The twins

It was fascinating to see how well this intermittent schedule of (infrequent) sessions worked for the twins’ learning. At each step along the developmental pathway — for each of them individually and both together — I attended to what they were curious about, tracking what engaged them, and figuring out how to make what they were already doing easier. 

True to Moshe’s method, instead of trying to teach them to do new things, we explored new ways of doing the things they could already do. Proceeding slowly to the early stages of motor development, they became better at moving around themselves and then, gradually, to move themselves around more easily and in more and more varied ways. In this way, they learned different ways to roll over, wiggle around, and, eventually, to crawl on their bellies. Each of them progressed in his own way and at his own time and, tethered together as only twins can be, they also moved forward collectively, bouncing off each other’s progress and learning together. Months later, they each found their own way to creep on their hands and feet and, years later, to walk, skip, jump, and run.  

(Once the boys started to move, it became clear that they weren’t just simply shy, which led to the diagnosis of autism. Their dad, Ocean, writes about this aspect of their lives here.)  

The boys lived in a loving multigenerational household, had wonderful caretakers, and, through their parents’ work, were embedded in a lively community of environmental activists from around the world. All their needs were being responded to by all those attentive and caring adults around them. As wonderful as this was, at one point I realized that this was actually an impediment to their progress. If all they needed to do was to look at or point to something they wanted and express their desire through the sounds they made, they would never be motivated to move on their own. I had a confab with the family to discuss this and to come up with ways to inspire them to realize their intentions through their own actions. For instance, instead of giving them a snack directly, we decided to place it within reach so that they were given a chance to move towards it before it was given to them. For another example, instead of putting their shoes on in one action, their foot was first put partway in the shoe to give them a chance to slide their foot in on their own. 

Though they didn’t speak, the boys revealed their emotions and desires through the expressive sounds they made. Like so many twins, they also shared an unspoken bond and a secret language all their own. Their passive understanding of language grew more sophisticated and nuanced. However, when the boys were around 4½ years old, I started to be concerned that they weren’t speaking and appeared to have no interest in doing so. From what I’d learned in my graduate studies, I was concerned that they might miss the critical window for developing language and that this could, in turn, severely limit their cognitive development. 

When she was visiting from Atlanta, I asked speech therapist and Feldenkrais colleague, Marina Gilman, to meet with me and the boys’ parents to review their communication abilities and discuss the situation. Though the boys were, by then, well on their way to developing the physical and neuromuscular ability to speak, nothing had inspired them to start doing so. Having just read Oliver Sack’s wonderful book, Seeing Voices, I knew that it didn’t matter what language the boys learned as long as they learned some language. Since the community their parents were involved in was committed to diversity, I suggested that they take it upon themselves to learn American Sign Language (ASL) so that the community could more easily reach out to and then be able to interact with the deaf. That way instead of the boys being put into situations that obliged them to learn to speak, they would be immersed in a social context where everyone was learning ASL. 

This benevolently devious strategy worked. At one point the boys went from signing to speaking. Their progress from saying words to speaking sentences and paragraphs took weeks, not many months or years. When they spoke, they used ASL grammar, which is markedly different from English grammar and made for a unique and poetic mode of expression.