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special education

The goal of the assignment

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On nearly every evaluation that I write, in nearly every IEP meeting that I attend, I talk about that phrase: the goal of the assignment.

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Imagine that you are being taught how to juggle. You are taught the movement with your hands and the pattern. “Now,” they tell you, “we’re going to practice.” During your practice, they keep reminding you about the order of your arms and where to throw the balls. But they keep telling you to do other things, too. “Come on,” they say. “You need to be balancing on one foot the entire time.” When you try to balance, you drop all the balls. They remind you again of the order. “Don’t forget to smile,” they tell you. “You need to be smiling while you’re balancing and juggling.” You try to smile but then you can’t balance and you certainly can’t juggle. In fact, you can’t do anything right. You leave feeling defeated.

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That is how our kids feel at school. Once they start to learn one skill, they are quickly asked to do it in conjunction with other skills – none of which they are confident and proficient in on their own, let alone combined.

During testing, both formal and informal, nearly every single one of my kids comes out the same way: when comprehension is measured without the addition of decoding demands, they show a higher comprehension level.

An explanation:

The kids I work with have language and learning challenges. Many of them have a language disorder, many of them have dyslexia or other reading disorders. I have an 8th grader who comprehends at a 2nd grade level, and many of our 4th graders are still learning sounds that make up digraphs and trigraphs (-dge, ch-). Amidst their learning what the letters sound like, what the sound combinations are, they are also practicing comprehension – understanding what the words mean. And, without question, this is where the breakdown occurs.

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Imagine you are an English speaker, learning Hebrew. You have learned the symbols and letters and sometimes remember a few sight words: animals, colors, clothing. Now, you are given a paragraph. I can do this, you think to yourself. You spend every ounce of brain energy remembering the letters, sounding out the consonants and vowels, putting the sounds together, word after word after word. You read the entire thing. Yes! I did it. Then your teacher smiles, and says, “Okay, great reading. Now, we are going to answer some comprehension questions about what you read.” What? you think to yourself. I have no idea what that meant. You go through it a second time. You blend consonants and vowels. You sometimes forget how to pronounce a letter and get corrected. You have a word done. Oh, you think to yourself.  I don’t even know what that word means. You try to re-read it, seeing if it’ll jog your memory, but you have to just sound it out all over again. You think it means “dog.” You get to the next word. It takes you so long to sound it out correctly that, you’ve forgotten what the word before it meant.

You’re exhausted. You’re defeated. You feel stupid and unsuccessful.

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This is what happens to my kids. Whenever possible, the goal of the assignment needs to be determined, I write in my evaluation reports. If the goal is decoding [sounding out words, blending sounds together], Jen should work on such skills without being asked to comprehend. If the goal is comprehension [making meaning/demonstrating understanding of a piece of text], Jen should have access to text-to-speech, or have a teacher/parent read the text to her, effectively bypassing her decoding deficits and truly focusing in on what she can comprehend. If decoding and comprehension are worked on simultaneously, Jen will likely demonstrate a lower level of comprehension, as all of her energy will be spent decoding.

So, I will continue to recommend, suggest, encourage: determine the goal of the assignment.

If the goal is neatness of handwriting, ignore incorrect spelling.

If the goal is comprehension, read the text to them.

If the goal is expression of ideas, let them say their answers aloud instead of writing.

If the goal is juggling, ignore their posture.

Determine the goal.

What he says vs. what he means

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Joey came into camp a few days ago, dressed in his normal shorts and t-shirt. It was “Superhero” day at camp, and many campers and staff were wearing various superhero shirts or capes. Theme days are not Joey’s thing, nor have they ever been. He observed what everyone was wearing, and told me, “I didn’t wear a superhero shirt.” I nodded, and reminded him that was okay.

He looked around, and then came back to me, saying, “People who didn’t wear superhero clothes are stupid.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Are you kind of wishing you had worn a superhero shirt?”

“Yes.” he nodded.

“So, you could say, ‘I’m a little disappointed I didn’t dress up today.'” I offered.

“Yeah,” he replied, and went up to his group leader, saying, “I kinda wish I had dressed up today.”

Two kids in Joey’s group hadn’t arrived yet. Joey asked me where they were and I told him they weren’t there yet.

“They’re sick.” He stated. “They got hit by a car. They’re dead. I hate them anyway.”

“Do you feel nervous because you’re not sure where they are?” I asked.

He nodded.

