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Lukey, Rethinking Dialogue: Reflections on P4C with Autistic Children

Rethinking Dialogue: Reflections
on P4C with Autistic Children
BENJAMIN LUKEYOIntroduction
ne of the interesting directions that P4C has taken
in Hawaii is work with autistic children. A fellow
graduate student and P4C Hawaii alumnus introduced me to Loveland Academy, a local private school thatspecializes in educating children with special needs, specifically autism. I have been working with the children in theirafter-school program for almost two years, attempting tobring P4C to children who are not in the mainstream curric ulum.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this work is its
richness. Like P4C in general, someone who engages in thechallenge of creating communities of responsible thinkers
works from two perspectives. One perspective is the academic challenge presented by the work we do. The otherperspective is the pedagogical challenge of creating activities and programs that are effective in achieving our goals.
In working with children with autism and other special
needs, these two perspectives have at times seemed discordant. This paper is an attempt to explore the source of thisseeming tension, and to highlight the fact that Philosophy
for Children is philosophy in the fullest sense, i.e, a theory/
methodology intertwined with practice.
Although I think the academic and pedagogical issues ofthis paper are of interest to all who study and do P4C, theinspiration behind this paper is largely personal. In working with the children at Loveland, I came to question theefficacy of my approach, which in turn was the result of myphilosophical convictions. As an academic, I began to
study accounts of autism and attempted to understand thedisorder. I also examined some of the literature on what I
felt was the most exciting, and most problematic, aspect of
P4C, dialogue. This research was manifested in my classroom time with the students, which in turn colored my research, which continued in a circle. I do not presume to be
an expert on P4C, autism, or pedagogy. This paper will
merely whet the appetites of those interested in the scholarship surrounding autism or dialogue, nor will it be completely satisfying for those who seek complete lesson plans
and the complete details of my work at Loveland. My primary concern is to find a way to make learning more satisfying and enriching for “special needs” children by intro-

ducing them to P4C. Thus, this article serves two functions.
First, it brings to the fore a potential limitation in the P4C
methodology, an academic problem regarding the scope andmeaning of dialogue. Second, it serves as an invitation forothers doing similar work to engage in dialogue about how
to bring together the wonder, thinking and community of
P4C with the education and enrichment of special needs
students.
Autism 101
For those not familiar with children with autism or autistic behaviors, it is extremely difficult to describe. Twobooks, Exiting Nirvana, by Clara Park, and Thinking in Pictures, by Temple Grandin, have been most helpful in myown understanding of autism. There are of course, manytexts replete with technical, psychological theorizing, butboth of these books succeed in putting a human face on experiences with autism. As an educator, this is extremely
important since it is individuals with whom I work, not diagnoses. Diagnoses, however are a helpful starting point,and so I borrow from Grandin:
Today, autism is regarded as an early childhood
disorder by definition, and it is three times morecommon in boys than in girls. For the diagnosis to
be made, autistic symptoms must appear before theage of three. The most common symptoms inyoung children are no speech or abnormal speech,lack of eye contact, frequent temper tantrums,
oversensitivity to touch, the appearance of deafness, a preference for being alone, rocking or otherrhythmic stereotypic behavior, aloofness, and alack of social contact with parents and siblings.
Another sign is inappropriate play with toys. The
child may spend long periods of time spinning thewheel of a toy car instead of driving it around on
the floor.1
The above description reveals the extreme range of the behaviors and symptoms, many of which may be exhibited by
Benjamin Lukey (lukey@hawaii.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at UH/Manoa focusing on Chinese philosophy and ethics. He has
been a graduate teaching assistant with P4C since 2001.

