Synesthesia: How Neurodivergence Can Help Inform
More Inclusive Pedagogical Practices
KC A. Canniff
KC A. Canniff is mother to three kids and a biology student at University of Washington. Her previous life experience includes a thirteen-year career in healthcare, ten years as an adult educator, and six years as a Girl Scout leader. As a first-generation college student, completing her bachelor’s degree has been a lifelong goal. She is currently a senior and set to graduate this Spring. She hopes to remind herself, her kids, and those around her that it is never too late to pursue your goals. As a queer woman in science, KC understands the power of diverse perspectives and knows that before we can get more people involved in scientific exploration and problem solving, they need to know they belong. She believes, with creative teaching, everyone can understand and enjoy science. After graduation, KC plans to continue to help decrease barriers in STEM education, especially with people who haven’t yet identified themselves as science lovers. She knows the transformative power of good educators and hopes to use her passion for creating inclusive curriculum to help inspire other educators to take a more personalized and adaptive approach to education.
Abstract
The world we live in today is not the same as the one we woke up in a few years ago. Through Covid, we have been asked to question everything about our lives and to recreate the world into what fits the new us. Through this, we have learned that we are full of resilience and that our creativity in solving problems is boundless. We have seen repeated evidence of how the continuously changing landscape around us can be a gift for finding new and innovative ways of approaching ideas. My project focuses on synesthesia and neurodiversity with the hope of showing how, like changing landscapes, unique perspectives can also create change and creativity in how we approach problems. Having synesthesia means experiencing the world in a way that is different from everyone else. It often means drawing connections between things that others do not see. These experiences allow for an opportunity to view the world anew and to approach ideas and problems from new perspectives. Our current education system does not know how to identify or support people with synesthesia and I believe that the world is missing out on the ingenious ideas of those unsupported minds. I wanted my research to bring more light to the synesthetic experience, and to increase our understanding about how to better support and encourage people with synesthesia, especially in education systems. It is my firm belief that having more diversity, in all forms, at the table only serves to increase our ability for creative thinking and innovation. It is my hope that a deeper understanding of the synesthetic experience can help inform our choices as we move into a time of change and problem solving.
Synesthesia: How Neurodivergence Can Help Inform More Inclusive Pedagogical Practices
When I first proposed the topic of synesthesia and its potential implications on education as a possible research topic for my essay, my professor was supportive, but immediately asked how to pronounce it. When I set up an appointment with a research librarian to find better resources for my essay, she admitted to having to do a quick google search on my topic so she knew what I was talking about. Even I had to admit that while I understood the general concept of synesthesia, I was unable to clearly define it in a concise and easy to understand manner. I realized that before I could figure out how synesthesia might inform new education practices, I would need a clear way to define it. In trying to find a relatable way to talk about synesthesia, I realized that the answer was in the word itself. The suffix “thesia” comes from the Greek word meaning sensation, and it’s closely related to a familiar term that means “no sensation” (Dutton 16). Anesthesia is the absence of sensation, and is typically brought about intentionally, and with the help of highly trained medical staff. Synesthesia comes from the same root word, but its prefix means “with or at the same time” (Dutton 16). It’s feeling two things simultaneously. In other words, synesthesia is a naturally occurring phenomenon where typically unrelated sensory pathways in the brain are somehow connected in some individuals. This phenomenon means that these individuals experience not only the sensory input from the signal they are receiving (ie. sound), but also simultaneously receive sensory input from a signal that otherwise wouldn’t be activated (i.e., taste or sight). For these people, seeing the color orange might also elicit the taste of spinach or strawberry ice cream.
