May 26, 2015

Every week during the last few years either my husband or I drove Robert to the pool for his swimming lesson. When Robert came with me, he usually went to the family locker to shower and change clothes.  When Jan brought Robert to the pool, they used men’s locker room.  Over the time, I tried to stay outside while Robert was changing clothes and only peaked if it took him too long to get ready for swimming or for a trip back home.

When Jan was taking Robert to the men’s changing room, he worked on similar skills and more. He wanted Robert to do everything independently beginning from entering the room to entering the pool’s deck and waiting for his lesson.  Under Jan’s directions Robert could not only to do that but also upon finishing lesson he was able to go back to the locker, take a shower, get dresses, and go upstairs to the parents’ waiting area to meet Jan.

Just last Thursday, instead of using the family changing room, I directed Robert toward men’s locker.  I told him to meet me on the other side in the swimming pool.  Robert hesitated but went inside.  I rushed to the pool and waited there. But after a few minutes I decided to wait by the door I left Robert.  I went there and minute later, Robert already in his swimming pants came out.

I think he tried to reconcile two different experiences – going to the pool with me and using different entrance and going to the pool with dad and using men’s locker.  He was not really sure what that change of rules meant for him.  I asked him to go back to the pool by passing again through the men’s changing area. He hesitated, but went there.  I rushed through other door to the pool.  Soon Robert appeared.

It was less confusing for Robert to change after the lesson.  His teacher, Lucinda, pointed to the glass above the pool to show Robert that I was waiting in the same place where dad waited for him last time. Robert accepted that change without any hesitation. He entered the men’s locker and 10 minutes later he met me waiting by the other door. No, I didn’t wait upstairs.  I was too anxious. I went down and waited by the door.  I am not sure how uneasy is separation for Robert.  I know it is still hard for me.

May 12, 2015

Robert had a busy Saturday.  He studied in the morning: fractions, identifying problems, natural resources (What the earth give us?) Later, we all went for a walk to Castle Island in Boston.  We all walked around Pleasure Bay.  As the path led between the bay and the ocean, we all could feel strong,  freezing wind overmatching our spring jackets. There was no time to stop, look, and talk.  We just hurried to escape the cold we subjected ourselves to as we were  fooled by bright sun and a very few clouds we saw at the parking lot.   So there was no explicit teaching there.

In the evening dad took Robert to see the movie Avengers. That was another attempt to have Robert watch more age appropriate features.  Well, Robert was a little scared and in the most scary moment requested to go to the bathroom more for a short break from the tension than for any other reason.  Nonetheless, he overcame his fears, and seemed interested in the action.  At least as interested as his dad was.

On the way home, they stopped at the grocery store to buy a few items.

The most important development of the day (a week, a month, a year) happened between the trip to the Castle Island and the drive to the movie and it had everything to do with an eggplant.

No, on Saturday, Robert didn’t participate with preparing his meal.  He was too tired for that. I made breaded slices of eggplant with mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and many herbs.  Robert began to eat.  I rushed with a napkin, not really believing that it would prevent Robert’s shirt and jeans from being covered with tomato sauce.  Based on past experiences, I knew that it was a lost battle.  Yes, Robert would use the napkin.  But he would use his pants and shirts also.

And that was a problem because Robert hated to change his clothes in the middle of the day.  He had done it in the past when being told, “If you don’t put clean shirt and pants on, you cannot go with us.” That meant no walk in the park, no bike, no restaurant, and no movie.  So Robert would change,but he didn’t like it and demonstrated his displeasure with loud vocalizations, dramatic gestures, and moving back and forth between the drawer with clean clothes and me hoping that I would give up. I never did, but I didn’t like that either.

So this time, as I was handing Robert a napkin I wanted to prepare him for the need to change his clothes after eating.

Giving Robert  ahead warning could later lessen his resistance to change.

“Remember that you need to change your clothes if they get dirty”, I said this as a reminder and left Robert with his eggplant.  Well, 20 minutes later, the eggplant and the sauce were gone, all the dishes were already rinsed in the sink, and Robert’s shirt and pants didn’t have one tomato stain.  Nothing.

