Shopping

One of the reasons it is difficult for me to write these posts is that very often, I have to deal with past, present, and the future of the topic I am writing about.  As I am writing, for instance,  about today’s shopping, my mind puts it in the context of the past experiences and old observations. At the same time as I am analyzing what has happened today I also plan the next step to address the issues that I have noticed. To make this post easier to write and, hopefully, clearer, I would try to artificially separate those parts entangled with each other.


1. In the past, most of my energy spent during shopping with Robert went toward keeping him seated in a shopping card, preventing him from escaping and running through the maze of the grocery or toy stores. (I did not dare to take him to department stores alone.) I wrote about the most memorable visit to the store and what followed in https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/all-the-bubbles-in-the-world/

2. For a long time I avoid buying articles of clothing with Robert. I mentioned such avoidance and the way we managed to temporarily address that issue in https://krymarh.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/negotiations/

3.  When Robert was already 17 or 18 years old and still reluctant to leave the store with a purchased shirt or pants, I decided to take Robert to Wal-Mart to buy a shirt. This particular store was across the street from Robert’s favorite (at that time) restaurant, Applebee’s. The restaurant was promised as a reward for buying shirt.  With a few reminders of a possibility of lunch in Applebee’s, Robert resolve not to buy a shirt melted.  We left the store with a shirt and went for a lunch.

4. Robert made a few purchases with his sister, Amanda, and with Mrs. Scott and Erin, his past and present skill instructors. That is important, as Robert often assumes that only one person should do a particular thing with him.

5. In 2011, Robert began to go shopping with his small class.  I observed Robert during one such trip and was very concerned. I thought that the way the teacher was directing Robert impeded any possibility of learning to be independent. Robert did not make one movement without being closely instructed.  He waited for the teacher to lead him to the item and  to point what he had to take. It was painful to watch as it was a regression from what Robert already could do with me.  At that time, I could wait in the end of the aisle while Robert went to fetch a particular item from the shelf in the middle or another end of that aisle.  I could follow a few steps behind him, as Robert went from place to place to  get items on his short shopping list.

6. I gave these suggestions to the teacher, during one of our meetings. I asked for behavioral specialists to write a task analysis, but I don’t think my suggestions were ever followed.  I don’t think any task analysis has been ever written or/and implemented.

7. The strange thing was, that instead of motivating me to work harder with Robert on shopping, this observation deflated my will to work with Robert on independent shopping. I never went to observe again, as I felt my presence was bothering the teacher.

8. This is an important observation.  I noticed that when I see the teachers working with Robert diligently I am very highly motivated to join in and support both Robert and his teachers.  When I see Robert being not taught properly, either by purposeful act or by lack of abilities on part of his educators I lose energy to teach.  I still do teach, but almost forcing myself to do so and with limited strength.  This is another negative result of educational neglect which plagues special education classrooms all over the country.

9. I remember that in 2006, for instance, while shopping in BIG Y, which became Robert favorite store since that time, I asked people bagging groceries, to let Robert do it by himself.  One purpose was to keep him occupied, the second was to let him learn.  I stopped doing that, when a person I asked became very upset.  Only then I realized that this was also a man with disability and his work was his pride I stepped on.

10. As I was going shopping with Robert this summer, we began to use self-check machines.  We mostly go to Stop and Shop, as the registers there are more client friendly than for instance in Shaw’s. (We might practice at Shaw’s at some point too, but not yet.) Robert became pretty skillful at finding bar codes and running them through.  He still needs prompts to push a right buttons when he finishes and/or pays with his card.

11. Upon one such shopping trip, I forgot that we bought fruits that needed weighing and entering a code.  To make matter worse, the code was invisible (red numbers, on a bag full of red cherries).  We had to call for assistance. That made me understand that I have to plan our trips much more diligently and do some preparation before such trip.

12. The things to work on:
a. Buying only items with clearly displayed bar code and working on attending to the direction on the screen.  how to begin and how to finish and pay.

2. Buying only a few items (three would be a good number to start with) which require entering the code and weighing the bag.

3.Buying only items that require entering the code and the number of items (when the price is for each item).

4. Whenever such opportunity arises, we will practice summoning help by pushing right buttons.

5. 6,7and more.    After  we go so far, we will work on mixing the three kinds of groceries together.

Of course, there is also a need for Robert to become more independent with shopping for his clothes. But that is a topic for another post.