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2

children without autism, that make diagnosis of the disorderchallenging. There are many related categories that someconsider subgroups of autism and others consider separate
disorders. Grandin calls this spectrum “The Great Continuum.” “It appears that at one end of the spectrum, autism isprimarily a cognitive disorder, and at the other end, it is primarily a sensory processing disorder. […] Both the severity
and the ratio of these two components are variable, andeach case of autism is different.”2 Almost every child atLoveland is at a different point within this spectrum. Someare only dealing with cognitive (in which I include social)challenges, and others struggle with sensory challenges, buteach of these individuals has required a different strategy inachieving effective communication.
I relate these few observations about autism to call attention to two important points regarding my P4C workwith the above-mentioned local school. First, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to make generalizations
about autistic children. This is true of all children, but it
becomes painfully obvious within a small group of “special
needs” children where it is very rare for more than two individuals to positively respond to an activity. Second, given
this extreme uniqueness, group discussion, or even communication, becomes exponentially more difficult. Yet oneon-one interaction, the strategy that is most fruitful for thesechildren in the academic setting, seems to deflate the goalsof P4C, which are centered around group dialogue and respectful communication.
After my first six months of working with the students
on a one-to-one basis, I realized that I was not doing P4C oranything that would count as a stepping stone towards P4C.
I realized that we were not having anything close to a dialogue, or even a discussion, because I was merely pullingthoughts and ideas from the children. It seemed that they
really didn’t understand the purpose of dialogue or even the
structure of it (more accurately, they weren’t behaving as if
they understood). I went back to square one and tried tostructure activities that would slowly build an understanding of group discussion and perhaps even dialogue. I will
return to these attempts later. I wanted to mention the practical challenges I was discovered, because it was these challenges that made me step back and examine the work I wasdoing. I began to wonder if it was even possible to achieve
at Loveland the same kind of experience (what I defined asa successful P4C session) that was familiar in my work atother “regular” schools in Honolulu.
P4C and Dialogue
The goal of P4C in Hawaii, as I assume most readersalready know, is to develop communities of inquiry, whereindividuals learn to be responsible thinkers. One of thestrengths of our program here in Hawaii is our weekly
meetings where we (Dr. Jackson and as many P4C practitioner as can make it) discuss issues ranging from the general (e.g., What is safety?) to the specific, (What are we going to do in Ms. Smith’s class on Monday?). These meet-25

ings weave together the two perspectives of P4C. We
tackle theoretical problems and these discussions are manifested in our classroom actions. We also create lesson plans
and think about pedagogical “tips” that, after they havebeen implemented, become fodder for our theoretical discussion. Thus we maintain a healthy balance of theory andpractice.
Our weekly teacher meetings, as instantiations of P4C
itself, almost always involve, sharing experiences from theclassroom. During these sharings, the excitement is palpable as someone relates a session where a child shared athought or question and the community immediately coalesced around this idea, adding, wondering, and digging
deeper. The community dialogue both enriches and is enriched by the participation of the members of the community. Every time a vocal student steps aside and passes theball to someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak yet, weslap high-fives. Every time a child identifies an assumption
within a response, we inwardly cheer. These are things that
we recognize as good for the children’s education and goodfor the community. And, unfortunately, these are things
that are frustratingly rare in my work at Loveland Academy. Thinking together about an idea, displaying sensitivity and interest towards others in the community, and thinking critically about one’s own thoughts are all elements inan enriched notion of “dialogue” or “inquiry” that we sharein P4C. Thus, I question whether this notion of dialogue
could ever be realized within the specialized communitiesof the Loveland students.
Before I talk more about these specialized communities,
I feel that the notion of dialogue I am working with deserves more explication. When there is genuine dialogue ina P4C classroom, it is more than just talking. David Bohm,a pioneer in the philosophy and practice of dialogue serves
as a logical starting point for examining what we mean by
dialogue in P4C. His work offers a scholarly context forthe successes that we celebrate in our weekly P4C meetings
while at the same time revealing challenges of dialogue
with a group of students such as I have at Loveland Academy.
In Bohm’s work, On Dialogue, he emphasizes several
aspects of dialogue that we can recognize in P4C. First,
dialogue is a collective endeavor. It is a “stream of meaning” in which our culture (i.e., collectively shared meaning)
is revealed. It requires that we play with each other, notagainst each other; “everybody wins”3 . Bohm recognizes
the importance of sitting in a circle and the necessity oftrust and safety if the dialogue is to “scratch beneath thesurface.” He also recognizes that the community in the circle must be an “empty space where we are not obliged to do
anything.” This acknowledgment that freedom from a fixedpurpose or agenda can be transformative for introspective,
interpersonal, and cultural relationships is akin to Dr. Jackson’s reminder, “We’re not in a rush to get anywhere, butthat doesn’t mean we aren’t going somewhere.” Though
Bohm does not use the term, it certainly seems that he is

