Center Stage Youth Theatre

Drama:  Narrative Pedagogy and Socially challenged Children

Melanie Peter

Another article by Ms. Peter, this one written in 2009 and a more in-depth discussion of how children with social challenges are helped through a concentration on fostering  dramatic, narrative play towards contributing to a greater understanding of “effective communication, sensitivity in interaction and creative problem solving.” (Peter, 2009)  the piece contains a helpful, clear description of how people relating experiences to one another narratively go beyond the stating of the mere details but also use vocal inflection, facial expressions and gestures to get their points across to their audiences.

I also found very interesting the author’s statements on how engaging in narrative “requires sensitivity to patterning, sequencing and ‘framing’ of experience”
(2009) and that this learning begins in infancy with give and take games – games like “peek-a-boo” and “how big is the baby?’” -  which have structure and predictability and require turn taking.  It is stated that children with autism frequently fail to master these early patterned games and that this could offer insight into their having trouble with “anticipating routines, coping with changes, and understanding intentions and consequences.” (2009)

Ms. Peter also points out in this article that she feels there are three positive aspects of creative drama work with children: 1) The enjoyment the child gets from the activities leads to greater engagement and this links the activities to greater cognitive gains.  2) When a child is engaged in an activity she finds pleasurable, it is “possible that the brain slips out of gear as in other states such as daydreaming; this may prompt neurochemical release and {helpful neural} pathways becoming passable that were previously obscured.” (2009)  And finally 3) she suggests that drama activities may trigger engagement of the “action sensitive mirror neurons” that are “known to be fragmented in autism” (2009) thereby possibly providing some healing to that specific disconnection in impaired children toward bridging the gap in their ability to learn by imitation.

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