In  my old post Teaching out of Autism, I wrote about my “discovery” that “simple” activity of stringing beads was, in fact, a complex one.  I found out that it was composed of a few steps which had to be taught separately.  In that post, I listed those steps, described Robert’s strong resistance to learning, and concluded  that mastering the skill , despite previous vehement opposition,  was  reinforcing in the end.

At that time, I was not aware of the existence of ABA  with its  concept of a reinforcer as a tool that entices learning.  Thus my struggles to keep Robert seated, and bruises on my chin.  Nonetheless, when I look back on that experience and compare it with later teaching through ABA, I have to make those important observations.

1. Robert learned stringing beads very quickly when compared to  gross motor imitation introduced through discrete trials.

2. Robert did not receive any reinforcers during learning to string beads, but the activity itself became reinforcing later.

Since placing beads on a yarn is a complex activity comparing to touching a nose or clapping  why there is  such a difference in learning times?

Of course, the partial explanation would involve the fact that in the first activity he had to look at objects, in the second he had to look at a person in front of him and copy her movements.

The first activity had a clear result at the end of the of chain of actions.  The bead was on a thread.  Repeating the activity lead to the string getting longer and thus looking  better and better.  In the second activity, after completing the movement, there was no visible change.  After touching nose, Robert was back to touching nose, and then again to touching nose with pieces of M&Ms in between.

Today, almost 18 years later, I have the feeling that we missed some important variables, and were too slow to connect the beads.

Three weeks ago, I sent a letter to the editor of our local paper.  It was not published.  I can only speculate why it was rejected.  Was it too personal for  a paper that is mainly about general thank you notes, or political fight for and against the proposed hockey rink? Was it because the information I included would have to be confirmed through other newspapers?   It might be that the paper is just not that interested in the part of population with  special needs.

It is true, the letter was as personal as all my calls on the matters mentioned in it.  I called Loyola Hospital, I called the sheriff in Maryland, I called the superintendent in Winthrop.  The patient relation office from Loyola called back.  The sheriff from Maryland called back personally.  The secretary of the superintendent from Winthrop, screamed that it was ” a personal matter”. The worst response of the three. Any way, this is the rejected letter:

To the Editor,
Since the beginning of the year, I read about three terrible events that concerned two children and one young adult with special needs.
Alex, 14 years old boy with special needs was kept for 19 days tied by wrists and ankles to his bed in emergency room in Loyola Hospital in Chicago.  No medical tests were performed during those 19 days..
Ethan, a 26 years old  man with special needs died of asphyxiation while being restrained by three security guards at the Regal movie theater in Maryland.
An unnamed student with special needs had a tape attached to his eyebrows and then pulled out by an unnamed special needs teacher from Winthrop. The teacher recorded this “event” on her cell phone and showed it to other teachers.
The common factor in each of these events was the fact that the professionals who should care for the most fragile members of the community demonstrated their inability to do so
I realized that my son, given his disability could be treated like Alex, Ethan, or an unnamed boy from Winthrop. I could easily point to a few incidents from the past when something terrible “almost” happened. ALMOST.
I  struggle to understand what went wrong and what could be done to prevent any of the tragedies from being repeated.  My first bitter conclusion is that although money are spent on educating children with many severe disabilities and make them members of their communities, the communities themselves do not learn how to accept and how to treat people who are different.
Because the communities, even the communities of providers, do not learn quickly or properly how to treat people like my son, it is crucial that my son learns more,learns better, and learns quicker how to fill the gap separating him from others. He has to learn how to communicate that something hurts.  He has to learn that he has to follow the rules.  He has to learn how the community works.  He has to learn how to respond to policemen, if they approach him.  He has to learn how to let others know that he has been abused.  He has to learn more, because the world around is not learning.
For children like mine, special education , if delivered properly, could be a life saving device.  If the special education is reduced to custodial care, light sort of babysitting, without thoughtful programming and diligent execution of the program, my son and many other children won’t get equipped with the tools for a simple survival.
For some children good special education means that they can graduate from college, for others it means that they can held a job, cook a meal, and write a check, for children like mine special education means that they can survive.
At this point I am not sure if my son can.

I planned to rest for 30 minutes, no more.  I felt exhausted.  Robert had a  session of speech therapy in Boston which ended a few minutes after five. Robert’s dad met us in Boston and together we drove for two hours in the afternoon traffic.  It did not help that we stopped at Costco to pick up proscription and glasses.  We finished dinner a few minutes after eight. I decided to relax  in front of the TV.  Just for half an hour, so without rushing I could  drink a cup of hot tea.  I fell asleep.