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by krymarh on August 17, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 17, 2013

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Recycling, Reusing, Reducing, Recounting Money and Other Gains

Thursday, August 9, 2013

We read a chapter about conservation of natural resources from Real Science Grade 2 by SRA. We followed with taking bottles, cans, and paper to the recycling bin.  We reused two soda bottles by adding a special connector to make a tornado in the bottle.  I kept reminding Robert about turning off TV or Ipad when not in use. He seemed much more willing to do so. It has been a great development as Robert upon waking up turns TV and IPAD on even if he is not watching.  I suspect that he is “waking up” TV and IPAD the same way I am waking him up. Any way, with a prompt, he turned off light, TV, or IPAD.

This way we fulfilled our conservation obligations for a day.  We recycled, reused, and reduced.  In the garage, however, there were still cans and bottles we could return to get  our deposit back.  We  packed them in two large plastic bags and drove, as always, to Stop and Shop.  Only one machine was working. Robert took upon himself to deposit cans, but he ended up confused when the machine became full and stopped accepting cans.  At the customer service we got money ( $1.45) and asked for help.  We waited ten minutes, but nobody came to to fix machines so we took our bags and drove to Big Y.  Robert was a little surprised by the different shape of the machines’ sleeves, but  he found the way they worked entertaining.  He kept taking receipts from machines.  At the beginning he placed them in my purse, but when I told him to put them in his pockets he gladly did so. We went to the customer service desk and Robert exchanged them for cash.  Nine dollars without five cents. He placed them carefully in his wallet. We still had a few bottles which were not accepted in Big Y so we drove to the redemption center and exchanged them for $1.24.

At home, Robert  took money out of his wallet and counted and recounted them a few times.

I, meantime,  reviewed our recycling trip.   I was more than glad that the machines in Stop and Shop did not work.  I was glad, that nobody came to empty them or fix them. That gave me the opportunity to demonstrate to Robert, that things not always work perfectly, but you can still do something about that.  I did anticipate protests that the cans don’t go true,  reluctance to leave Stop and shop with bags still full of cans, hesitation about going to another store, expressing nuisance at stopping at the third place – redemption center.  But Robert was patient, understanding, and accepting world’s imperfections gracefully.

I started suspecting that  Robert too, treated the malfunction of the machines as an opportunity to experience something new, learn more , and demonstrate his own maturity.

I am not sure,  After all, Robert never explains himself.

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by krymarh on August 12, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 12, 2013

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Decisions and Their Consequences

Nothing seemed to shock the good and caring members of the School Committee more than the words of the Sped Director.

After the former superintendent (in 2010) rejected my request for homeschooling, and the district refused to transfer Robert to any other program, I decided to keep Robert at home because:

1. Every day, for at least previous two months, Robert was relegated to a separate desk  with packets of word searches.  That was the essence of his school education.

2.Packets of word searches were also his homework.  He was bringing them home and instead of learning with me, he was spending long  hours diligently trying to complete his assignments.

3. Every few days, I was called to school to pick him up because of severe self abusive behaviors, screaming, or other disruptive actions.

4.He had two aggressive behaviors.  After one, he was brought home on a school bus in the  company of the  vice principal and the special ed teacher.

5.I couldn’t find out what were the circumstances of those incidents, despite trying very hard to learn and understand.

6.Robert was unable to tell me anything.

It was clear that Robert was pushed by unspecified forces into a chasm and then blamed for falling.

Those were the circumstances which resulted in Sped Director warning me that if I would  keep Robert home, she would sue me for Robert’s truancy. It was that warning that  shocked the members of the School Committee.  Of course, what REALLY shook them was the realization that had the SPED Director and the  former Superintendent agreed to homeschooling, the town would had  saved SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much money.  It would be such an easy way for a town to avoid its responsibility for  educating a boy who was, after all, a newcomer.  The boy who has been living in this town for ONLY 16 years  has  remained an alien for all that time.   The members were shocked  not by  my son’s plight but by a devastating  financial decision of the administration.

The only argument the  Sped Director used was that Robert, because of his diagnosis, had to be in school, among other students.  He needed social skills.  He needed to learn to communicate.  I could fight  this argument by pointing to a  terrible record this school district  had in that area during three out of the four years.  But I knew she was right.

