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The Autism Little Learners Podcast
#175: Incorporating Deep Interests to Transform Learning Activities
00:18:11
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If you've ever stared at a beautifully planned lesson and watched a child walk right past it, or pulled out your carefully prepped materials only to have them push it aside, or wondered how on earth you're supposed to meet IEP goals when a child only wants to play with trains, you're in the right place. Today we're talking about how to take a child's deep interest and actually embed it into your teaching. Not as a reward, not as a bribe, but as the learning activity itself. Because when we do this, well, something amazing happens. Engagement grows resistant, melts away. Learning becomes meaningful, and the skill that we're trying to teach all along, it comes almost on its own. Let's get into it.
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I'm Tara Phillips, and this is the Autism Little Learners Podcast, where I share simple neuroaffirming tools to support young autistic children with compassion and confidence.
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Before we get into the how to, I want to anchor us in something. This isn't about bribing a child with their interest. It's not about saying if you do this work, then you can play with your trains. That is still compliance based. And we talked about that in the last episode and why that doesn't work. What we're talking about today is different. We're talking about making the deep interest the learning activity itself. The skill doesn't change, but the approach does. That mindset shift is where the whole conversation begins. In the last couple of episodes, we talked about what deep interests are and why forcing engagement backfires. Today, we're putting it all together. Because here's the thing. Understanding deep interests is powerful. But if we don't know how to actually integrate them into real classroom moments, in real therapy sessions, in real learning activities, the understanding doesn't go very far. So let's get practical. Before we dive into what it looks like in your classroom or therapy setting, I want to pause on something important. I'm a huge believer that engagement is key, and you've heard me talk about this before. Incorporating deep interest is one of the most powerful neuroaffirming things we can do for our young autistic learners. And I want to name something that some autistic adults have shared because it matters. Many have spoken about how over the years, educators and therapists used their deep interests without ever really asking them. And over time, that actually drained the joy out of something they once loved. The thing that lit them up became something that felt like work or like a tool used on them. So I want to be really clear. Deep interest should never be Used coercively, they're not leverage. They're not a way to get compliance. They're a bridge to connection and engagement. For the preschoolers that we're talking about today, weaving interests into play in learning is a neuro affirming, joyful way. And it's absolutely appropriate and developmentally right. But as these kids grow, their voice matters more and more. Get their input. Ask them. Notice when something that used to spark joy starts to feel different to them and follow their lead. The goal is always connection, never control. The first step is knowing the child's deep interest. And this might be obvious or it might take some observation. It might take asking families. We covered how to find out what deep interests the child might have back in episode 172. So if you missed that one, going to recommend that you go back. But once you know it, you can take it and build from there. Let's use vehicles as our example today, because vehicles are a really common, deep interest for young autistic children, and they're incredibly versatile. So we have cars, trucks, buses, trains, garbage trucks, fire trucks, emergency vehicles. Vehicles have so many layers a child can explore, and that's why they work so well. They move, they make sounds. They come in different sizes and colors. They have wheels. Some have doors that open. They fit into other things. Things fit into them. A child who loves vehicles often loves everything about them, and that opens up a huge number of teaching opportunities. Let me walk you through how one deep interest can touch almost every learning goal that you can think of. Matching is a foundational early skill. Usually we teach it with different generic picture cards or file folders. But what if we used vehicles instead? You could set up a matching activity with little car pictures and corresponding real cars. Or use car picture cards of different colors and have the child match color to color. Or line the vehicles up by type. All of the fire trucks together, all of the buses together, and then we're turning it into a sorting activity. Same skills, different materials. The child is still learning matching and they're learning sorting, but now they're engaged because the materials you're using are meaningful to them. Maybe they would love to sort or match these cars by color instead of matching or sorting colored blocks. Fine mortar goals often involve things like the pincer grasp, hand strength, or precise movements. Traditionally, we use pegs, tweezers, clothespins, but we can do all that with vehicles. Push small cars down the ramp to work on a controlled release. Use a turkey baster to give cars a car wash. I actually love this one. Carrie Ebert talks about using a turkey