You can’t ask for help if you don’t know you need help
One common concern I hear from parents of neurodiverse individuals is that their child won’t ask for help. There are a couple reasons why neurodiverse individuals may not ask for help. The first one is that the individual may not even know that they need help. They may not be aware of their deficits/differences. The picture on the right describes the three levels of executive functioning awareness. Before neurodiverse individuals can be expected to ask for help, they need to have an “anticipatory awareness” of their deficits.
If your child isn’t at this step yet, you can use “Therapeutic Failure” to help them get there.
- Let them fail in a safe environment. Oftentimes, parents/teachers/staff help too quickly. When we are too quick to provide assistance, the individual will never know that they actually need help because they have never experienced that failure.
- Give your child a task that you are fairly certain they cannot do on independently/correctly. As they are doing the task, do not help them (unless they are in danger of hurting themselves)
- Wait for them to notice that they have done something wrong or don’t know how to do something.
- Use “failure” as a time to teach and not a time to shame. Many neurodiverse individuals see asking for help or not doing something correctly as proof that they are failure. We can talk them through “failures” by praising their effort, grit and flexibility.
References: “Development of Executive functions” Second Edition by Jill K. Fahy and Gail J. Richard