Robert should be at school. I knew that because I felt his underlying sadness accompanying our community trips. I knew because of the way he observed  small groups of his peers when two of us went to the zoo or movies.

The other students might have ignored him completely. They might have , with the blessing of the teacher or a teacher’s aide, (but not Mrs. S.) shunned him avoiding even going to gym with him, but Robert wanted to be around them anyway.  He didn’t  know how to attach himself to others by building  a communication net.  He didn’t even know how to answer the simplest question but he loved and longed to be among others.

I love to teach Robert.  He is patient and determined to learn.  It has been  gratifying to watch him trying a skill for the first time, or mastering it.  I know, I can teach him and  show him a lot.  I wouldn’t mind our trips to stores, zoos, museums, parks if  the overwhelming melancholy of a mother pulling her rejected offspring everywhere was not unbearable. Moreover,  I knew that Robert also felt this thin veil of sadness

Over the years, every time the doors to classrooms were shut in front of Robert, he progressed academically and even behaviorally through our intensive learning at home.

That happened in July of 1995, when the  preschool teacher  did not want Robert to attend HER summer program.  That happened in the  summer of 2006 when another teacher who just two months  earlier had  professed to liking Robert so much that she had seen no reason for me to look for another program, chuckled at my suggestion that Robert attends HER summer program.

Both times, while at home,  Robert made huge gains.  And yet, I knew the Sped Director was right.  Robert needed what every human being needs, other people around.

The most importantly, Robert  has to learn to live WITHOUT me.  I cannot teach him that, when I am with him 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  As Robert  ages out of the school system and we have to figure out his adult life, Robert has to have people around.  People who can help him and those whom he can help.  People who understand him and trust him and those he understands and trusts, He needs other people so he can, one way or another, share his life with them.

When in 2010, the Sped Director said, “Robert has to be in school, among his peers.”  She was right. Unfortunately, the only place she allowed him to meet other people was the program,  called Forward,

That is why, this summer, Robert and I drive from one place to another unable to escape surrounding us loneliness and social abandonment.

This is not entirely a result of  the Former Sped director threat to sue me for the truancy or her rigid refusal to let me explore other educational options for Robert.

The  creation, by the School Committee and the high school principal of a  waiting room, called FORWARD, had its consequences.

The creation of such program resulted in pushing students into it, for the simple reasons – it existed and it was the cheapest option  providing custodial care or respite  for students. The students were pushed there not because the program matched their needs, but because it was  there.

For three years, I have been fighting to force this program to educate my son.  To teach him being in group and following group.  To communicate better. To be a better citizen.  To understand the world around him – physical world and human world.  Last year, I finally gave up on that fight after seeing that despite huge emotional toll,  little can change.

But there is also a price to pay for giving up.

My son is not prepared for adulthood. He  is not more ready for adult programs than he was three years ago,  But that is not something the  School Committee members and the Principal would ever be accountable for.  Educational neglect when committed by school district goes unchecked and thus unpunished. No school committee member  is  loosing his or her sleep because of my son’s plight.

I do.

So does Robert.

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by krymarh on August 7, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 7, 2013

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Forgetting Fries in the Science Museum

I promised Robert a trip  to the Science Museum.. He kept asking for it persistently since Monday afternoon.  In the past he kept repeating, “Museum, Museum”  Now he was more precise demanding, “Science Museum”.  Except that his speech was so unclear, that it took me a while to understand him.

In the morning, we studied together mixing subjects and grade levels. Second grade science ( water cycles), fifth grade math ( decimals), and third grade reading. We  followed with our daily routine of  practicing  long vowel  sounds, talking in sentences, expanding them, and asking questions

I planned to leave for the Museum after lunch, but  since  I did not feel well, I waited for my husband to go with us.  During the summer, the Museum remains  opened until 7PM.  We got there a few minutes after five.  Robert immediately pulled his father toward  the cafeteria which, to his chagrin, was already closed and thus did not have fries.  Robert, however,  does not give up  on fries easily.

As we walked through Math section of the Museum watching different surfaces made by the soap bubbles on varied shapes, Robert loudly reminded us about the whole purpose of his trip, “Fries, fries, fries.”

“What did you say?” We taught Robert to answer that question with one word or phrase instead of repeating the same words many times. We pretend  not to understand him, until he says just one word.  Usually, he articulates that one word much clearer than three quickly repeated sounds.