baster with her son to build hand strength and by pretending to wash his hot wheels. Small squeezes, Big engagement. You could also have the child place small wheels on pegs or thread string through the openings of vehicles, or use tweezers to pick up tiny vehicle pieces. The motor plan is the same. The joy is completely different. Language goals can look like requesting, commenting, labeling, expanding utterances, following directions, or building sentences. Vehicles give us endless opportunities for all of that. You push a car, you say go. The car stops. You say stop. You can model without expectation on AAC using these words. The car goes down the ramp, you say, whee. A crash happens, you say, oh, crash. You can model single words, two word phrases, or full sentences, depending on where the child is. Instead of sitting at a table with flashcards asking, what is this? We can narrate play. The bus is driving. The fire truck is loud. Uh oh. Car stuck. Remember, communication grows through exposure, not just drill. The more we model language inside of meaningful moments, the more the child is set up to use that language themselves. And one more thing. Instead of asking a bunch of questions, try making comments. Comments invite connection. Questions create pressure. Teaching language should not be a quiz. Early reading starts way before the child's actually decoding words. We're talking about things like listening to stories, turning pages, predicting what comes next, recognizing letters, understanding that print carries meaning. And vehicles are perfect for this. There are so many children's books about vehicles. Little blue truck, duck in the truck, trucks, diggers, trains, airplanes, buses. You can read these books over and over, and you can pair them with toy vehicles that match the story. You can use an adapted book version with Velcro pieces that the child moves as the story unfolds. The deep interest carries the child into the literacy moment, and suddenly book time isn't a fight and it isn't one second long. It becomes a favorite part of the day. And this might surprise you, but vehicles can teach letters and numbers beautifully. Think about it. Parking lot pages with numbered spots. Park the car in the three spot Alphabet. Parking where each car parks on a matching letter. Lining up cars in ABC order or by number. Using a car to drive over letters so you can say the sound. Writing letters in shaving cream with a car instead of a finger. We're not abandoning the learning goal. We're giving the child a reason to participate. I want to share a moment with you that came from my classroom several years ago that captures all of this perfectly. I had a student who absolutely loved Hickory Dickory Dock. Loved it. We're talking. Whenever I would try to do a structured language activity, he would push the materials aside. But the moment I brought in hickory dickory dock, everything changed. One day, one of my three year old autistic students was playing with a toy. She took a little mouse and she started singing hickory dickory dock. She was initiating the play. She was inviting me in. So I followed her lead. I started singing hickory dickory dock. But all I had there was a cactus. Not a cactus toy, not a clock. So I had the mouse go up the cactus. So I sang the mouse win of the cactus. The cactus poked him. Ow. Ow. Oh, no. Down he ran. And you guys. Her eyes lit up. She picked up another animal and this time it was a bird. She held it up and we did the whole song with the bird going up the cactus. And then she picked up another animal and another and another. And by the end of that little play session, she had labeled every single animal spontaneously, with joy, with engagement. That would have never happened with flashcards with her. It happened because we were inside of something she loved. Following her lead and weaving language into the moment she invited me into. And that's what it looks like in practice. Here's one of my favorite things about this approach. You don't need a new curriculum for every deep interest. You just need to see the interest as a lens you can run everything through. If the child loves the very hungry caterpillar, you can use that book for counting, for color identification, for sequencing, for retelling, for fine motor with velcro pieces, for sensory bin play. If a child loves the five little monkeys, you can use it for counting, rhyming vocabulary, gross motor play. If a child loves dinosaurs, you can use the dinosaurs for matching colors, sorting, pretend play, letter sounds, symbolic sounds, and for sensory bin exploration or for measurement. I mean, you guys, one interest, many activities, one child deeply engaged. How does that sound? I know this can feel a little bit overwhelming, like, oh, now do I have to redesign every single lesson around a child's specific interest? No, no, no. You don't start. Small and consistent shifts matter more than perfection. You might pick one activity this week where you're going to swap out generic materials for something tied to one child's deep interest. Or you might take one routine and add a small piece of the child's interest. Or you might just spend a few minutes joining the child's play with no agenda and see what happens. You don't have to do everything at once. You might start by choosing just that one routine and see what shifts and Build from there. I want to name what this is not. This is not about letting a child do whatever they want, whenever they want. Following a child's lead does not mean abandoning all structure. Structure still matters. Predictable routines matter. Clear visuals