Later, once they had shown up, he told them, “I didn’t know where you were! Are you sick?”

Two options are present during free time after lunch. Part of the group is playing a soccer game and part is batting a beach ball back and forth. Joey is deciding what to do. He chooses soccer, then beach ball, and finally decides on soccer.

“Besides,” he tells me, “Beach ball is dumb anyway. I hate it. So it’s fine to choose soccer. Because people who play beach ball are dumb losers.”

“You know what? It’s okay to like both, and just pick one. Because another day, you could play beach ball. You can like both things.” I suggested.

“True,” he nodded. He ran over to the group. “I’m going to play soccer today and beach ball another day!”

The thing is, I know Joey really well. I can predict his every move, and I know exactly what he is thinking and when there is a disconnect between his thoughts and the words that come out of his mouth. It’s not always that easy, especially when it’s a new kid that we’re working with.

But the idea remains the same. That words are not always reliable for our kids – special ed kids, kids on the spectrum, kids with ADHD, kids with language disorders. Especially in an emotional moment, not all words are accessible. Have you ever been so mad that you just freeze because you can’t even get any words out of your mouth?

Sometimes when kids say one thing, they’re trying to tell us something else. Sometimes when a kid looks like they’re being rude, disobedient, or defiant, they’re really feeling a myriad of other emotions and don’t have access to those concepts to tell us. And yes – sometimes kids are being those things. But the idea is that we don’t jump to that conclusion right away. We think through the options first. We consider their profile, their neurology, their diagnoses. We wonder if their behavior is telling us something. We wonder if they are using those words as a placeholder to convey something else. We check in with them. We offer them language and see if they take it. More often than not, you’d be surprised – a kid will take the words you give them if they match, and won’t take them if they are an inaccurate portrayal of what they’re feeling.

If I had handled any of those 3 situations by telling Joey, “That is unacceptable behavior, you need a time out, you can’t say things like that,” nothing would have been accomplished. And of course – we still do process and explain. We give him friendly words to say instead of unfriendly/mean ones. We explain, “When you say ‘I hate them anyway’ it makes me think you’re trying to be mean. Are you?” If a mean comment is directed towards a kid, we explain to him why he needs to apologize, and what it might make the other kid think when he says mean words. We process, over and over again, the different ways to express feelings and thoughts, trying to build new neurologic and linguistic connections.

But we don’t punish. Because what’s the point? When the reason for the seemingly hurtful words is actually a lack of ability to express oneself, we need to teach strategies for accessing those words and concepts. And appreciate that they are even attempting to communicate in the first place.

The best story ever

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I just have to share this with you all, because I love every single thing about it.
In speech/language therapy, some of my kids have been working on story elements – characters, setting, problem, solution. Last week and this week, they planned out their own story or comic, and then turned their story elements into an actual story. The goal of this activity was not to have perfect grammar or punctuation or spelling; we were focused on including salient story elements. Consequently, one of my fourth-grade kids wrote an amazing story, in which his own adorably unique use of words, grammar, and syntax, shined through. He wrote it as a “Flow Map” (step-by-step boxes) but it isn’t uploading well so I’m just going to type it into 6 small paragraphs.

Enjoy :)

The Story
Once upon a time in N.O.L.A. there are a family “lets meet the fam they are awesome the firt one is the twins Lucas and Joe they love to hang out with me.” “then there is that girl named Amanda she loves to play ball with me”. The mom and the dad and the cat. The Dad’s name is Ethan the mom’s name is Jenny and the cat’s name is Mazie. The cat Mazie is mi hermano.

When they woke up this morning there is some wind blowing hard and there is making a lot of storms. Baton Rouge is starting to flood. And Mike and Mazie have superpowers, and they can save the day. And then they can solve it.

During the hurricane we are outside to try to stop the hurricane but suddenly we heard an evil laugh. It was Schweinstiger the evil cat who makes storms and hurricanes. Schweinsteiger says “we are going to make the lower southeast region ruined!! hahahaha!!”

They said “never!!” And then Schweinsteiger was trying to attack them with his storm powers. Then they are dodging. Suddenly Mazie the cat got hurt by this lightning. Mike said “Are you okay?” Mazie said “is this god?” Mike said “No it’s me Mike! We need to stop Schweinsteiger making hurricanes to make the Gulf of Mexico have no more hurricanes!” And then they went back home quickly and tried to get them into their superpowers.