“French Fries” said Robert.

“Robert, we are now in the Museum.  We are not talking about food. We will look at this funny train that goes on both sides of the tracks.”  I pushed the button to demonstrate to Robert  one-sided surface.  He patiently waited until the train stopped and then went to his father.

“Fries, fries, fries”, I heard him from another corner. He was determined and loud.  Robert’s dad was evasive, “No Robert, not now.” “Fries, fries, fries” , Robert mistook  evasiveness for weakness and kept insisting.

I joined them, “We won’t get fries today.   We can go home or stay here and see more.  What do you want, go home or see more?”

“See more”, said Robert, only to ask for fries yet again on the way to the playground section of the Museum.  As it is usually the case, this section is occupied by children even when other parts of the  museum  are  empty.  Robert is too big to mix with excited, running  3, 5,or 10 years old, so instead he checked the strengths of his jumps on the platform connected to the screen by watching the waves he created on the graph.  That caught his attention.  He noticed the connection between his jumps and oscillating curve and kept jumping and watching.  Still, before we reached a section where you build a computer model of a fish,  place it in the water, and direct its movements,  he called for fries, yet again.  This time I ignored it,

We built the fish, maybe even two, and then walked to see other models.  Most of the computers were already abandoned, as the visitors were slowly leaving, so Robert could move from one to another, to another.  And he did.  Sometimes, just for a second or two.  Enough to push a button and see what would happen.  Other times,  he sat and observed longer, as it was the case with computer models of different regions from Alaska to Yosemite. As he moved from monitor to monitor, he forgot to ask for fries.  We wandered through the museum for twenty more minutes searching for the skeleton on the bike and live chicks hatching from eggs.  We stopped at every place that attracted Robert’s attention, and resumed walking as soon as Robert lost interest.   We did not find the skeleton on the bike or live chicks.  Supposedly they were undergoing a renovation whatever that might mean.

We paid for the parking, got in the car and hit the traffic on a way home.

“Fries, fries, fries”, said Robert meekly.  I did not bother to answer.  From the tone of his voice I deduced he had given up on fries already.

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by krymarh on August 4, 2013  •  Permalink
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On What I Wanted and Gave Away.

I made a wrong decision.  I hastily  withdrew my son from the last two weeks of the best program he had in years.  In many ways that was a program that I always wanted for my son.  It was only a summer program but it addressed most of my regular concerns.   I was fully aware that it was  the most appropriate program for my son even as I was making this badly choice.   I am not ready to explain myself, yet, instead I will concentrate on  describing  the differences between Program A (summer) and Program B (regular school year). I do hope against my past disappointments, that there are some teachers,  not even necessary my son’s teachers, who would find this post thoughts provoking.

Program A. Robert was in a group of students not much different from him.  Well, of course they were different, but they had some similar characteristics.   Many of the students were there  previous years as were some of the teachers and their aides. There was some continuation.

Program B. Every year the classroom changes dramatically.  From three students to seven, with very different educational needs.  Teachers change often and so do their work habits. My son differed from other students so much that everybody was aware of it and acted upon that knowledge.  My son was very lonely.

Program A.  Teachers had years of experiences teaching special needs population. One teacher worked there for years, the new one  came with years of experiences from other settings.  They enrich each other perspectives.

Program B  For two of  the teachers, Robert’s classroom was the first they were in charge of. (consecutively, not at the same time) They did not receive any support from other qualified special needs teachers, as they were simply too distant. The third teacher announced that he had never worked with students as difficult as Robert, so I assumed that he did not have relevant experience or training.

Program A. Robert worked in a small group and was able to demonstrate to his teacher and his peers that in some area he is on similar level as his peers.  He showed that he was an ambitious and hard worker.  He learned to be proud of himself.

Program B.  I don’t know much about this aspect.  I know that he worked one on one, and might be in group sometimes.  I don’t know how he presented himself to other students.  This is an important aspect as the way student is perceived by his/her peers affects how they relate to him.  But I don’t know that.

Program A. The teachers communicated with me constantly telling me about good thing and sharing areas of concerns.  I learned that Robert is good at long division but also that his obsessive behaviors   which forced him to close all the doors and drawers was of concern.

Program B.  During the last two years. I don’t remember ever hearing that Robert is good at something or that he has particular  constant behavior problems, which  would require an  intervention or behavioral plan.