still matter. Boundaries for safety matter. Child led does not equal chaos. We're not removing the structure of the day. We're incorporating the child's interests inside that structure to make learning meaningful. A child still knows what to expect. A child still has a visual schedule. They still experience transitions and routines. The difference is, inside of those routines, we're making space for what they love. One more big thing I want to make sure I Before we can incorporate deep interests into teaching, we have to build connection. If a child doesn't trust you yet, dropping into their play with an agenda will not work. So the first step before any teaching happens is being a safe adult. That means sitting nearby without grabbing their materials or trying to direct their play. It means imitating what they're doing without demanding anything, using parallel play, playing alongside them. Carrie Ebert says something I love about this. She said, the child is waiting to figure out if you're a safe adult. And safe adults don't grab their stuff. Safe adults don't put demands on them. Safe adults don't withhold the things they love. So when we show up consistently as a safe presence, the child starts to relax. And once they relax, they start inviting us in. That invitation is where the magic begins. Connection builds engagement. Engagement builds learning, not the other way around. If you're in the classroom setting, here's a thought that might shift how you plan. What if your centers were organized around children's deep interests? Not just generic centers like math center, library center, arts center? What if you had a vehicle center, a dinosaur center, a letters center? What if the sensory bin rotated based on what your students love? What if the books in your reading area reflected the actual interests of the children in your room? This is one of the most powerful ways to signal to every child, this classroom is for you. Because when a child walks in and sees their deep interest reflected in their environment, they know they belong. And belonging is the foundation for everything else. Here's the line I want you to hold onto from this episode. The skill didn't change. The approach did. We're still teaching matching. We're still teaching language. We're still teaching fine motor and early literacy. We're teaching numbers and letters. You don't have to overhaul your whole classroom. You don't need to throw out your curriculum. You don't have to become A different teacher overnight. You just have to start with one student. You learn about their one deep interest, and you make one shift. Maybe it's swapping out the generic matching cards for vehicle cards. Maybe it's bringing in a book they love. Maybe it's pausing your agenda for a moment and joining in their play. That one shift opens a door that you didn't even know was there. And once that door is open and the child walks through it, that's where the magic happens. Not because you made them, but because you finally gave them a reason to. If this feels like a big change, it's okay. You're not doing anything wrong by feeling unsure. This is something we often hear from classroom teams. It can feel awkward at first to let go of some of those traditional ways that we were taught to teach. To let go of the structured drills and worksheets and flashcards. To trust that play based learning and deep interest integration actually builds the same skills. But the research is there, the lived experience is there, and the children themselves tell us this works. Give yourself permission to try it imperfectly, consistently. Trying it matters more than doing it perfectly. So the next time you're planning a lesson, try this internal script. What does this child love? How can I bring it into this activity? What might this look like through their lens? How can I make it meaningful for them? That small mental shift changes the whole activity. Because suddenly you're not planning a lesson at a child. You're planning a lesson with them in mind. And children can feel the difference. This is the last episode in our series about deep interests. We started with what deep interests are and why the name matters. And then we talked about why forcing engagement backfires and what to do instead. And today we looked at how to actually incorporate deep interests inside of real learning activities. Through all three episodes, the same thread has been running. Interests are a bridge to connection, and learning Joy is a valid outcome. Play is a valid and powerful way to learn. When you know a child's deep interest, you hold one of the most powerful teaching tools there is. Use it well. Use it often. Use it with joy. If I could leave you with anything, it would be this. The children who seem the hardest to reach are often the children whose deep interests haven't been honored yet. When we finally meet them there, everything changes. The work takes time. Progress often shows up slow and quietly. And the children who are walking away from your activities will start walking toward you because you're no longer asking them to leave their world and enter yours. You're entering theirs. And that changes everything. So start small. Start with one student, one interest, one shift. That's how transformation happens. Thank you for being here for this series and I'm glad you're doing this work. Find the good in every day.
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Thank you for spending this time with me. You're doing important work and the small supports you put into place matter. Keep leading with connection and I'll talk to you again next week.