Second-year graduate students from the University of Delaware’s Communication Sciences and Disorders speech-language pathology program recently developed and orchestrated a two-week workshop – dubbed Winging It – that used improvisation to help develop communication skills in young people with autism.
They clapped. They rhymed. They pretended to be cats with jobs. They talked only using the numbers one through 10. They concocted a story about a lizard who tap danced.
Most of the time, they didn’t know what would happen next. While that might not seem out of the ordinary for anyone who has ever found themselves doing improvisation, it was a challenge for these young people with autism.
Nine participants, ages 16 to 21, reported to the stage after school each day for two weeks to play improv games with the UD graduate students and master clinicians.
“Winging It” is a passion project – and the graduation capstone project – of four students in the master’s program: Kathleen Becker, Julia King, Kelly McGarry and Maddy Pruitt.
New situations can be hard to navigate. Accepting that other people have different ideas can be a struggle. But as these young people spent their afternoons making up stories and taking turns acting in nonsensical scenarios, they were encouraged to take risks, let go of mistakes and have fun.
“When we first started this, we did have people say, ‘Are you sure this is going to work? Are these kids going to be capable of doing this?’ ” said Julia King, who worked for more than a year to develop the workshop, including traveling to Indiana to get improv training. “People given the right support and given the opportunity are far more capable than they are led to believe.”
