Room 10 has been on blogosphere hiatus… my apologies to the
faithful followers who are wondering what’s going on with us! It has been a
very difficult last month or so, and the unfortunate part (I’m learning) of
being so open in a digital venue is that some things just can’t be blogged about
in a professional context. Telling
stories related to the kids is the meat and potatoes of what I do here, but the
reality is that not everything that happens in Room 10 is kid-related, and it
makes it hard to paint an accurate picture of how things are going in the room
when I’m limited by professional boundaries. Take from that what you will, but
that’s all I can say…
Moving on…
Thursday was an
amazing day in Room 10. Which is saying
a lot, considering it is almost June, and a Thursday, which means all 6 kids in
the room. Usually Thursdays and Fridays are a mad scramble to keep the kids
engaged and happy, to keep this one away from that one, to keep this one from
imitating the behaviour of that one, etc. Not this week. This Thursday was the
kind of day that I pictured in my head when I asked for this assignment in the
first place…
Everyone arrived happy, which is always a good start. Happy
and calm… hands, feet and everything else to ourselves… One we got all the kids
into the room and engaged in their preferred activities to start the day, I
actually looked around the room and counted twice, just to make sure they were
all there and that I wasn’t missing anyone, it was THAT calm. When we
transitioned to Circle, everyone made it onto the carpet without protest, and
not only sat through circle, but participated happily. Some added calendar
pieces, some sang along and did actions to our little songs, and then when we
broke off to go do work, same thing – smooth as silk.
On Thursdays, I try to make sure I work directly with one of
my students who is only with us two days a week. Her other three days are spent
in IBI – an intensive behaviour therapy program. Because we see her so little, and because her
weeks are so fragmented (3 days at IBI, 2 days at school, 2 days at home,
repeat), it’s been really hard to track if we’re making any progress on learning
goals, and to get a handle on managing behaviours and triggers, since there isn’t
much consistence. I digress…
One of the programs I’ve been working on with a few of the
kids is a reading method developed by Patricia Oelwein (originally for students
with Down’s Syndrome). There is a really
great article describing the basics here,
but the general idea is to build on the relative visual strengths of kids with
ASD (matching) to teach them whole-word recognition, starting with personally
significant words to build meaning and interest, and building to more generalized
language over time. Ideally, attaching meaning to print will help them access
language to read and communicate, even if they have limited or no verbal
output.
For this particular student, I started with classmates’ names.
She is very interested in others and has some verbal, and she loves to name all
her classmates while pointing to their pictures throughout the room. I thought
that would be a good place to start, and I knew that she was already attaching
meaning to the pictures by naming them aloud. So we’ve been working for the
last few months on a variety of matching activities using the names and
pictures, as well as just the names themselves.
Thursday morning, I had chosen the name-matching card with
pictures and without, giving her the immediate memory to work with, and she did
a great job – matched every one and named them correctly on both trials. I was
quite pleased with the whole thing, since this was something new I had been
trying this year and I wasn’t really sure if it would work. In the afternoon
work block, I took out the picture cards entirely, and gave her an activity
with just the words – I knew she would be able to match them correctly, but
would she actually read the names without the pictures for help?
Not only did she name each and every one without hesitation,
but when I asked her to point to the different names, she got those all correct
as well – incredible!
I’m not going to lie – part of the joy was incredible
personal & professional gratification.
There are so few days in Room 10, especially lately, that I actually
feel like a teacher – like I am actually helping students to learn tangible
things that they might not have gotten to without my support. Her success with this activity that I had
chosen, created and worked on with her was immensely satisfying to me as a
teacher.
The other part of the joy was the confirmation that this
method could work – that this first small step in success was just the
beginning of a world of language that would be so valuable to her in
communicating her needs, wants and ideas. What greater learning could there
possibly be in Room 10?
While we’re on success stories, there are all kinds of
little tidbits that have happened recently – just as inspiring in their little
moments as the reading one. Sometimes it
takes this time of year, when report cards and IEP updates are looming, to make
me look at the big picture of our year and see the little successes that have
added up to big progress in our little world.
One of my kids has tactile defensiveness – hates the
pressure of anything on his fingertips, which, if you can imagine, makes it
very hard to do all kinds of everyday things. Typing on a traditional keyboard
was abandoned with him long ago, but he’s a whiz with a mouse and should
finally have an iPad arriving in the next week or so – a year-long project to
help him move to expressive language as well, since a touchscreen takes far
less pressure to manipulate. In the last
few months, he has learned to open his own water bottle and pour his own water
AND to do up his own jacket zipper – huge goals that both home and school have
been working on for years – check. Now if only we could get him to wash his
hands without a fight!
My littlest guy, who used to move when a door was opened and
throw everything he could reach, is also making little miracles. He’s a wiggly little guy and hates having anything
done, and his poor mom asked us long ago for help with anything we could manage
in regard to personal hygiene – I can’t imagine trying to give him a bath! The
first time we tried to cut his nails back in the fall (after several serious
scratching incidents), it was a full-on panic and took three adults helping. Now he sits in my lap and barely protests
while I clip them quickly every other week. This week, we gave him a haircut –
right in the middle of our classroom!
The other kids were fascinated, his mother was thrilled, and he managed
with barely a tear while I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” over and over
again into his ear and one of my staff snipped away as quickly as possible. His first IEP communication goal in September
was to “Indicate interest by activating a cause-and-effect toy spontaneously”. That’s it.
Today, he strings beads, plays with lego, puts together simple puzzles
and even sometimes passes a ball back and forth – way beyond that simple goal
of engagement he started from.
And my “challenge” – the one who was so aggressive that we
had to rip out the sensory room, isolate him from other children, and were
barely getting through our days? Here he is, sitting happily beside another
student, watching a Dora video during free time.
 |
| Side by Side |
Finding the correct medication
in the correct dosage has helped him self-regulate to the point where he’s not
only not aggressive, but he can demonstrate skills we didn’t even know he
had. He follows multi-step instructions,
matches and sorts, communicates through gestures and pictures. He participates in classroom routines, plays
with other kids with a ball or at the water table, went swimming with the other
grade three classes 3 times this month, and is learning to use the iPad. Best
of all, he laughs, smiles and is happy at school. Say what you want about
medication, its advantages and disadvantages, but in his case, it has truly
been life-changing.
As the roller-coaster of Room 10 continues to heave, thank
goodness for this blog – a chance to slow the train down for just a few
minutes, and remind myself why on earth I strapped in in the first place. I suspect it’s easier as a spectator to see
the learning and growth that happens in our room, where you’re not overwhelmed
by being right in the thick of the dizzying ups and downs, but at least this
way, I can look back and enjoy the ride afterwards, even if it’s tough to do in
the moment. June awaits. Bring it on. Hands up, eyes open, and possibly screaming
all the way down… J