My first exposure to the idea of synesthesia was reading a fictional book where the main character saw color in many places where no one else could (Semper). Her colors were mostly attached to mood and personality, and I remember thinking, “Oh yes, of course. Those are perfect descriptions of what those other characters’ voices would look like.” I did not know it was a phenomenon, or something unique as I was reading it. I just knew that the author had used exquisite visual descriptions of something that made perfect sense to me. Later, after reading other people’s reviews of the book, I realized that many people had a different experience with it. The whole idea was completely novel to them. There were so many comments about how sci-fi and unreal that experience would be. That’s where I first saw the word “synesthesia.” Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed. I watched a TedTalk where a woman with synesthesia who was also a musician had designed a violin that changed colors as she played each note so that we could, in some ways, experience what music had always been like for her (Hova). It was so beautiful. I can’t say whether I have synesthesia or just an overactive imagination, but for as long as I can remember things like numbers, letters, and colors have all had personalities. I can spell words because I remember who likes who and which person is standing next to the other. The same is true for math, especially multiplication. I have always been very visual and, even now, baking recipes at home or remembering directions to someone’s house, all I can see are characters interacting with other characters. New concepts present like people in a play for me. They always have. For me, reading that first story wasn’t far from my reality. She saw colors in places no one else did, and I see personalities where there shouldn’t be any. This connection made me wonder how common this phenomenon really is.
In her 2009 study, Julia Simner estimates that there are at least five students with synesthesia in every elementary school in the US (Simner 62). Her study only takes into account one type of synesthesia, and she acknowledges that, if we looked at the more than 60 variants currently identified, that number would likely be much larger. Even though this is a widely documented phenomenon, I could not find any policies for support of these experiences within our schools. In fact, I read many accounts of students who felt like they needed to hide their experiences because they felt so judged or worried that something was wrong with them. One example can be found in a TedTalk from a budding STEM graduate who learned in first grade that her classmates did not see colors attached to numbers when she exclaimed that the numbers in a specific math problem were particularly beautiful (Warren). She hid her experiences, and because of that, she scored low on exams, even though she was actually quite skilled at math. No one was able to help her until she slipped up about her experience with a sixth grade teacher. Fortunately for her, this teacher actually knew about synesthesia and was able to give her a word for her experience, without judgment (Warren). That moment changed her life, but I wonder what could have happened if she had been met with support in first grade instead.
This thought made me curious to see what a supportive experience might look like for synesthetic students at a young age. I came across a 2012 study by Cecilia Wallerstedt and Niklas Pramling that primarily focused on synesthetic inclusion of art in preschools. In the study, they used teacher-led play to allow the students to have free expression of body movement, sound, and association. In one exercise, the students are divided into small groups and given a cue. They are asked to spend a moment creating a presentation for the rest of the class based on their cue. One of the groups is given “water that flows” and they use little bells to represent this sound. When asked why they chose bells, one student replies, “It sounds as [if] it’s glittering a bit” (133). By using visual descriptors for an audio stimulus, we can see a classic example of synesthetic association. In another activity, a group of 4-year-old students are listening to music and are encouraged to move freely with the tune. Afterwards, the teacher suggests that they “draw the music on paper.” One child asks her friend if they are going to draw the part of the music “when they sneak” while another student tries to draw the bit when “elephants tramp” (134). These associations are what the researchers call transduction. They claim that “synesthetic transduction...is something all children could participate in and master through playful learning” (138). They also believe that, at an early age, we all have some amount of synesthetic ability but go on to say that “it seems that we have to learn to forget this ability; it may be that we will now need to relearn it” (130). Their hope was that our education system could be reformed to foster support of synesthetic transduction and that the ability to meld several modalities together would be encouraged instead of a skill left behind in childhood. This research was really getting to the heart of what I’d hoped to find. I felt hopeful that, with more research like this, educators and policy makers might start to see the benefits of a more sensory inclusive style of education.