May 3, 2015

No, not those kinds of problems.  It is not about  tantrums and not about OCD related problems. It is not about problems with, so-called, behaviors.

It is about dealing with PROBLEMS related to understanding concepts – including the concept of …PROBLEM.

In a school year 2005/2006, when my son was in a Collaborative Program, he often brought home worksheets he completed while having a group speech therapy. Those pages addressed in a very simple ways the deficits in Robert’s pragmatic language. A few of the most suitable pages came from MEER Pictures for Problem Solving by Maureen M. O’Connor and Pamela Patrick Vorce.  I believe that I ordered one of the last copies of the book from Linguisystems. It is currently out of print and my efforts to find if it is still available somewhere proved to be futile.

At that time, I was mostly concerned with teaching academics and although I recognized the value of using MEER curriculum, I stopped after a few units called by the authors more appropriately: “situations” .

I taught what was easiest for me to teach – math and science.  Later I added reading and working on language to fill the void left by the school.  Only occasionally I went back to dealing with understanding problems and problem solving. Sadly, I didn’t use MEER curriculum.

Instead, Robert and I discussed (with a few independently retrieved words and many verbal prompts.) problems and their possible outcomes as they were presented in Jean Gilliam Gaetano Problem Solving Activities. It is rather easy book although sometimes Robert or I became a little confused with the logic of the outcomes.

Still, I felt that something was missing from our conversations. Only lately, I realized that it was possible that Robert didn’t understand the word “problem”. That was a problem in itself and it was made worse by the fact, that I didn’t know how to make Robert appropriate the meaning of this word.

Sadly, I don’t have many ideas of my own in those fields of teaching where I lack expertise.  Language is one of them. I need examples.  I need curricula, I need advise.  So I looked for support and I found it in No Glamour Problem Solving by Linguisystems.  Unlike two previously mentioned workbooks, this one steps up its exercise from easy to difficult rather quickly.  Unlike the previous two books, this one requires student not only to look at the pictures but also to read a short story or listen to the story read by someone else.  That makes everything more complicated for Robert.

At the same time, the first set of exercises required Robert to  identify problems. He had to state, “This is a problem” when the picture presented a crying boy or a broken window.  He had to state “This is not a problem” when a girl was reading a book or a boy wearing a helmet was riding a bike in the park. I didn’t ask why something was a problem as that supposedly harder part was easier for Robert than just pointing to the picture where the problem exists.

After working with No Glamour Problem Solving for a few days, I decided to support our sessions with return to MEER Pictures for Problem Solving precisely because there is no reading or listening to story required.  The story is in the picture  and can be retold by Robert with more or less support from me. It is also possible that the reason I feel more comfortable using MEER is that the pictures allow me to see what Robert sees. I think we are sharing the same visual images. This might not be true when we read the text or listen to each other reading. The mental images we create might be quite different.

Each unit in Meer curriculum consists of one large picture presenting the “situation” or problem and four smaller ones that might or might not relate to it. This format offers opportunity to talk about problems, possible consequences, probable solutions and more.

For Robert who tends to see the life’s event as a linear sequence, in which every event has just one result, being exposed to a few possible outcomes of one situation helps to perceive events as less organized or even messy, but also offering variety of solutions.

Almost a year ago I wrote about Robert’s rules regarding poblanos. I made five.  Robert eats four and dad, if he is at home, eats one. When dad is still at work, Robert places one poblano in the refrigerator with the intention of leaving it for dad. However, the intentions are tricky things, they get weaker with the passing minutes.  So by the time Robert’s dad gets home, poblano is already eaten. Even  the container it was placed in is already rinsed and placed inconspicuously  in the dishwasher. https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/four-poblanos-for-robert-one-for-dad-or-not/

Having that knowledge in mind, I made five poblano on Friday evening. I was sure, Robert would eat four of them, place one in the refrigerator and eat it in the next hour or half of an hour.

The poblano were ready around 6:30.  Robert ate four of them and placed the fifth on a separate plate.  A few minutes later, it still remained there.