26

Lukey, Rethinking Dialogue: Reflections on P4C with Autistic Children

very much concerned about community. I like to think that
he would celebrate with us when a normally quiet student isgiven a chance to participate and seizes that opportunity.
Community deepens the thinking of its participants. By
exploring our own thoughts juxtaposed against those in thecircle we become more aware of our own thoughts. As
Bohm describes it, “the whole group becomes a mirror foreach person”4 . This reflection reveals one’s assumptions,another aspect of dialogue that Bohm greatly values. Bohm
argues that everyone has assumptions or closely held beliefs
that are felt to be “absolutely necessary,” meaning that anindividual cannot turn that assumption or opinion aside; it isa part of that individual. When individuals have differing
assumptions that are “absolutely necessary” there is conflict. But Bohm argues that if one becomes aware of these“necessary” assumptions and recognizes that others also
have “necessary” assumptions (which may be different),
then one will realize that conflict will not end unless one
questions the “necessity” of these assumptions and suspends them to a certain extent. Thus, people are able toshare meaning rather than butt heads. We think together
and meaning flows, rather than fighting to prove that we areright. Again, I think Bohm would recognize the importanceof our efforts to get children to identify assumptions andlearn from themselves and others; and he would share our
enthusiasm when these efforts bear fruit.
Another aspect (and the final one that I will address) that
Bohm emphasizes is the importance of sensitivity and empathy for dialogue. Again, this is something that receives afair amount of practical and academic attention in our
weekly P4C meetings. For Bohm, the attitude of dialogue –what happens when one enriches one’s relationships in society and is able participate in and to hold all of these coherent meanings in one’s own mind –can permeate any encounter, and thus dialogue can occur in small groups or
one-on-one. This idea is especially enticing consideringthat working in large groups at Loveland is so challenging.
However, in order to develop all these relationships throughdialogue, Bohm argues that sensitivity is necessary. Relationships, though a fundamental part of who we are, are noteasy and require a kind of cultivated perception (sensitivity)
in order to develop these relationships and the meaning thatflows from them. Indeed, it is the seeming lack of this kindof cultivated sensitivity that makes P4C so challenging with
autistic children. As Bohm points out, sensitivity in relationships requires the senses. Yet this is not all, “Thesenses will tell you what is happening, and then the consciousness must build a form, or create some sense of what
it means, which holds it together”5. We excitedly notice thedevelopment of such sensitivity in our P4C classrooms; it is
yet another source of “warm fuzzies” during our weekly
meetings.
Before I move into discussing dialogue and autism, I
think it is interesting to consider a perspective on dialoguethat is not from the field of education. Dialogue is a concept that has not only benefited education, but also businessand government. Daniel Yankelovich is an expert on dialogue and an adviser to corporations, government, and organizations. He acknowledges David Bohm as one of his
influences, and, indeed, his book, The Magic of Dialogue,
shares many features with Bohm’s general philosophy of
dialogue. One of the more valuable contributions of his
book is his distinction between discussion and dialogue.
Yankelovich proposes three key features that are necessary
for dialogue (and which distinguish it from discussion): (1)equality and the absence of coercive influences, (2) listening with empathy, and (3) bringing assumptions into theopen. One can see the obvious similarities with Bohm, but
Yankelovich has turned Bohm’s insights into necessary
conditions for the practice of dialogue. Furthermore,
Yankelovich has focused Bohm’s notion of sensitivity into
the concept of empathy. Yankelovich describes “the gift ofempathy” as “the ability to think someone else’s thoughts
and feel someone else’s feelings,” and claims that it “is indispensable to dialogue” (43). Even given the earlier brief
description of the behaviors associated with autism, one canalready see the difficulty in attempting dialogue with autistic children. I turn now to examine those challenges moreclosely.
Autism and Dialogue
As noted above, autism can be viewed as a cognitive
disorder and a sensory processing disorder. As a sensory
processing disorder, the kind of sensitivity that Bohm says
is necessary for dialogue to flourish may be physiologically
impossible for some students. Indeed, it is often the lack ofthis kind of sensitivity that prompts the diagnosis of autism.
Clara Park theorizes that the sensory disorder of autism canbe seen as an inability to direct attention to multiple things
at once and rapidly shift one’s attention among the various
sensory stimuli. Temple Grandin admits that a pager cancompletely distract her from a lecture. Hearing tests haveconfirmed that her ability to process and attend to one voice
against the background of another is severely impaired.
Grandin reports stories about individuals who cannot process visual and auditory stimuli at the same time, or who get
the stimuli mixed up so that sound comes through as color,or who hit themselves not realizing that they are injuring
themselves. The ability to sense body language and the subtle meaning suggested by minute facial changes is something that Grandin herself has difficulty with. Given that
there are such challenges in sensory processing, the kind of
behavior that we consider successes in a regular P4C classroom may be close to impossible with some individuals.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that a P4C community or
empathy would be possible among students who can’t be
sure that they are perceiving in the same way as their fellow
participants.
Added to the sensory challenges are the cognitive challenges of communicating with others, collective reasoning,
and identifying assumptions. It is theorized that one of thedefining features of autistic children (particularly those with
Kanner’s syndrome, a categorization of lower-functioning

