My son Charlie can talk. Most of what he says are requests for things he would like (from “ketchup!” to “Mommy’s hand” to “practice piano”). When it comes to talking about what part of his body might be bothering him—-if he has a headache or stomache, for instance—or what happened earlier in the day (at school, in particular), the language is not yet there. Consequently, I rely on communicating with his teacher frequently (mostly via email). Facilitating more interactions and even actual visits of parents in schools and school staff at home have been another way.
I was reminded of this while reflecting on someting I posted about a few days ago, a program in which graduate students in special education and psychology are matched with families with an autistic child to get “hands on” experience. The Family Mentor Experience is an optional component of a class on Autism and Intellectual Disability offered at William and Mary College. Students who choose to participate are “required to spend time with two different families and to keep a journal and contact log and write a reflection paper at the end of the semester.” A commenter, Jennifer, who teaches special needs kids and has a brother with Down Syndrome, shared some of her experiences teaching him and I wanted to highlight one comment on how kids can, indeed, be different at school and at home—can do somethings at home that they do not seem able to do at school, and vice versa:
When we offered to videotape Patrick doing the laundry independently, his high school teachers backed off a bit. …………
In any event, his girlfriend’s parents did the same when she was young — she was reading at home and her teachers did not believe her mom…they tried the videotaping thing and it worked well.
I can’t thank Jennifer enough for sharing her thoughts; her upbeat spirit and practical suggestions are inspiring.
We are fortunate that, in the public school autism program that Charlie attends, his teacher and school speech therapist home visits (about once a month; every marking period for the speech therapist). Not only does this enable the teacher and speech therapist to see Charlie in his home environment; when his speech therapist visited on Saturday, she immediately zeroed in on several moments when I could try to draw more language out of Charlie: Charlie wanted a snack of some soybeans (I guess it is not the usual snack for a child his age, but he really likes them) and, after picking up his bowl, said “Spoon.” In the past, we have had Charlie simply “I want [X]“; the speech therapist suggested that we have Charlie say “can I have the [x]” or (after we had asked him, “What’s missing? What do you need to eat with?”), “I need a spoon.” Throughout the rest of her visit, the speech therapist kept getting up everytime Charlie came into the room and suggesting ways to have him speak in longer and more varied sentences. Charlie’s teacher has gotten ideas for what words would be useful for Charlie to learn to sight read and also, from hearing him talking at home (he has always talked more at home), she has gotten a better idea of words that seem unclear or out of context when said at school.
I recognize that having a teacher come into one’s house may not be possible or appropriate in some cases. More than a few parents often mention communication between parents and school staff as a continual source of frustration (and sometimes) contention and I am always interested in ways to bridge this gap home and school. It is only to our children’s benefit, is it not?
It does indeed—we have so many good times now. Charlie just seems at ease and inquisitive.
Sometimes he says:
“I want” |
Though some of the nouns are more verb-ish.
Eeek, I forgot to escape all the angle-brackets! Let me try this again:
When Jeremy was at Charlie’s stage in the course of language acquisition, I used to quip that his entire expressive language could be summarized in a single grammar production-rule:
Sentence ::=
“I want” <noun> | <verb> | <adjective>
The addition of the | <adjective> branch in the grammar rule was a real milestone — the first expressive assertion of choice.
Charlie’s on his way. It gets more and more fun as you go along.
When Jeremy was at Charlie’s stage in the course of language acquisition, I used to quip that his entire expressive language could be summarized in a single grammar production-rule:
Sentence ::=
“I want” | |
The addition of the | branch in the grammar rule was a real milestone — the first expressive assertion of choice.
Charlie’s on his way. It gets more and more fun as you go along.
We have just started having a MT come to the house once a week for two hours, and he really likes her. She is sort of like a mentor as well, but it is a state thing, not a college program.
Awareness of body and that sort of thing is really hard for our kids. My son would ask me “do I feel sick?” for the longest time – only recently has he been aware that he can actually tell me! I tell him to put on his warm coat, because it’s cold out today, and he picks up his windbreaker, lol.
These are things the social skills teacher (from the IU’s autism unit) is working on at school, though. They should have a lot more of that at your school – because as Charlie gets older, the nature of interaction with the other students is going to get more complex. It’s something you want to have in your goals, because if you don’t, having teachers comply is a lot harder. Especially in middle school, when they start having a whole bunch of teachers.
Elementary school is Easy. (sigh) We’re looking at high school transition for next year.
That’s great that they come to your house like that. It really does help both teachers and parents to know what’s happening on the other side of the fence. I also drive my son to and from school partly so I can maintain that communication more easily. I’ve found it helpful to write out what happens around our house on a ‘typical’ day once a year or whenever he starts with new staff. They’re always surprised at what happens here at home.
I completely agree, Kristina…I am a SAHM precisely so that I can bridge the home/school gap with my two ASDers. Ely’s preschool sends the Yellow School Bus to pick her up in the morning, and it could bring her home, but I prefer to pick her up at school just for that communication time with her teachers and aide. Likewise, my car seems to take itself to John Paul’s school automatically…that’s how often I am there. And email? The lifeline.
You (and Charlie’s speech therapist) have given me some great ideas in this post for how we need to work with Ely’s speech at home…sometimes I think we make it too easy on her.