I wanted to dig deeper into education programs that supported synesthetic transduction, but, as I was doing my research, it seemed that for every article I found on synesthesia and education, there were three others about synesthesia and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). I felt hesitant to dive into the seemingly endless amounts of research about synesthesia and its links to ASD but I also knew that, if I wanted a well-balanced perspective, I would need to investigate more about the connection between the two. I learned that there seemed to be a much higher rate of synesthesia among people with ASD. In 2019, Tessa van Leeuwen and colleagues estimated that the occurrence of synesthesia was around 20% in people with ASD, while the estimate of synesthesia for the average population was only 4%. This made me wonder in what other areas I might find higher rates of synesthesia, and it turns out that ADHD, sensory processing disorders, and dyslexia all have heightened links to synesthesia as well (Fluegge). I wanted to know how prevalent these other conditions were, and I found that somewhere between 3-5% of elementary students are affected by ADHD (Shin), 5-16% of students are affected by sensory processing disorders (Bunim), and somewhere between 5-15% of Americans have dyslexia (Society of Neuroscience). Knowing this, I felt like synesthetic numbers within a school population might be higher than originally estimated. The next question I had was if the supportive transduction techniques I’d read about earlier would benefit any of these groups. I began to look at what techniques had already been implemented in educational programs that were specifically attempting to include synesthetic experiences. I found a wide variety of techniques that included things like changing font colors on reading assignments for people with dyslexia that matched their specific grapheme associations (Dutton 17). In the cases mentioned, the readers were able to see immediate benefit and read with greater ease and fluidity. There were other studies about using colored text in supporting rote memorization exercises to enhance students’ ability by using multiple senses for recall (Dutton). In a website dedicated to helping teachers find practical tips for supporting synesthesia in their classrooms, researcher Julia Simner gives examples of easy modifications like using black and white letters in the classroom instead of colored alphabet posters if the “wrong” colors are making it harder for a student to concentrate. She also suggests removing sounds and other distracting stimuli from the classroom. I felt like her website was really helpful because she acknowledged that there were several different types of synesthesia and that the solutions for each type would be unique (Simner Teachers). Others explored classrooms using synesthetic experiences by encouraging students to explore associations between things like a music number and their body sensations, incorporating as many of the five senses as possible (Chae). These studies emphasized the importance of teachers’ need to build trust and safe spaces for exploration. One researcher expressed the importance of this finding by stating, “Students must understand that any response…is acceptable and that even no response is not wrong….each student must be encouraged to trust his initial, spontaneous response” (Chae). As a student educator, I had lost count of how many times I had been told that a professor responded to someone’s inquiry with something like, “That’s a dumb question.” Unfortunately, I felt that this lack of educator soft skills was not helpful in building an environment of trust. Our education system has been too focused on teaching information, to the point that we have diminished the importance of exploring how to think. There is a lot to be gained by focusing on safe spaces for exploration as opposed to moving in a linear path from A to B to C. One researcher made the claim that “intersense transfer and application” will not only impact our education experiences by creating a “rich, satisfying experience, appreciation, and deeper involvement” with students’ subject matter, but can also lead to “a deeper appreciation and understanding of life” (Chae). This implies that the way we do education impacts more than a student’s ability to learn. Educators have an opportunity to foster people who are capable of putting unrelated things together to form unique and creative solutions to problems. At this point in my research, I felt inspired that a change could be made and that we could incorporate new methods of teaching to encourage the synesthetic experience within our classrooms. What I wasn’t sure about was how those changes might impact the broader student body who may not have synesthetic inclinations.
I had already explored synesthesia and school support within diagnosable conditions like ASD and dyslexia, but I also wondered if using the program more broadly would benefit other students as well. Was my learning specifically about synesthetes or did everyone have something to gain? When a student has an identifiable diagnosis, schools set up an IEP or 504 plan in order for that student’s needs to be met appropriately. Often that means that the student will work with specialized staff who are trained to help with their unique needs. I knew that schools do their best to meet the individual needs of each of those students to support them in their path to learning. However, I quickly realized that there was a whole host of other “disorders” that children are bringing into the classroom that do not get the benefit of a 504 plan or a specialist. Unfortunately, teachers