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2

autism) is that they lack a theory of mind. In the field ofdevelopmental psychology, a theory of mind is “a set ofideas about mental activities”6 . Many autistic children areunable to imagine what other people are thinking and often
fail to recognize others as thinking and feeling persons.
The inability to recognize other minds means that the groupwould not be able to serve as a mirror for the individual.
Likewise, if one isn’t aware of others in the group as thinking beings, then it is extremely unlikely that one will think
together with them.
As for Yankelovich’s three necessary conditions for dialogue, it is difficult to imagine three criteria that would be
more difficult to satisfy in working with autistic children.
Merely requiring some autistic children to talk is often coercive, and often rewards must be established to motivate achild to interact with his peers and teachers. This may be
because the meanings of words are too abstract to grasp forsome autistic children. Although Grandin is highly artic ulate her verbal ability is something that does not come naturally to her (it wasn’t until Grandin was in college that she
realized that some people think entirely in words). She saysthat she thinks in pictures; something
like a videotape of images in her headthat she can edit at will. She translates
these images into words and words into
images. The Lord’s Prayer was incomprehensible to her until she broke itinto specific visual images 7 . Images
have meaning for Grandin, and spoken
words must be translated into images toacquire meaning. This may also be
why many children at Loveland havealready learned to read even though
they still have difficulty using and understanding words. Printed words are
more readily memorized and translated
into meaningful images. Spoken dialogue may be an ineffective and unnecessarily coercive activity to get these children to communicate their thoughts.
Empathy may also be a criterion that is unreasonable toexpect from some autistic students. Some autistics are in aconstant state of agitation, somewhat akin to the fight or
flight response, that precludes the feelings of warmth andtogetherness associated with empathy. Grandin herself
couldn’t understand or feel empathy until she built a pressure machine that helped her control her sensory overstimulation. Her “squeeze machine” gave Grandin soothing feelings which she realized she needed to cultivate with others.
The machine sufficiently calmed her so that she could feel
affection and togetherness with others (though she still admits that she is denied the pleasure that people take in natural beauty, such as a landscape). Yet, Grandin herself notesthat this treatment is not something that will work with all
autistics. There are also cognitive barriers to empathy. If
an autistic student lacks a theory of mind and is unable torecognize that a fellow student has feelings and thoughts of27