Robert woke me up at quarter to ten. “Work, work, work”, he demanded.  “Work” in our language means “study”.  Robert wanted his daily dose of learning. I was exhausted and hardly awaken. “We will work tomorrow”, I suggested.  The demand intensified, “Work, work, work!” Robert was already at the dinning table checking worksheets I had prepared in the morning.  I could put my foot down and refuse, but that would require energy and  a state of heightened alertness.  At this time, I lacked both.  So I joined Robert at the dinning room table.  I tried to hide a two page story about a donkey who wanted to be a puppy.  With a corner of his eye, Robert noticed my maneuvers and  from  a pile of workbooks and folders, quickly pulled out the story.

I hid the story, because I was not able to prepare Robert for the reading. I did not read it carefully  myself. I did not create mental story map which would help me pace the reading or plan additional activities for  before, during and after the reading.  Clearly, I was not ready for a reading instruction. I wanted to postpone it until the next day.  Robert would not.

Robert began his daily work with vocabulary worksheets.  Although considered to be adequate for a second grade level, Robert’s understanding of the words: “gaze, scurry, pounce”, and a few similar was  wobbly.  So I assisted Robert in completing worksheets but I have done it almost mechanically.  I  provided very limited support to Robert as he completed two pages of Daily Geography which related to New York State Tourist Map.  He answered the questions from lessons 30A and 30B of Saxon Math 4, almost independently, asking from time to time for my clear acknowledgment that his answers were correct.  As soon as I nodded, or said,”Great” ,he went on.  (That need is  a leftover habit from years of expecting to hear, “Good job.” after every small task Robert performed.)

Whenever Robert did not need my attention, I tried to familiarize myself with the story Donkey Wants New Job.  I could not concentrate.  Thus, when Robert finally placed a story in front of himself and started reading it,  I was still unprepared to handle this unit appropriately.

It was clear from the way Robert read that he  felt as lost as I was.  He needed directions, he needed simple explanations, and  he needed some help in forming mental pictures of the action.  He needed so much more, and I couldn’t help.

I began to understand how to teach reading comprehension to Robert, not too long ago.  I always knew that Robert had huge deficits in this area. After all he had severe problems with spoken language as well. Over the years, I relied on ideas from many sources to facilitate Robert’s understanding of speech and written texts.

Only a couple of years ago, however,  I started working in a new way on Robert’s comprehension of stories.  I have been learning ever since.  I am not done yet.  I have to rethink and plan each reading carefully.

Yesterday, I did not do that.   I was punished.  I witnessed Robert reading without understanding, being overwhelmed by sentences that did not connect to each other, and  unable to picture silly events that should have made him laugh.

A few times, I tried to interject some comments, but they did not make the meaning of the paragraphs any clearer.  After Robert finished, I helped him to answer three questions and skipped the long one on the worksheets following the story.

Left on the table was a general template for a story map.  In the past we did a lot of those with fables and fairy tales.  “Look Robert”, I said,” we will fill this page another day, after we read the story again.”

To my surprise, Robert,tired and  overwhelmed by what he read, agreed.  Instead of insisting on finishing the whole pile without missing a page, as I expected, he agreed!  He took a template and gently placed it in one of the folders where  the copies of  worksheets waited for their turn to engage Robert in the future.

Episode 1.  Doing So Well

At the beginning of the school year 2011/2012, I visited Robert’s classroom to meet a new teacher’s aide and a new speech pathologist.  At that time, the classroom had THREE  students including Robert.  The  teacher and his two aides were present.   Two students were sitting at the table with one teacher’s aide.  They were playing Connect Four.  Robert did not sit.  Nobody asked him to do anything.  So Robert was running around the table and flapping his hands.  I could not believe it.  Robert could be very  easily redirected.  Even, if nobody wanted to work with him, Robert could at least get a few simple worksheets that would occupy him for a while.  Robert wants to finish his work, he is diligent and thorough. He would work instead of being disruptive.   But no, during the time I tried to concentrate and, despite growing anger, talk to  the aide and a therapist, Robert was not given one instruction.  Nothing!!! Finally, he figured it out all by himself, and sat down, next to one of the students.

But just before he did that, when he was still running and flapping his hands, one person I was talking to said, “He is doing so well.”

I was speechless. It was the beginning of the year and I wanted to be nice.  I did not say anything, but left the classroom completely bewildered.

Episode 2.  Could This Happened to a Student in Regular Classroom?

Two weeks into the school year 2011/2012, I asked the teacher to schedule the time for me to observe Robert in his classroom.  I repeated my request a few times adding that I would also like to see my son’s classroom work.  I asked for that  because no worksheet was sent home.  In the beginning of October, I visited the classroom accompanied by the  director of district’s special education department.  I asked for worksheets.  The teacher was looking around not sure what to do.  A few minutes passed.  I asked again.  Finally, the special education director found a  pile of papers – few hundreds pages thick.  Triumphantly, she showed me the worksheets.  All the pages had Robert’s name written on top.  They were definitely his.  But none of these pages was completed at school.  They were done by Robert at HOME during our daily sessions.  Robert faithfully kept taking them to school to show to the teacher.