Program A. Every week there was a well planned field trip.  Those field trips were taken to places that extended young adults’ horizons – going kayaking, going to Quincy Market for food and history lesson, going to Museum in Rhode Island.  Robert missed, because of my decision, the trip to Kennedy’s’ Library and to Myles Standish State Park.  I regret that deeply, because it is not something his regular school would even consider for Robert.

Program B. The trips from school are mainly to the same places, week after week, and  tend to center around food and restaurants.  Those field trips  don’t extend young people horizons.

Program A.  The speech therapist initiated contact with me both last year and this year.  She is in the classroom almost every day for extended hours. She is familiar with assistive technology, just to mention one aspect of her work

Program B. I had to ask for meetings and observation. Never initiated by therapists. The therapist s came for a very limited hours every week. None of the three speech therapists knew how to program  Chat PC which was bought by school in 2006.  In 2012, it was sent home, broken and unusable. It was only  used as a tool for so-called “communication  repair” and  that means like a typewriter.  The 1.99 APPS called Speak It, can do the same. Although I programmed Chat PC  for school with greeting, basic questions to encourage communication with peers,with presentation about Robert road trip to California I don’t think it was ever used to help Robert communicate.

Finally. after I made this decision.  I informed administration of Program A and Program B.

Program A:  Both teachers wrote e-mails encouraging me to change my mind and asking  Robert to return. Both teachers were concerned with the effect of my decision on Robert.

Program B.  Nobody wrote, nobody called.  It was not surprising.  My decision allowed the school to save money.  And this motivation – to save money – is what affects Robert’s education. Program B, only benefited from Robert’s loss, and my error in judgement. In program B I had to constantly fight for the most basic educational rights.  When I abandoned that fight, the school was only relieved.  And I did not have anybody else but myself to blame.

Of course, I had a reason to withdraw Robert, but that reason had less to do with program A, and much more with 18 years of experiences brought by dealing with Robert’s special education.   That is a thorny path, a slippery slope,  and painful climbing, that leads in cycles  over and over back to the point of entry.

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by krymarh on August 3, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on August 3, 2013

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The Three Times my Son Cried

I don’t think my son cried more than three times in his life.  Yes, there were times when he  screamed often from either unexplainable pain or frustration.  It was hard to witness his distress, even more so because nobody knew for sure what had caused it and how to help. Very hard.  But there was nothing harder than seeing my son cry. I am not counting his baby cries. He cried like babies do.  There was nothing special about those cries and I don’t remember them at all. I remember those three times he cried after he turned 2,

1. Robert cried the night after he had gotten lost in Boston Commons.  ( Don’t Blink) It was only an hour or less, but for his sister, his dad, and for me, it lasted for eternity.  He did not show any signs of distress when he was found  close to the huge playground he remembered from previous visits.  He walked with me trying  to skip and to wiggle out of my hold.  He seemed happy although, he did not appreciate his movements being restricted. It seemed that the whole experience did not have any effect on him.  But that night,  his cry woke us up.  It was a cry of a lost , abandoned, scared soul.

2. He cried another night, just a few years ago.  He shed the same kind of tears of being scared and abandoned.  Maybe he had a nightmare.  Maybe he experienced something during the day, he was not able to share.  Maybe he missed his father who after loosing  job in Massachusetts, worked in California.  Maybe he missed his sister who was studying in Oregon. I did not know.  I still don’t know.  I just held him in my arms until he stopped and  fell asleep.

3.My son’s most excruciating cry was of my doing.  He was twelve years old.  My husband and my daughter went on a two-week long  trip to Mexico.  I don’t remember exactly what had happened that in ther end resulted in my son’s uncontrollable sobbing.  I know  that his crying was preceded by some  OCD behaviors.  I remember  that two different parts of the house needed my immediate attention as there was a leak from the toilet and a broken glass somewhere.  I know that Robert tried to fix everything in his own way which scared me even more.  I remember him going to the garage and getting a plunger.  I  know that I had a feeling of immediate danger.  I was running from one end of the house to another attempting to prevent something.  I don’t remember what it was, but I was exasperated.

And I showed it.

I am not trying to excuse the rumbling which followed by telling that I was exasperated.  I think there is hardly anything worse than showing a child – typical or with special needs – that you are exasperated with him or her.  Nothing worse.  But I was exasperated and I showed it to Robert.