her own, then the autistic student is unlikely to feel any empathy towards the other student.
Given that prompting a student to speak may be coercive, and that empathy may be unattainable, bringing assumptions into the open is an achievement that rarely happens on the level which we would recognize in regular P4C
classrooms. Still, I think that this criteria of Yankelovich’s
might be satisfied if we alter our understanding of“assumptions.” For a student to realize that another perceives things differently is a great accomplishment, and yet
this realization might comes from a directed activity that thestudent is initially uninterested in. Likewise, for a student
to use the correct pronouns to correctly describe that what
he did that morning was different from what another did isan event that causes high-fives among the facilitators.
Thinking that she is the only person thinking or feeling, andthat everyone experiences the world as she does are the assumptions being recognized and overcome in such behavior(though I wonder whether the individual actually thinks
these thoughts). They may not be beliefs, but they are“necessities” that must be put aside if communication is to
be possible.
Ultimately, I think Grandin’s
work confirms many of the insights offered by Bohm andYankelovich, but I also think thather perspective forces us to recognize some presuppositions of dialogue. Because Grandin adds her
voice to the discussion about education, learning and autism, we are
made aware of our own assumptions, and she of hers. Grandin’sbook is especially fascinating because she herself is extremely articulate (she has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism). We come to seethat thought is not merely internal language and that thevery way our senses process the world is an “assumption”
which some individuals do not share. There is much withinGrandin’s book that serves as a mirror for identifying ourown assumptions about how we engage the world. There isalso much that Grandin herself gains from reading andquestioning others. She has come to better understand her
own differences and is therefore such an effective communicator, because she can articulate how her experiences differ from others.
Even though Grandin’s writings and lectures may reveal
assumptions on all sides and help deepen our engagement inmeaning, it doesn’t seem as if such interaction is properly
labeled “dialogue,” as Bohm or Yankelovich defines it.
First of all, communication through writing is not sitting
around a circle. When someone writes a book or presents a
lecture, there is a purpose. It is neither as free and open as agroup sitting in a circle, nor is everyone on equal footing
since there is a presenter and an audience. Furthermore, as28

