Think of the child who gets described as defiant. Or lazy. Or not trying hard enough. The one who seems to fight the very things that come easily to everyone else.
Now imagine that what looks like defiance is actually communication. A child feeling things deeply, wrestling with working memory or transitions or sensory overload, and doing their best to tell us they need something different.
In this LiveTalk Replay, Jamilyn Cole (a Montessori guide and special educator who has taught from preschool through high school, and who grew up as a neurodivergent learner herself) shows how Montessori was built for exactly these children, and how one shift in where we place our attention changes everything. This session is part of our ongoing series inside the Childhood Potential Club, where members gain access to expert talks, community support, and resources designed for real life with young children.
She was the child we worry about
Jamilyn does not teach this from the outside. She lived it. As a young child she stopped speaking for a time, had her first individual education plan at age four, and moved in and out of services all the way through school. She repeated grades. She was diagnosed with multiple learning disabilities. To this day she works with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and she still spells words wrong on the board, then invites her students to correct her, which opens an honest conversation about strengths and struggles from the very first day.
Here is the part she wants us to hear. Her story is not really about resilience, about a child who just kept going because she had to. Her successes came when the environment changed. When she landed in spaces designed for someone who learned the way she did, she thrived. That is the thread running through her whole life, and it is the heart of this talk.
Behavior is communication, not defiance
Neurodivergence is a natural variance in the way the brain works. It carries many labels, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism, and it often travels with real strengths: the child who sees the patterns others miss, who makes connections no one expected.
So Jamilyn invites one change in the question we ask. Instead of “what is wrong with this child,” we ask “what does this child need from the environment?” That single reframe opens a whole world of possibilities, because the biggest intervention available to us is the environment itself.
Montessori was built for this
This is not a new idea grafted onto Montessori. It is where Montessori began. Dr. Montessori’s earliest work, around 1898 to 1900, was with children who today we would call neurodivergent, and it was there, asking questions about the environment, that she designed materials we still use, from the Seguin boards to the sandpaper letters and numbers.
Jamilyn returns to a familiar line, that the Montessori teacher must have faith in the child who will reveal himself, and points out that it is really about us, the adults. She also shares Dr. Joyce Pickering’s beautiful phrase for pairing Montessori with the best of special education, things like structured literacy: a marriage made in heaven for neurodivergent children.
Where Montessori already shines
So much of what these children need is already baked into a well prepared Montessori space:
- Freedom of movement, so bodies are not forced to sit still to learn.
- Hands on, specially designed materials that teach through the senses.
- Daily practice with executive function, built into the freedom to choose and structure the work cycle.
- Autonomy and independence through real choice.
- Grace and courtesy lessons that make the hidden social curriculum explicit instead of assumed.
- Multi age communities, where developing at your own pace is normal and modeled from the start.
And where the environment creates friction
Jamilyn is honest that the same environment can also get in the way. Transitions and unexpected interruptions can be hard. Sensory input, loud cafeterias, busy hallways, even clothing, can overwhelm a child who feels deeply. Holding every step of a lesson in mind, remembering where each material lives on the shelf, planning a three hour work cycle, all of this leans heavily on working memory and executive function. Naming these friction points is not a criticism of Montessori. It is how we start to smooth them.
The first practical shift: get it out of their head
The most doable place to start is what Jamilyn calls externalizing. When a child (or an adult) is overwhelmed, we take the load off memory and make it visual, so no one has to hold the whole day in their mind.
- A visual schedule at the front of the room is a good first step, but many neurodivergent children will not attend to the front of the room. So give the child their own individual schedule, right at their workspace, on a clipboard or in a page protector they can carry through the day.
- Use a work plan or choice board the child can check off. For younger children, Velcro pieces they move from one side to the other add a point of interest.
- Keep a simple first, then card nearby. First we have our lesson, then it is recess. When emotions run high, you can stop talking and simply point to the image, which lowers the intensity instead of adding more words.
One quiet gift of this approach: the schedule becomes a neutral third party. You are not the one insisting, and the child is not fighting you. It is on the schedule. The battle simply softens.
Meet Jamilyn Cole
Jamilyn Cole is a Montessori guide and special educator who has taught across public Montessori and special education settings, from preschool through high school, including five and a half years leading a self contained upper elementary public Montessori classroom in Memphis, Tennessee. She trained with Dr. Joyce Pickering and is a neurodivergent educator herself. Having been the child everyone worried about, she brings lived experience and classroom practice together, with a simple, hopeful message: when we treat the environment as the intervention, our children get to reveal who they really are.