I started rumbling like an angry victim or a prosecutor accusing a criminal. I was like a psychologist coldly diagnosing someone as a psychopath, and thus being beyond redemption.  I was not even  loud but I showed my exasperation in the worst way.   And that was when Robert began to weep.

It was as  if the dam was  suddenly broken and the tears gushed not just from his eyes but straight from his heart.  As if all the emotions, he could not express for the first 11 years of his life, suddenly became unbearable. and broke through iron and concrete fortifications.   He was crying as if he was telling me, “I don’t know how I should live.  I don’t know how to move.  I don’t know where to go.  I don’t know what is my place in this world.  I don’t know who I am. ”

Even now, 10 years later, I still cannot get over that cry.

I am not always sweet mother to him.  I am not afraid to say, “No” to Robert, refuse him something.  I do tell him that I am angry when I am angry and I tell him why.  He is, more or less, tolerating that.  Sometimes, he negotiates his own way, sometimes he accepts my decisions.  Sometimes, by making groaning sounds he shows me that he is angry too. Sometimes I am still exasperated.  But when that happens, I either avoid showing my feelings to Robert, or I tell him precisely  which of his actions made me angry.

I don’t  ever show my EXASPERATION WITH Robert.  Mainly, because I am never exasperated by him. I carry his cry with me all the time.  I understand that everything Robert does, no matter how it looks to those who don’t know him, comes  from his understanding how the world works and his efforts to fit in.  That might be a wrong understanding and it might cause some problems but it is never, never  malicious.

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by krymarh on August 2, 2013  •  Permalink
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As of Today 8

I work with Robert every day and yet I haven’t realized before today that  Robert is not aware of the differences between long and short vowels sounds.  How was it possible that I didn’t know?  I was fooled by the fact that Robert could (?) read since he was 5 years old and that he always had problems with the clarity of his pronunciation.  I worked on extending the sounds of long vowels in his speech and in his reading, but I did not go to the core of the problem.

Robert started reading through Edmark Program that relies heavily on visual discrimination of the whole words.  Because of this method he reads quickly, too quickly to be understood.  There was a time when I asked Robert’s school  to teach him  through Reading Mastery that relies on phonics.   The school started it, but the teacher was not very familiar with method.  Yes, it is a direct instruction, which should be self – explanatory to teachers but it wasn’t and the school switched to something else.  Maybe that was my fault as around that time I bought Horizon Reading to Learn curriculum for home, but I shared it with the school.  I bought it because  it addressed reading comprehension better than any other program and it was not as expensive.  Although in Horizon there were some cues regarding decoding (for instance silent letters were printed in blue), I did not pay much attention to Robert’s clarity or reading.

So years passed by and I was not aware that Robert doesn’t  know that the same letter might evoke two sounds.

Today we were doing simple exercise.  I read the word (without Robert seeing it) and he was supposed to repeat and then tell me what long sound he heard. Finally, he should place the printed word in a proper column. It went rather well, and only twice Robert wanted to put a word under the wrong letter to make the columns equally long.  He was disturbed that the column with “e” had only three words, while the column with “u” had already five.

Later I showed him how silent “e” latter changes the sounds and meaning of the words. ( I did that with my typical (?) daughter when she was in Kindergarten. by the way) He seemed to grasp the concept easily.  Mainly because he knew all those words already.  His pronunciation for cut and cute as for many other similarly constructed words was always a little different, but now I offered him a rule as a support.  He seemed pleasantly satisfied with that information.  But maybe I am reading too much from  his sly grin.

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by krymarh on July 31, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on July 31, 2013

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Finding Animals and Adjectives in the ZOO

July 29, 2013

This morning, Robert and I  drove to the Roger Williams Park and Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island. We left around 9:15 and arrived at the Zoo at 10:00.  Probably because of the weather , the dark clouds hang over Rhode Island,  the Zoo was not as full as it usually is on a summer vacation day.  Since there were not many parents and children to watch (animals and us)  I was much less inhibited in teaching Robert.   I decided to practice describing animals. From time to time, Robert encounters word, “adjectives”.He half knows it, and half he doesn’t.  He is not sure either what the command, “Describe it.” means.  But here in the Zoo, we had all sorts of shapes,  sizes, and colors and more.  We had adjectives by the dozens.