For over a month, Robert did not do any reading, writing, or math at school.  There was no science and no  social study either, as those subjects were dismissed as inappropriate for children with special needs by the school administrators from the start of this program.

Episode 3.  Group Instruction

During the school year 2010/2011, Robert had Mrs. S. as his aide.  She worked very diligently with him providing one to one instruction.  She looked for materials, curricula, made copies, and tried her best  to meaningfully occupy Robert.  Nonetheless, one of the main goals for Robert was to learn to work in group, to listen to an instruction given to the whole group, not just to him.  I wanted Robert to stop relying on just one person but being able to be a part of a group, observe other children, and, if possible,  follow their lead.  I sent a few language games to school (From Super Duper School Company) hoping that the teacher might used them and engage other students.  I sent Reasoning and Writing Curriculum to school, and showed the teacher how I used it with Robert  at home.  I explained that there were parts of this curriculum that should be given to the whole group.  The teacher never used it.  Mrs. S. said, that she couldn’t use games with other students, because she was directed to work only with Robert.  So, I asked the main teacher to schedule for me the time to observe Robert during group instruction.  It took more than a month and a few reminders for such observation to happen.  I came, I sat, and I waited for the students to come to the table and work together.  The teacher talked to one student trying to persuade her to sit at the table and work on the soft, vocational skills.  She was reluctant.  He promised her to help her with her college class.  Then he followed another student, telling her that he would “own her big” if she did THAT for him.

I, the mother, witnessed the teacher having difficulties even in assembling a group. I felt bad thinking that my son’s skills might be so below those students’, that a group lesson would be a waste of time for others.
This was not the case.  Although Robert had most difficulties talking and was hardly understood, he was not far behind the other three.  All the students  could benefit from the instruction.  They all could benefit even more if  they were used to such instructions delivered regularly.  It was clear, however, that this was the first and the last group instruction in the school year 2010/2011 in this classroom.

Conclusion.

Every observation of the classroom left me concerned and disappointed. Although I knew I should observe Robert regularly, I found that there was a heavy price to pay for each visit to the program.  I insisted on observing, repeated my calls to schedule classroom visits, but was more and more apprehensive about any contact with the school.  Mainly, because I had never seen Robert demonstrating new knowledge or skill. It was  stressful. So, at some point, I asked the teacher (the previous one) , to notify me as soon as Robert learns something new.  I would schedule an observation only when there is something positive to see.

I have never received such notification.

However….(February 23, 2015)

The last four months in this classroom, everything changed for the better. It was as if the lead teacher shook off the magical spell that was imprisoning his creativity, diminishing his skills, and  preventing him from …well, teaching. Suddenly, he prepared great teaching units with well planned field trips at the end of each unit. He understood my son’s needs and was able to adjust a few specific curricula to match my son’s strength and weaknesses. It was an unbelievable methamorphosis.  This was the teacher I always wanted my son to have. If, I however, didn’t write THIS conclusion soonner, it was because I was also mad at this teacher. He became a great teacher and then he QUIT making room for, oh well, that is another depressing story.

The titles of my previous two posts The Simplicity of a Good Teaching Part 1 and Part 2  are misleading.  Yes, the methods of addressing  problems encountered in teaching a child who doesn’t learn through standard “procedures”  (telling and showing what to do ) seem simple.  But the simplicity of the methods shouldn’t be confused with difficulties of finding the right approach  As simple as the solutions described in both parts of The Simplicity (…) appear to be, they are the result of analytical thinking which goes against well established, general  practices.

Instructor/teacher has to observe his or her student, guess what is preventing the student from learning, and design a method that would work around the difficulties the student has had so far.  It is a complicated process that requires both analytical skills and creativity.  Teaching is not a passive process.  As I stated before it is more like scientific approach of forming hypothesis and testing them. The only difference is  that you have to proceed with an extra care because there are humans on both sides of the “experiment” ,variables are many, often hard to notice, and they affect also the experiment taker – the teacher.

Teaching is a not simplistic, it is difficult and complex.

On the other hand, when a good method is found, it can be replicated in different setting with some variations.

I learned from Denise, the ski instructor, how giving visual cues helped Robert to adjust the position of his legs.  I realized that his difficulties might also come from not understanding for how long he should keep his legs parallel to each other.  That allowed  me to realize that maybe Robert’s difficulties with holding the reins have to do with similar deficit.  Hence, my suggestion to Kate, horse riding instruction, to have Robert count till ten while keeping reins up.  That was not a good suggestion, as I have just  realized , but somehow it led Kate to finding a better approach, by offering Robert clear,  visual cues to improve his riding skills.

The ski instructors offered Robert visual support.  I noticed that there was a time factor  involved.  My suggestion to Kate was about inclusion of this factor in her teaching, but she translated it immediately into much clearer visual cues.

Very interesting process.  Unfortunately, not something that grant taking institution are interested in