Today we experimented with colors. We had plastic test tubes (with screw tops - essential) filled with water. We then prompted the students to choose which color we would add to the water (4 choices - blue, green, red and yellow). Typically, these students have voice output devices (cursory explanation: the student selects a word from a display and the device produces the word auditorally). However, only one of the four students currently as his device. The other three devices are currently being serviced. So, the other three shared one we were fixing for another student. Anyway, once all five test tubes had been filled up we added more colors to them to see what colors we could make. So, the academics were really just a facility with which to prompt conversation, and while we didn't do direct instruction about colors, and the process of mixing colors we were able to give them an opportunity to observe science in action. Next time we might increase the complexity and mix food coloring with water and vegetable oil, and then mix the water and oil.
Later on in the day we walked around visiting other classrooms (giving me an idea of the variety of students and skill levels present at Croyden). At the end of the day we help bus the students to their buses. Elizabeth and I went to a middle-high school aged classroom. In that classroom there are no male teachers (fairly common, I think there are a total of three male teachers in the school - but in the speech pathology department there are 2 women and 2 men [with me] an equal split never happens - it's usually 80-90% women). anyway, back on track. In the classroom one of the girls shook my hand hello, and then grabbed it and held it to her cheek. One of her teachers jokingly told her that she shouldn't be flirting with someone she just met. She laughed and smiled. So, I decided to go with it, I told her I liked her sweater, and her hair etc. Her laughter was great! Maybe you had to be there, but seeing and hearing this child with cerebral palsy laugh and engage in a "typical" teenage behavior was remarkable. Many of these children are destined for a life of being forgotten and neglected, and for that instance this child was the center of attention. It was a really good experience, and one I think everyone else should have at sometime.
It's actually really humbling, that 5 minutes of 'flirting' (if you can even call it that) is something she will never get outside of school, and it was the only communicative act occurring at that time. Typically developing teenagers engage in much more subtle flirting as an overlay of oral communication (they flirt with their eyes and not their words), and don't even stop and think about the complexity of their ability to communicate. Even my own communication difficulties cannot hold a candle to the difficulties these people live with. My oral communication may not be as fluid and 'artistic' as a fluent speakers, but I can get a fairly complex message across.
Anyway, off my soap box. In other news, it was a windy day. I like windy days. I saw a blue heron today, and now it's time to go work in my thesis. I'm reading articles about breathing for speech!
2 comments:
2 things.
1. I think it is rather sweet that you were flirting with a teenage girl in order to allow her to feel like a more accepted part of society.
2. That being said, although it is most likely true, I find your prediction for the future lives of Croyden students to be rather depressing. Is there really no other possible futures for these types of students?
These students are the most severe cases in the Kalamazoo County ISD. Many have severe physical impairments as well as their cognitive impairments. Did I mention that the girl I was 'flirting' with had cerebral palsy - which manifests itself with rigid muscle tone (her muscles are constantly tensed - try writing with your arm clutched up against your chest - but she doesn't have any control over the tightness of her muscles).
So for many of these children their physical conditions alone limit their activity.
If you were to go back to the 'ancient' days of psychology in the 1950's these children may (and I stress may) have been classified as "trainable" - meaning they would have been trained for a specific task at a specific job and then incorporated into society. The remainder of these children, if the year were 1950, and not 2007, would have been institutionalized - shut away from the population and never heard from again.
Now, I doubt these children would be classified as trainable because they have language disorders. And, as we have discussed before, intelligence tests assess intelligence through language. Ergo, your typical standardized test is not truly testing intelligence - it is testing linguistic intelligence. (Linguistic intelligence is one of the most advanced form of intelligences that exist). If the tests were to test operational intelligence (performing simple, non-linguistic tasks) these children would score higher scores. The difficulty in testing any intelligence other than linguistic is that somehow you have to get the individual being testing to do the test item - the most efficient way is through language (spoken or written) - and now we have come full circle. How do you test someone's intelligence without using language? We still don't have a good solution.
Anyway, my long overdue point is, that these children face many difficulties in life, and while our society is better at treating these individuals with dignity, we still are not quite to the point of equality yet.
Group homes are a great idea, and I fully endorse them. Many of these people cannot independatly (in our society based on language and linguistic intelligence). And until the day that we, as a society, accept this population of people with open arms, I think their future is rather depressing. It is not a future I would wish on anyone, and yet these are the cards they were dealt in life. They have no choice to to play their hand.
Post a Comment