White and black stripes, spotted fur, long back legs   and short front legs, curved horns, straight horns, bent or hooked bills. We had it all:  tall, huge, small and tiny, heavy, fluffy, dry and wet, calm and noisy, sleepy and active, pink, red, green, blue, scary, sharp, cute, ugly, majestic, beautiful, and more.

We have had Zoo membership for 18 years now.  When Robert was six or seven years old, with my help, he made a book about zoo which was also an introduction to sentence building.  On each page of an album there was a picture of an animal, we took at the ZOO and two sentences.  The sentences Robert had to unscramble from cut out printed words.  He looked for capital letter to start the sentence and for a coma to end it.  The sentences were simple:  ” This is an elephant.  The elephant is gray.”  Robert glued the words under the pictures.  He read a book a few times.  More than 15 years ago, that was an easy task for Robert.   But to SAY similar sentences   is much harder, even now when Robert  approaches his 22nd birthday.  It is specially hard when the directions are as mysterious as, “Describe and elephant.”  and relate to a real thing instead of a picture displayed on a table. “The elephant is gray and big.  It has a long trunk.  It has wide ears.  The elephant is heavy.  The elephant has a thin tail.  ”  The sentences come slowly and with a great effort.  Some stuttering, a few omissions and a few misplaced words. It is really a challenging task.

But there is a pay off.  Between all that describing in the ZOO, there is a time and a room for a frozen lemonade.

Watermelon flavor, please.

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by krymarh on July 29, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by krymarh on July 29, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/07/29/finding-animals-and-adjectives-inthe-zoo/

The Evening of Doubts and Regrets

July 26, 2013

Today I did not study with Robert.  We did not do anything.  Anything.  We did not go to the store, we did not go for a walk. We did not read.  Nothing.  I learned that the summer program my son  attends , doesn’t have room for him in the fall.  Of course it is always much more complicated than that.  I have learned to read what the teachers tell me. I know that when the teacher says ” We don’t feel we can help him.” It means “He is too much to handle.”  I know that when the teacher says, that Robert is sweet, the bitter pill will follow.    It is surprising how many times that has already happened.  I usually swallow and end up even more confused.

I swallow  and I get bitter.  I blame myself for being bitter.  Whom else to blame?  I understand the teacher.  It is only six months until Robert leaves the school. That means that after six months there would be a vacancy in the program which has to sustain itself  in those hard times. Moreover, those months require a lot of extra work with transition programing.  Robert has very specific learning profile, probably not matching any other student.  That doesn’t make teaching easier. He has a mother, who writes about his learning for better or worse.  That doesn’t really help either.

I wanted Robert to have a decent program, just for those last six months in the school. I wanted him to have friends who act  more or less like him, experienced teachers who know him and have control over his behavior, a speech therapist who is in the classroom for most of the week.  This is a program my son has been attending during last two summers.  A year and two ago, the same teacher would have welcomed Robert with open arms, but my town’s  Special Ed Director would not hear about sending him there.  Now it is too late.

I couldn’t work with Robert today.  Many thoughts attacked me from different directions.  Many doubts.  Why am I  teaching Robert?  Would his knowledge became useless load?   Am I hurting Robert by teaching him fractions, or calendar and maps skills  when he hardly can talk?  Was it a mistake to increase his hours in the public school from two to the full day? Should I continue teaching him at home for most of the day?  Should I sell the house and move four years ago, when the principal, new teacher and the sped director dragged me through hell in 2010?  Why didn’t I?

What is my responsibility for allowing the school to neglect Robert, to  ignore his IEP,,to  keep him hostage between teachers who did not want to teach him and sped director who did not want to pay for programs that would teach him.  How much better he would be if I  negotiated his release from town’s program or escaped it altogether?

What does our teaching/learning do to Robert?  I know that it makes him more aware and more sensitive to his surroundings .  He better reads people emotions, he gets distressed when other people are angry and confused when other showed exasperation with him.  He reads people better.  But the people don’t read him well. They don’t know what he knows and mainly don’t want to be bothered. He doesn’t have any tools to defends himself against false assumptions.  Am I hurting my son by teaching him?  I am extending his knowledge without improving his ability to communicate it .  That has to make him unhappy, does it? What he will do with everything he learned.  Most of the people will ignore his skills or render them useless just like a few influential people in his school.