Knowing that it might be difficult for Robert to tolerate uneaten poblano, I gave up and suggested that the consume it.

“No, no, no, no”, he responded adding, “Dad, dad, dad.”

Well, that would be a very nice thing indeed, if there were no strings attached.

Robert left the poblano on the plate with the expectation that his dad too, would be so drawn to the dish, and thus  he would appear soon in the kitchen. Robert knew that his dad was in New York. Nonetheless, the power of poblano would easily overcome such a distance.

Except it didn’t. For the whole four hours it didn’t. With every minute Robert became more distressed and upset. He called. “Dad, dad, dad.” almost all the time. Even when he studied with me, from time to time he produced loud high pitch scream that pierced my ears, and shook my whole body. He led me to the poblano and pointing to it with his hand, he demanded that I rectify this unbearable situation. There is poblano for dad, but dad is not there to eat it and Robert does his best to resist, but not without terrible suffering.

Twice, Robert handed me the phone, “Dad, dad, dad”. I called Jan.  He was already in Rhode Island just one hour from home. Robert took the phone from me, “Come home,” he said without prompting and gave me the phone back.

The following hour was as torturous for Robert as it was for me. Maybe, Robert got more hungry, maybe he got more worried about dad, but his high pitch sudden screaming, which he executed every minute or two,  was tearing the air and making me jump.  I just couldn’t get used to it, or prepare myself for it.

Dad got home around 11 PM. Robert noticed the car lights in the driveway, ran to the door and then he came back. He ran downstairs again to unpack dad’s duffel bag and start the laundry.  When he came back upstairs, he glanced nonchalantly at his dad.  Dad was eating poblano. Robert didn’t wait until the poblano was gone, but turned back and went to bed.

April 17-24, 2015

The keys are on two different key chains. Robert wants it this way, and whenever I put them back, he, somehow manages to separates them again. It is a nuisance, as I search the bottom of my purse for the proper car key, I tend to always take the wrong one, then search again. Like I said, that is a nuisance. Moreover, Robert allows his father to keep both keys on one key chain. He doesn’t allow me to do the same.

He still remembers that time in October of 2013 when I placed the wrong car key in the ignition and couldn’t turn it, and couldn’t take it out. That was followed by over four hours of waiting for the AAA, a ride to the dealer, leaving the  car AND the CAR KEY there. Traumatic experience for Robert which I described in:  https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/car-keys-or-lesson-learned-lesson-taught/.

The matter of fact I forgot about this event, which  happened 18 months ago  but Robert obviously not. Not that he doesn’t trust me, but he wants to prevent me from making the same mistake. So far, he did.

April 15, 2015

Yesterday, Robert and I read A Day’s Work by Eve Bunting.  Although I looked for inspiration in The Magic of Stories I quickly realized, that my approach to reading this book with Robert has to be different than it was the case with The Great Kapok Tree.

While reading and discussing the last book I could rely on what Robert was already exposed to (Well, I am not really sure what he learned, only what I tried to teach him.) and on three additional books with many pictures and not too many words. Moreover, I could remind Robert our visits few years before to Rain Forest section of the Cleveland Zoo and the last year visit to see orchids exhibition in the rain forest section of Bronx Biological Garden.  To set the stage for reading I had to just bring these elements together, so we could bring Robert’s life experiences to the text.

From the book however we came out ( I believe) with better understanding of creatures living in a jungle, their complexity of their needs and the richness of resources that the rain forest provides to its inhabitants.

This was not the case with A Day’s Work. I didn’t have any information of Robert’s knowledge of issues related to immigrants coming to United States in need of work.  Maybe somehow he heard his teachers talking about immigrants coming for work, gathering at corners of busy street hoping to be hired for a day work.  Maybe, he learned even more.  However, I never became aware of such a lesson Robert might have taken in the past.