and other school staff often do not know when a child is hungry at home. They do not get to see the devastating loneliness of neglected children, the burden of poverty, or the catastrophic impacts of abuse. Even a child facing their parents’ divorce, the loss of a loved one, or the stress of parents’ financial burdens after being laid off will have a harder time incorporating new information at school. The impacts of these stressors can be tremendous on students and their ability to learn at school. These are often invisible conditions and, because of that, children find no support or help at school. I read an extensive 2016 report by Niranjana Shankar called “Addressing Children’s Trauma in Education.” This report focused on the burden of children with childhood trauma and stress at school, and some of the ways that teachers and staff could help support these students, even without the ability to identify them specifically. One of the suggested solutions was to incorporate more synesthetic learning into the classroom. The report claims that by practicing new pedagogical approaches scientists believe that “showing children ways to harness the possibilities of the brain by encouraging the notion of unlocking its creative potential, can motivate them to self heal” (Shankar). In a classroom setting, this can happen by encouraging students to use creative processing and expression through art, poetry, and mindfulness. This may in turn help to “reframe one’s memory of a traumatic experience” and “foster resilience and character building” (Shankar). The study gives several examples of ways to use what it calls “synesthetic interventions” like mindfulness and associations to create new neural pathways in the brain for positive associations and memories of pleasant thoughts, as opposed to triggering “thoughts and actions prompted by the memory of a traumatic event” (Shankar). The research in this essay showed that by incorporating synesthetic support techniques we can not only help to improve the outcomes for synesthetes and children with sensory or neurological conditions, but for a wide array of students who face stress or trauma at home as well. Knowing this, I really felt that the suggestions I found to incorporate sensory inclusive practices in school were not only beneficial for the synesthetes, but for the entire school. This has large implications for the way that educators and policymakers can begin to reimagine the goal of our schools and the impact we can have on our students.
Through my research, I learned a lot about other people’s synesthetic experiences, and different ways that educators were already implementing inclusive practices. I felt optimistic that by encouraging creative thinking, teachers were capable of establishing environments that support the intellectual and emotional needs of students while engaging students in problem solving from unique perspectives. I believe these skills will benefit students in class and beyond as they gain useful skills in resiliency and self healing, as well as the ability to see things from another point of view. In doing this research, I feel hopeful that we can begin to create a learning environment that better supports the needs of our students and builds supportive spaces to explore individual perspectives and experiences. This open-minded approach is vital to creating members of society that are capable of empathy and an ability to approach new situations with fresh eyes.
Works Cited
Bunim, Juliana. “Breakthrough Study Reveals Biological Basis for Sensory Processing Disorders in Kids.” Targeted News Service (TNS), 2013, pp. 7-10.
Chae, JiWon Park. Synesthesia, a Method for “Total Artwork” in Music Education: Investigation and Instructional Models, 2004.
Dutton, Jack. “The Surprising World of Synaesthesia.” Psychologist, vol. 28 no. 2, February 2014, pp. 106-9.
Fluegge, Keith. “Abnormal Sensory Experiences, Synaesthesia, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol. 47, no. 9, 2017, pp. 2942-4.
Hova, Kaitlyn. “Seeing Song Through the Ears of a Synesthete” TEDMED. 11 April 2017. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LUbxfnpez4.
Leeuwen, T.M. van, et al. “Autistic Traits in Synaesthesia: Atypical Sensory Sensitivity and Enhanced Perception of Details.” Philosophical Transactions. Biological Sciences, vol. 374, no. 1787, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0024
Luther, Rachel A. “Synesthesia and the Phenomenological Experience: Implications for Ecological Mindfulness and Beginning Scholars in Science Education.” Cultural Studies of Science Education. 15 October 2015. vol. 10, no. 1. pp. 215-227.
Semper, Vesper. “A Cloud of Outrageous Blue.” Penguin Random House. 25 August 2020.
Shankar, Niranjana. Addressing Children's Trauma in Education: A Case for Teacher Training, 2016.
Shin, Lim. “Basic Information about Disorders Such as Dyslexia, Visual and Auditory Processing Deficits, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism.” Learning Disabilities Sourcebook.(Health reference series; v. 33). 1998. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics.
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Society for Neuroscience. “Dyslexia: What Brain Research Reveals About Reading.” (2004). https://www.ldonline.org/article/10784/
Wallerstedt, Cecilia, and Pramling, Niklas.“Conceptualising Early Childhood Arts Education: The Cultivation of Synesthetic Transduction Skills.” International Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 44, no. 2, 2012, pp. 127–139.
Warren, Olivia. “When 2+2 Equals Green.” Tedx Talks. 24 July 2015. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdtJu_DaZEw