Lukey, Rethinking Dialogue: Reflections on P4C with Autistic Children

one comes to know others in the group, one grows moresensitive to their non-verbal communication. This may be
unfeasible for some autistic children, which might affect thelevel of communication occurring within the circle. Yet, I
think that these differences and challenges are not criticalfor dialogue. I think that Grandin is an excellent example
of someone who has adopted what Bohm calls “the attitudeof dialogue.” What I suspect, and what I want to confirm,
is that this attitude may be fostered without creating a circleof thirty students spontaneously sharing their thoughts andfeelings. In attempting to foster this attitude, I think
Grandin’s narrative and the general scholarship on autism
suggest something that all practitioners of P4C should keep
in mind.
The first is that P4C can and should be sensitive and accommodating to other modes of thought. Grandin’s account belies the assumption that words and speech are necessary for thought, and so we must be careful, or at least
explicit, about what we are trying to cultivate in children.
By focusing on words and abstraction, we may be neglecting some forms of imagination or meaning that children
more readily understand and share. We must be cautious
about generalizing Grandin’s kind of visual thinking to all
people with autism, but it does at least establish that there
are different modes of thought which P4C, as I imagine
most people practice it, may have difficulty accommodating. For someone who has not yet learned how to translatefrom a visual form of thought into a verbal form of thought,
the practice of dialogue must shift in order to achieve its
goals—shared meaning and the bringing of assumptions
into the open.
Part of this accommodation should be a willingness toteach in both directions. We are certainly attempting tobring autistic children into the world of speech, relationships and empathy. I would be overjoyed if the students at
Loveland mastered the translation skills that Grandin has
acquired so that they could articulate their difficulties withand assumptions about abstraction, empathy, spirituality
and other aspects of life with which many of us identify.
But we must also be willing to try and enter their world tothe extent that this is possible. This may mean using more
pictoral cues and doing more visual activities so that weshare meaning in pictures rather than in words. The exchange must be bi-directional. Language has helped
Grandin and several of my students to understand themselves and others better. It is because they have access to
our language-based way of thinking that they can partic ipate in discussions and dialogues with peers. This may be anecessity; yet, it seems unfair to only acknowledge someone as a participant in a dialogue if she “speaks our language.” Furthermore, if we undertake to become more familiar with their mode of thought, we might hold even moremeanings in our mind (Bohm’s characterization of the attitude of dialogue). I admit that I am genuinely curious, andoften skeptical, as to how much I can really understand theperspective of an autistic student, but I am reluctant toforego the attempt.
What To Do?
It is with intentional irony that I extend an invitation for
dialogue about the bias and limitation of dialogue as it applies to autistic children, and, more generally, different
kinds of thinkers. I will admit upfront that I am extremely
challenged as to how to conduct P4C in a way that is open
to other modes of communication. My academic ruminations present me with a practical dilemma: Is P4C fundamentally an activity and way of learning and developing for
those who are able to verbally communicate and process
thoughts and who can empathize with others to form a“community?” If it is, then my efforts at Loveland are futile, and those children are fated to “miss the P4C bus,”
something that makes me uncomfortable as a P4C facilitator and educator. If not, then how do we expand our activity, our communities of inquiry to include those who don’t
communicate in a way we typically understand? I am ultimately hoping that others will help me formulate an answer
to this question. I put forth my own thoughts and attempts
in order to contribute to the dialogue.
As I mentioned above, after my first six months ofworking at Loveland Academy, I realized that there was nocommunity of inquiry, and it was not in the process of being formed. My overall goal was to get the students communicating with each other, or at least to acknowledge that
other students were sources of unknown information. Digging beneath the surface, revealing assumptions, and shared
meaning were eventual goals but seemed far off on the horizon. Listening was the first important element. Sitting at atable, I tried to structure activities so that only one person
would speak at a time and the children would know what
they were supposed to be listening for.
Once I felt that the children had a handle on listening I
introduced the concept of questioning and answering, since
many did not seem to understand the practice of asking andanswering questions. They would ask questions in order toget something they wanted (e.g., Can I watch a video?) but
they rarely asked questions out of curiosity. Furthermore,when they answered questions, they often seemed unconcerned as to whether their answers were understood. In
regular P4C sessions, children are often eager to ask questions of an individual if she has related an interesting eventor fact, and children are concerned if others ignore or misunderstand their answers. Asking and answering questions
is an important element of P4C because it makes the inquiry
the project of the community.
Working under the assumption that if the children were
provided with a structured activity to practice asking andanswering questions then they would be more likely to ask
and answer questions in a more conversational setting, I
created cards with six questions words (who, what, where,
why, when, and how), six pronouns (I, you, he, she, it,they), some common verbs, and some auxiliary preposi-