Since I didn’t know what Robert knew, I couldn’t set the stage by bringing Robert’s prior knowledge, and prior experiences to the book.  The only thing I could do was to tell him in as few words as possible (too many words confuse) that many people come to America from other countries to look for work. That they often don’t speak English, so nobody can understand them and they don’t understand others.  (I had a feeling that the part of not being understood hit the nail in Robert’s mind, as too often he is the one who is not understood.) The only way I could relate to other languages was out October? November trip to France and Poland.  Robert heard people speaking in languages he didn’t know.  Without touching on legal/illegal issues I said that often immigrants try to find just the work for one day and hope that someone would need them.  They wait in places where there are many cars passing and many contractors or farmers come.  For instance near hardware stores. I kept repeating the same things as we first looked at the pictures, before we began reading.

I don’t know what Robert understood from this first encounter with the problem.  He understood that they pulled plants instead of weeds.  Did he understand that the boy’s lie caused the problem and the grandfather honesty fixed it.  I am not sure.  But there will be another book someday, and the future would provide more opportunity to learn and to relate to  a book and the life itself.

April 12, 2015

Today, Robert and I read The Great Kapok Tree.  I prepared myself for this book by getting ideas and a couple of graphic organizers from The Magic of Stories.  Of course neither ideas nor graphic organizers are ideal match for Robert.  I also looked for books and websites about trees and rain forest in particular.  To my surprise I found three books in Robert’s bookcase.  Two by Scholastic, and one in 3D I bought in Costco. All of them had many pictures but not many pages or words.  Robert didn’t read, we just talked (mainly I did the talking) about what we saw in the pictures in four books (Including The Great Kapok Tree).   In the afternoon, we finally read the book.  It had an easy to follow structure.  On each page, a different animal spoke to the sleeping woodcutter convincing him not to cut the tree. It was easy for Robert to retell the story,  He did that by turning pages and naming the animals appearing next to the man.

The next book I am planning to read with Robert is “A Day’s Work” . I don’t think it would be easy for Robert to understand the problem.  The boy lies about his grandfather’s skills to make sure that his grandpa finds a work. And yet, I would not know how to present the same general problem without any support from the book.  If we read and properly (?) analyze the book, Robert at least has a chance to become familiar with the issues the boy and his grandpa faced in the story. Without reading, there is no chance to enlarge Robert’s world.

This is similar to the problem I had when Robert was 3, 4, or 5 and I wanted to teach him to put pictures in a proper sequence.  At that time, Robert would not grasp the story behind the set of images, but he had much fewer difficulties placing in order pictures representing stages needed to complete simple drawing – be it a house or a basket with fruit.  At that time I didn’t use those cards to help Robert draw a picture but to help him learn the concept of a sequence.  From that we graduated toward images of children completing an action – building a snowman, carving Jack o’ Lantern, finishing a puzzle, or setting a table.

Retelling The Great Kapok Tree was like putting pictures in a sequence (Although it was also a great exercise in presenting  different perspectives.)  It would be much harder for Robert to understand and retell A Day’s Work. But as I said we have to try.

As I am leading Robert in learning, I also learn myself. I didn’t know what kapok tree was.  I saw pictures of it on web site for the first time. And thus inescapable question, “What is the point of teaching Robert things I haven’t learned myself despite my 61 years on Earth?”

I asked the same question yesterday, when Robert and I were learning new words about ships and boats.  I didn’t know what was hull, keel, or helm.  Of course, I appreciate learning myself as it at least helps me to understand the phrase of someone being at the helm. But if I survived without knowing, why does Robert need to know?  That might be completely useless knowledge for him. Why then I didn’t skip those words in the workbook?

Well, who am I to limit Robert’s exposure to new information.  If there is knowledge that could be accessible to him even in a minimal aspects of it, then I shouldn’t be the one who prohibit him from learning.  I met too many people who believing that if Robert learns one thing then his brain doesn’t have capacity for learning other , more important, things.  That is  why I was laughed at when I admitted, at one point or another, to teaching Robert counting by five,reading maps, understanding calendars, or fractions.

It was sad to see that many educators didn’t understand that learning one thing is not an obstacle to learning something else.  to the contrary, the things you have already learn help you better understand new connections and new concepts.