The Players and the Learning

As promised, this is the entry that introduces the various people I'm working with and how we're playing and learning. Only first initials will be used in this blog.

B is in his twenties, and has severe autism. He is nonverbal, and his vocalizations can be difficult for me to interpret as a blind person. I know he uses a lot of visual cues at the center to help staff understand what he wants or needs. Usually, other clients (and sometimes staff) will just tell him to be quiet. Granted, the sounds do sound strange to people who aren't familiar with that sort of thing, they can be high-pitched and seem continuous. Think about it, though. Imagine that you're a person who can not talk. It doesn't mean that thoughts aren't running around there in your brain; you just haven't learned how to say them. Imagine vocalizing things the only way you can and frequently being told to be quiet. Hey, everyone else is talking; why can't you join in? How frustrating it must be not to be able to say, "There is way too much activity in here, and I need some quiet time." Imagine only having a few combinations of sounds and some screams to communicate something like that...and then having people ignore or tell you to shut up. Well, I decided that I would change that for B as much as possible. Whenever I notice that he seems agitated, I'll tell a staff member so someone will at least look at him to see what he's trying to communicate. I'm not going to put up with people telling him to be quiet when he's just randomly making noise. Imagine what it must be like to be put in one place and for people not to really interact with you. Sure, they feed you, get you to the bathroom and talk occasionally, but for the most part, you're just left to sit there and watch everyone else. And by the way, for a person who has autism, watching all the activity is major brain overload. I asked the staff if they would bring B to me when he seems agitated or bored. Sometimes I think B just needs some quiet time with one-on-one attention. I'll bring some of my children's books, and even if he doesn't understand the words or the concepts, he can still hear a soft voice. I figured out quite by accident that, by speaking with a certain rhythm can help. He latches onto that, rather than a normal flow of speech. When I do read, I use this specific rhythm, which would make the story sound ridiculous to anyone else, but that's okay--I'm not reading for their benefit. I'll get to that later. Sometimes I'll just sit with him and talk about different things--he likes them in list form. You know how we read lists aloud using a certain speech pattern? That's the kind of thing that seems to help calm B. So I'll list things in the wrong grammatical way so that everything remains consistent. Example: "There are lots of different fruits: apples and oranges and papayas and bananas and mangos and peaches and pears and plums and pineapple and watermelon and..." You get the idea. We talk about what the weather is like outside, the days of the week, I list off the foods we have/are eating...all kinds of stuff. What's really funny is that, when I stop to take a breath, he makes some unhappy sounds, like, "Hey, where did that nice sound go?" Sorry, buddy, sometimes I have to breathe. Since I can't see to determine what he wants or needs, I'm going to teach him some simple ways to show me through hand signs. I'll start this tomorrow. It will take tons of practice and patience, but that's okay. B also likes to throw things. Okay, we don't really want him to throw most things, so instead of telling him not to throw anything at all, I decided to get a soft toy with a rattle inside. That way, he can't harm himself or anyone else, and I can hear the toy when he throws it. What he really enjoys is watching someone retrieve whatever he has thrown. While I'm looking for the object with my feet, I talk to him: "Where did you throw it? Maybe it's over here." And then I show great excitement when I find it. Sometimes he can be persuaded to find the object he has thrown. I always make sure we're in an empty and small place so we can do this safely. It's really a lot of fun to hear the delighted sounds he makes during this game.

V and J.E. are two developmentally delayed individuals who just need something to do. Instead of being told to "go sit down" by clients or something, they need to be given things to do. And so...Miss Bethany brought stuff from home to try. Stringing beads seems to be a lot of fun, so I incorporated teachable things into it. We're learning about shapes, sometimes colors (that's hard, since I can't see the colors), directional concepts (up, down, top, bottom, under, over), and maybe most importantly right now, taking turns. We're learning how to take turns during play and how to remember patterns (V puts his bead on the string first, then it's Miss Beth's turn, and then J.E. puts his bead on).

I draw raised pictures of basic shapes. J.P. enjoys coloring, so he is learning shape recognition and how to color inside the lines. Just as with V and J.P. I work on color recognition with him as well, but that's sporadic with all of them, since I don't always have one of my other sighted friends around to help me teach them colors.

A is learning entirely different things. What I do with him is more like what you would find in an elementary school setting. When a child with learning disabilities (LD) or specific learning disability (dyslexia) doesn't receive the proper special education or is passed over completely, he or she gets left behind and learns to hate reading, writing and spelling. Add hearing problems that weren't treated right away and inadequate speech therapy, and you have a real challenge in school. A is super smart, and I know that, if we can teach him these skills, it will unlock so much of the stuff that's in his mind that he just can't express right now. The hard part with A is figuring out just how much he knows about which subjects. I was surprised to find that we had to start with syllables and that he still needs help sounding out words. These things don't bother me; if he couldn't learn it because he didn't have the tools, that's certainly not his fault. He seems to have a grasp of syllables, and I didn't use the typical clapping method with him. After he learned that groups of letters make up one sound and that words have groups of sounds, we figured out that all he had to do was just say the word a few times. At first, he would tell me that every word had one syllable. I thought, "He must be getting confused between syllables and words." Then I decided to try asking him to say the word--so, to repeat it after me. That's what made it click. Now we're moving on to parts of speech: nouns and verbs, to be exact. When I first started teaching A, B.C. would add stuff that went way beyond what A was ready to learn. Thanks for the help, but we're not ready for that, yet. A has some trouble figuring out what words are nouns and which ones are verbs, so I asked him to write down two questions: Is this word a person, place or thing? Is it something I can do? (an action) Of course we know that some words can be both nouns and verbs, depending on how they are used, but I think that will just confuse A right now. I started teaching him common and proper nouns, but I'm having difficulty helping him to understand concepts of "general" and "specific." We're going back to do some more work on nouns and verbs in general.

I don't really plan an agenda for each day; I just sort of know where I'm working with each person or group. This is a place to have fun, not school. If V is absent and J.E. wants to watch a movie instead of string beads, that's okay. What if it's just an off day for B and he sleeps more than usual? That's okay, too. As for A, he's a little more regular. I try to work with him a little each day, except Friday, and I don't really give "tests," even though I tease him and say that it's test time. He knows I'm just teasing and that he's not graded on anything. And want to know a secret? Sometimes, I skip out on the teaching and do fun stuff, since I'm a client, too. For the most part, staff know I'll stop what I'm doing to work with these people. They are in different situations than A, who can always read, play a game or talk to friends. These other people need someone to lead the interactions, and I make and take the time to do that. I'm thankful that God has given me this opportunity so that the child development, teaching and psychology skills and knowledge aren't wasted, even though I can't work. I know it helps the clients, because they feel like they're actually important, and that's the most important thing. If I have one goal each day I roll into the center, it's to improve someone else's day--to make someone smile, feel better about something, play or interact with someone so that he or she knows that someone cares. It's simple, but so very powerful.