. The trouble is that any kind of transition inherently requires a mental (even if not physical, environmental, etc.) switching of gears, and with the aforementioned neurological conditions, the gears do not move smoothly.  What we found is that the trick to getting an Autistic/Sensory kid to adapt and then desensitize to the process of transitioning, is to, in a way, bypass those gears and use a different part of the machinery instead. The trick to pulling that off is to base the tactic on something which comes naturally to the neurology of the condition(s), to the same degree that what you're avoiding proves challenging to it -- something which, in some ways, is the counterpart to the nature of transitions.  What's that?  RITUAL.

Ritual ritual ritual.  So much time, tears and therapy is put into trying to train these kids out of their rituals, with what is often good reason.  And yet, everything about raising these kids is a careful dance with double-edged swords.  Nothing is one-sided, nothing is simple, and while that's a significant drain on sanity and spoons, it's also very useful to keep in mind.  While any particular ritual might become a developmental hindrance to an Autistic/Sensory kid, their penchant for ritual in general can be used as a tool in other therapeutic struggles.  Make the process of transitioning into its own ritual, and suddenly it's a strength, not a weakness!

Enter: Dora the Explorer.  This long-popular piece of pre-k programming boasts the encouragement of Spanish-English bilingualism, verbal interaction, memory, problem-solving skills, and all the usual virtues most parents fear they can't trust all the other kids at the playground to model well enough.  The format (of every episode I've seen, anyway), however, revolves around what in this context is an equally important skill-builder -- a predictable pattern of transitions.  Every single adventure Dora has is broken down into three steps.  First she goes here/does this, then she goes there/does that, then she goes somewhere else/ does another thing, and then she reaches her goal. This notion of things being broken down into parts is even reinforced within individual activities of the character and her companions, along the way.  Is this the object she wanted to get from Backpack?  No.  Is this the object she wanted to get from Backpack?  Noooo.  Is this the object she wanted to get from backpack?  YES!  Now, this can prove nerve-wracking to a parent who would like their obsessed little dear to hurry up and get something done in one step,  but it's infinitely useful if their child previously could never move past one step.  (I'm a fan of developing an ability, then fine-tuning how it manifests....while it's rarely better than a calculated risk to encourage something that's outright a bad idea, too much stress over only wanting to develop a skill within very specific parameters can be a real hindrance to actually developing it, especially when dealing with a child whose inner universe doesn't easily recognize your parameters as relevant.)

Since Jamie took a strong liking to Dora, it was easy to extract the 3-step ritual from the show, and apply it to other things.  As long as something was broken down into three parts, the ritual applied.  And, because of how his brain latches onto rituals as comforting and reliable, it suddenly mattered a whole lot less WHAT the steps in the ritual were, because hey, it was THE RITUAL.  (Almost) no more meltdowns when it's time to leave the playground, because now, being at the playground is not its own thing....it is set up as, "First we're going to go to the playground and play.  Then, we're going to say, 'Bye-bye playground!' and walk home.  And then we're going to be home again, and we can take off our shoes and pick a book to read."  Ending the activity isn't losing something, it's part of something.  Similarly, because what Dora does in each episode is different and at least somewhat new, but the pattern of transitions is familiar, applying this ritual helped Jamie become a lot more open to new kinds of activities and experiences.

Since first using what I call 'The Dora complex' to teach Jamie how to transition, he's become less reliant on the exact formula.  It helped train his brain to handle transitioning, in effect greasing those mental gears.  We don't even have to imitate Map any more, when telling him what to expect.

Thank God.