Here is my speech from the annual symposium organized by Rochester Ecology Partners in Rochester, NY, last week. My talk was on “Opening Doors for Autistic Students” and stressed the benefits of nature for kids on the spectrum. Majorly exciting to leave the audience pumped up to hit the trail!
Opening Doors for Autistic Students
Hi everyone! I’m so incredibly proud and grateful to be here with people who care as much about getting more autistic children into hiking as I do! Like only people lucky enough to have experience out on the trail actually understand, we get how profoundly nature can benefit your brain and body! My name is Jace Pooley. When I was planning this presentation, I found myself thinking a lot about my own hiking journey. You have probably figured out by now that I can’t talk. I typed up this introduction and will type my responses to your questions during our discussion – that’s how I communicate. I used to communicate by writing, before I learned how to control my eyes and how to point. But ever since I was 6 I had a way to openly communicate!! Open communication led to hiking for me – hiking on the Appalachian Trail was the thing I asked to do on my eleventh birthday. I’m so glad I had a way to express what I wanted. That ability, to openly communicate, is way too rare among nonspeakers. Probably just 1% of us, tops, have access to a letterboard or keyboard, which make it possible to share whatever is on your mind. This has to change!
Possibly the best birthday activity of all time, that first one-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail made it clear exactly how much I’d love hiking! One mile has turned into 1,433 miles. I’ve hiked from Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire all the way through Virginia and into Tennessee. To start, my mom and I would go maybe six miles before dad picked us up. Then we worked our way up to ten, then fifteen, then twenty! Who ever imagined that was something I could do?! Not to mention managing all of the ladders and rock scrambles and water crossings that go with all those miles!
It’s not possible to get everyone to the Appalachian Trail all the time, but it is definitely possible to capture its spirit and to find nearby alternatives that can offer similar challenges and benefits. That’s exactly what we’re here to brainstorm about today! And as people think about what kinds of programming to bring to autistic students in the Rochester City School District, I want you thinking about all of the benefits that come with being in nature, and the possibilities for developing motor skills, building confidence, and introducing students to an activity they can do with friends and family!
The Appalachian Trail exists because Benton MacKaye had this idea that as the world got more complicated it became more important for people to have a way to escape into nature! As cars and driving became more common, it got more important to ensure that outdoor options for walking existed. He felt strongly that being in nature and walking have so many physical and mental health benefits!
The benefits are enormous, especially for autistic children and nonspeakers in particular, many of whom struggle with gross motor movements and motor planning, as well as initiating physical activity. Let me share with you how this feels. Only in the last few years have I really gotten the hang of what we call purposeful movement: getting my body to do what my brain wants it to do. Pick any movement, sport-related or playground-related or school-related (like pointing or picking out a book and turning the pages), it’s going to be hard and frustrating. People expect these movements to come naturally but they don’t! It takes lots of practice to connect your thinking to your moving, especially really complex movements that require looking carefully at what you need to do. Makes sense to do this hard and frustrating work in the most relaxing place possible, right? Opposite environment from the insanity of gym class, right? Nothing helps build purposeful movement like hiking, and no environment tops the calm and quiet of nature. Most of my coordination, reflexes, and processing around how to sequence movements developed over my 1,433 miles on the Appalachian Trail!
Possibly even better than what hiking can mean for motor skills is what hiking can mean for mental health, self-esteem, and confidence! I’m always amazed by how the way my mind feels often lines up with how my body is acting. If my body slows down and gets purposeful, my mind does, too! In fact, I consider hiking and purposeful movement almost like medicine for an unruly mind. Then there’s everything hiking and purposeful movement do to make you feel good about yourself, feel proud, feel like hard things can ultimately get easier. Please understand how rare these feelings are for autistic children. It is way more common, in my experience, for autistic children to feel lousy about themselves!!
My other observation is that most autistic children aren’t given opportunities to dream big or push themselves. When do autistic children get to set monster goals?! I spent my school years with rotten goals like that I would behave appropriately or provide the correct response in 8 of 10 trials. Now contrast that with hiking the Pennsylvania section of the Appalachian Trail, or actually reaching over ten miles in a day! Hiking gives you lots of chances to tackle big goals, and the research shows that big goals are a powerful motivator and can boost self-esteem.
I really want to stress, though, how unbelievable it can be to spend time in a place that’s stress free! I only feel relaxed in a few places: at home, at my typing lessons, at my therapist’s, and in nature. Those are the only places where I feel like I fit. So often, everywhere else (especially in school), to be comfortable requires skills I just don’t have. Being able to catch your breath is simply thrilling when it happens so rarely! That’s what a hike is: a big deep breath! Long hikes mean extended time in episodes of calm, fitting in and, best of all, no talking! Having the chance to just enjoy this is so essential! My pleasure getting this break from reality is huge! Be sure to incorporate it – uninterrupted calm and quiet – into any programming for autistic students!!
Going hiking with other people, even ones actually totally unfamiliar to you, is also the easiest social experience there is. You don’t have to talk, you don’t have to be face to face, everyone feels friendly and happy. As a result, it’s a great way for people to get to know each other, and it’s probably about the best way to spend time with friends and family! If students haven’t discovered this, a school-based nature program can indirectly benefit students and their families by opening them up to the perfect option for fun on a weekend or vacation! Our family lives by this, and I have lots of friends who do, too.
Lastly, hiking and being in nature can additionally stimulate interest in all kinds of things to bring into the classroom. I’ve read everything that there is to read about the Appalachian Trail: its development, biographies of its designers and early hikers, the research about its impact on people’s health, and the hysterical book by Bill Bryson. Not while you’re actually walking in the woods, but afterwards there’s this limitless set of things to dig into with autistic students!
Lots to think about! I’m so excited to brainstorm with everyone. The assignment I’m giving you is to dream up programming that builds motor skills, encourages purposeful movement, lets students grow their confidence and set audacious goals, affords students some peace and quiet, kickstarts new friendships and family traditions, and leads to interesting new things to learn about!! Thank you!
