Storytelling with Special Needs Audiences: the challenges and belssings

Of course working with any population we choose to label, such Developmentally Disabled, at-risk, even children or adults, means recognizing that within that audience we have individuals with varying needs and capabilities. The younger the audience or more involved their personal challenges might be, the more specialized our focus becomes and the more flexible we need to be as presenters.
I have had the great privilege of working with many different types of audiences from young to old, from highly intelligent to severely disabled mentally, emotionally and physically. None can be addressed fully in one article or together as each has its merits and setbacks. Today, I worked with children who ranged from severely to moderately developmentally disabled.
These children and youth came in wheelchairs, asleep, alert, walking, without eye contact, quiet, loud, smiling, blank-faced. My challenge was to deliver my stories in such a way that I could engage as many as possible without allowing my ego to get in the way. What I mean by that is that the response of the audience is not the same as a "typical" audience. Some children slept through the entire program, others made loud noises, some laughed, some continued to be blank-faced, some clapped, some seemingly did not know anything special was happening, some caregivers participated and brought their charges along for the ride, some sat and wondered what to do, and none of it had anything to do with my stories or my ability as a storyteller.
It takes years of experience to get to a place in performance where you know that you are delivering quality in the right way without feeling let down on a personal level by audience response and it takes some knowledge of special needs groups to really understand that what you do counts even if there is no immediate response. The energy a storyteller must put into programs with very young children and audiences made up of special needs groups, especially those who are severely disabled, is ten times what we put out during an "average" presentation. I sometimes refer to this kind of energy telling as "in your face" storytelling.
While it sounds negative, I mean it mostly as a style of storytelling that requires more movement and up close presence than I usually put out. I am a storyteller who does active stories but usually stands fairly mid-stage and in front of my audience. I do movements and character voices for some stories but I do not move around a lot. When working with the audience today, I moved back and forth across the "stage" front (really on the floor in front of the stage) and up and down an aisle while trying to engage eye contact on a one-to-one basis with as many children as possible, even to the point of bending over to find eyes that were viewing the floor. In addition, my actions were exaggerated x3 and some verbal subtleties in stories were left out in favor of more engaging facial expressions and body language.
While ignoring sudden uncontrolled outbursts by individual children and being aware that some children exhibited concern over loud noise, I was aware that many seemed to continue to sleep, even when I used my drum in one story. Still I incorporated children in the stories as characters and taught them the responses and hand movements for some stories, expecting them to do what they could with help and encouragement from their caregivers. When the stories were finished, the children were taken to crafts tables for activities relating to the stories. This further reinforced the stories. I took this time to walk around the room and speak a moment with each child, even ones who did not seem to know I was there and after getting their names from either the child or caregiver, made sure I used their names when speaking to them.
Observations from this and many other programs like it:
* We cannot be so oblivious to the needs of the audience that we plod through our work in whatever fashion we are accustomed to. We must enter the story space with an awareness of audience need and a flexibility to meet that need.
* I know from experience, and faith in what I do, that even a sleeping child hears what we say in the deepest place where they reside. (Sometimes it is best not to wake them but to let them be in that peaceful place.)
* I know that honoring them and their existence is a blessing they deserve and using their names reinforces the fact that their lives mean something.
* And I am exhausted but so happy and honored to have these opportunities.
Take care of yourself as a storyteller or caregiver, replenish your energy so you can continue this work of making magic and dreams, affirming and witnessing the human spirit.