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2

tions. There were also cards to indicate who was asking aquestion and who was answering. It was difficult for several of the students to create questions, so I allowed them torepeat the question that they had heard from the person next
to them. The pronoun cards indicated the pattern of response (e.g., if some one asks “What did you eat for lunch
today?” the answer has to be “I ate/had …”). The properuse of pronouns was challenging for many of the students.
It became even more challenging and more interesting
when I had the students use certain pronouns for their questions. Students struggled to ask the person next to themquestions about themselves or others in the circle (e.g.,
What time does Joe go home from school?” “What is myfavorite food?”). I often found that students answered froma first person perspective. Likewise, students often didn’t
wait for an answer and supplied it themselves (E.g., “Wheredo I live?... in Hawaii”). It was difficult for the question
asker because she either had to ask a question to which they
didn’t know the answer, or think of a question that that theother person would be able to answer. Likewise it was difficult for the answerer because she had to answer a question
in second or third person, and this required knowing information about others. However, after much practice students
were able to recognize and explain that other’s had different
answers to the same questions. We still have a long way to
go to achieve a true discussion, but I think that having a repetitive, consistent activity provides a structure for developing the awareness and curiosity about others that we takefor granted in other P4C classrooms.
I have also tried to move away from verbally centeredforms of communication by encouraging curiosity and communication through media other than words. On a blackboard, we play a game of Pictionary where once a student
guesses what is being drawn she/he tries to draw somethingthat is conc eptually related. By the end of the activity, there
is a collage of drawings on the blackboard and we try to retrace the steps of how the different pictures came about.
Then, usually with the more verbal and higher-functioning
students, we try to create a story that incorporates eachdrawing. I have also integrated the question/answer activity
into more physical games, such as darts (plastic tips ofcourse), bowling, boardgames, and others, so that the focusof the activity is the game rather than the stressful processof asking and answering questions.
While many of these activities have been successful
with some students, I do not think there was one that was
successful with all the students. And what remains mostfrustrating is that these activities seem most successful withpeople at a certain level; i.e., those children who are justbeginning to use words effectively to communicate andgrasp the existence of other minds. It focuses “lower” functioning children who have no interest in communicatingwith others so that they respond more readily to questions
and can ask questions appropriately. However, it hasn’t yet
made them ready for what we would recognize as P4C discussion, much less dialogue. There is no expressed sense of29

wonder about themselves or others (and perhaps someone
can’t wonder about herself if she isn’t really aware of others); when someone expresses a thought or idea, there isalmost never an impulse from someone else in the circle toraise his hand and contribute something else. This may be
impossible for the “lower-functioning” students, and theactivities may be too simplistic for the “higher-functioning”
students. Indeed, the higher functioning students seem capable of a P4C discussion as it occurs in other“mainstream” schools but either share very little experienceor interests with children their own age, or they have difficulty feeling comfortable with their peers.
It may be that the very strengths of Loveland Academy
function as constraints for doing P4C. Small classes andone-on-one assistance for almost every student means thatchildren are not used to working in groups and when groups
greater than three or four students are formed, the difference in abilities and behaviors makes almost any activity
frustrating for the participants. Or rather, perhaps P4C
needs to create ways to accommodate very small groups ofchildren who require educational aids to provide prompts
and mediate differences. The successes achieved in such acontext may be different from those in a regular P4C classroom, but they should still be P4C successes. There is acertain child who is very content in his own little world andwho often seems deep in thought, wondering about things
to himself in slight murmurs. I may never understand how
he perceives the world or what he thinks about, but whenever he gives one of his highly original answers or solutions, I consider it a P4C success. With such successes inmind, I appeal to both academics and educators in exploring
the philosophical and psychological issue of dialogue withpeople with autism and the pedagogical issue of how to approach such a challenge.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Grandin, Temple, Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports fromMy Life with Autism (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), p. 45.
Ibid. 58.
Bohm, David, On Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 7
Ibid. 20.
Bohm, 40.
Berk, Laura. Child Development (New York: Allyn & Bacon,
1996), p. 342.
Grandin, 33.

Bibliographic References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Berk, Laura. Child Development (New York: Allyn & Bacon,
1996).
Bohm, David, On Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 1996).
Grandin, Temple, Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports fromMy Life with Autism (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
Park, Clara, Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism,(New York: Little Brown & Company, 2001).
Yankelovich, Daniel, The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming
Conflict into Cooperation (New York: Simon and Schuster,1999).