I try to equip Robert in skills and knowledge to access the world, the same world  that ignores or dismisses his right to know and understand.

Am I making him even weirder?  So what  am I exactly doing to Robert when I am teaching him?

What?

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by krymarh on July 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Teaching Out of Autism
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Posted by krymarh on July 27, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/07/27/an-evening-of-regrets-and-doubts/

Socrates Does Not Need to Apply. Not Yet.

A few months ago,  I considered writing the post, about  Socratic Method (Although now, I am not sure if this is the appropriate name. ) versus intensive teaching through discrete trials and verbal behavior.  According to this method, as it was presented to me long ago, the teacher, master really, should only help the student to uncover what the student already had in his/her mind.  The teacher was supposed to  lead the student through questions to the truth or, at least,  to the rejections of false assumptions, by showing the student  the consequences of the student’s chain of arguments.

Socratic  method would be impossible to apply to my son’s teaching, because it implicitly requires that the student and the teacher start with the same  core  knowledge and use the similar reasoning strategies.  The student might know  less than his master, might make errors here and there, but the teacher can still rely on some shared knowledge, and shared strategies.

When teaching Robert, however, I have to establish that core knowledge first.  Not  because Robert doesn’t have the basic information or skills, but because I don’ t have a way to access what he knows and how he knows it.  I have to create points of reference before the path for the Socratic Method could be created.

I realized that while I was working with Robert on worksheets addressing reading comprehension.  Since I am not a reading specialist, I treated reading comprehension like a test.  Robert read the text and then was supposed to answer a set  of questions.  They might be questions about specific information provided in the text, about order of events, about characters and settings and so on. But reading comprehension,  measured by Robert’s ability to complete such worksheets, did not improve.  We used old Specific Skills Series for reading comprehension from SRA, where every sub skill: finding main idea, details, making inferences, reconstructing order of events and so on,  was addressed separately through one of the little  workbooks.  This did not seem to help.  Or at least I did not see an improvement.

A year or so ago from one of the  parents’ lists I learned about the book The Power of Retelling by Vicki Benson and Carrice Cummins. Not much later, I became also familiar with   The Power of Stories by Carol J. Strong and Kelly Hoggan North. Sadly, I couldn’t fallow the procedures described in any of the two books  because of Robert’s learning profile and my shortcomings as a reading instructor.  Nonetheless, those two books forced me to rethink the way I (and the school) introduced reading to Robert.  I knew years ago, that one of the problem with reading comprehension Robert had was created by the fact that  he did not have any of those reference points that most of the five, six,or  seven years old have, when they start reading.  They recognize in texts  elements that are familiar  either  from their lives or  the stories they heard before.  The early reading mostly reshuffles familiar words, well-known phrases, or parts of their own simple experiences.  This, the  early reading comprehension depends on the child’s ability to utilize  language in finding familiar things in the text.  Only later, the reading is used to introduce new concepts. In the first phase, the  child finds it thrilling to discover variation of his/her language world in a story.

Robert did not have those reference points.  Maybe he had them, but I did not know the way to find them and use them.  The best I could do to help him understand the story  was to write synonyms above new words as we went on reading.

Terrible!

After reading the books I mentioned above, I realized the obvious. Each reading  should be well planned ahead.  Most of the new words should be introduced BEFORE reading, as Robert is not capable yet to deduce their meaning from the sentence.  Maybe one day he will, but not yet.  The story might be summarized before reading. The characters should be introduced and the relations between them clarified. The illustration should be talked about as a way to make prediction about what the story might be about.  A child’s experiences, if relevant, could be recalled.

This is what every good teacher does while teaching typical children.  I am not sure, however,  if any teacher did that with Robert.

I know that Robert’s participation in such preparations is limited  to a few singular words, very simple phrases, a few repetitions of what I have said.  Nonetheless, attention is crucial. When Robert enters the story, he has to discover familiar or, at least, predictable world that would not scare him away or make him feel alienated and lost.

In no way I try to undermine importance of retelling, of drawing story maps,or  filling graphing organizers.  They are important  part of understanding a story, assimilating it and adding it to  one’s life. All those techniques are used after reading.   Writing about them here, would make this long post even longer.

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by krymarh on July 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Teaching Out of Autism
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Posted by krymarh on July 25, 2013

https://krymarh.com/2013/07/25/socrates-does-not-need-to-apply-not-yet/

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