They are trying to stop them and then Schweinsteiger has really good dodging! They were trying to attack him and his health is 92…80…75…62…55…48…30…27…18…1…then Schweinsteiger is dead! But then there is still wind going on. How are we supposed to stop the wind? Our house is about to flood. And we have no power! Mike has magic and he made the weather sunny to make it warm and replace it and the rains are going back p to the sky and the floods are going back up to the sky and then they put it on the newspaper. The newspaper is called Hero Dog and then everyone was cheering and has pictures and some viral videos of it. And that’s the end of the story! No more hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The End.

Credits:
George Lopez as Mike the Dog
Jennifer Lopez as Mazie the Cat
Kiefer Sutherland ais Schweinsteiger the Evil Cat
Meghan Trainor as Jenny (mom)
Nick Jonas is Ethan (dad)
Ariana Grande is Amanda (daughter)
Chris Brown is Lucas (brother)
Jason Derulo is Joe (brother)

The contraction “let’s”

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One of my 4th grade groups is learning about contractions. They all know what they are, but one very rigid, very anxious student refuses to use them in writing (and often in speaking), just because he likes saying both words better. And another misuses them, saying “I’m” instead of “I’ve”. So it was time for a re-teach and review.

We went through what each contraction stands for, we practiced taking each one apart and putting it together, and everyone was getting the hang of things (despite my anxious little guy, constantly checking, “But I do not have to use contractions, right???”). Then we got to the contraction let’s. We talked about how it stands for let us, but how most people say Let’s because Let us go play on the swings or Let us play a game sounds kind of strange, and it sounds more regular to say Let’s go play on the swings or Let’s play a game.

One of the students raised his hand. “This is kind of off topic, but…. [the number of times I hear that statement in a day…!] well, it’s kind of on topic. It’s about the contraction let’s.” I told him to go ahead and share.

“Well, you know how we just learned that it stands for let us?” he began. “So that means it’s what more than one person is doing, not just one person. But sometimes people use it wrong. And, I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful. But teachers use it wrong all of the time.”

I was intrigued and asked him what he meant.

“Well, when a kid forgets to take out a pencil, teachers always say Let’s get out pencils now when it’s not the teacher that has to get one out, it’s just the kid. Or if a kid is having a hard time, the teacher says Let’s take some deep breaths even though the teacher doesn’t need to take deep breaths. You guys always say stuff like that. And I think I know why. It’s because it makes a kid feel better. If you tell them You need to get a pencil out or You need to take a deep breath it can sound kind of rude, you know? Like you’re singling the kid out. But when you use let’s, it makes everyone feel better, cause it makes them feel like they’re not the only one. It’s like everyone’s on a team and all working on things together. And so I think it’s a good thing you do that. Because it’s much nicer.”

I was speechless. “Wow,” I told him. “You are so right. Teachers absolutely do that, and I am so impressed that you were able to figure out why. I’m so glad it makes you feel better when teachers say that.”

“And,” he continued. “Well, you know how I love Minecraft and I have my own server? Well, sometimes players break the rules or something. They might swear or do something not good. So I tried using that. And I tell them Let’s not use swears. And it works! And I think they listen way better than they would if I told them You can’t swear.”

At that point I had to move on, because one student had started singing a Maroon 5 song, another one was humming the Mario theme song, and the third was increasingly unhappy that we were slightly off topic. You know, the usual.

But three days later, I can’t stop thinking about that incredible, amazing exchange.

“I’m confusing”

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One night while we were in Florida, we went to dinner at an old favorite restaurant. It’s buffet style, and I was at the dessert station. After thinking of the greatest dessert idea ever, I put vanilla ice cream in my bowl and waited in line to top it with apple cobbler. In front of me in line was a boy, probably about 9 years old. He was attempting to scoop apple cobbler onto his already overflowing bowl of ice cream. After a few minutes of determination, he noticed me waiting, gave me a huge grin, and said, “Sorry!”

“That’s okay,” I replied. “I had the same idea as you.”

“My mom makes apple cobbler!” he informed me.

“Cool. My mom makes blueberry crisp.”

He continued scooping cobbler, and as he tried to use his hand to get the cobbler from the spoon to his bowl, his finger touched the ice cream and he squealed.

“It just felt hot and cold at the same time!” he exclaimed. “The ice cream was cold and the cobbler was hot! That was confusing!” He thought for a moment, and then added, “Just like me. I’m confusing.”

“I’m confusing, too.” I told him.

He smiled at me, got his spoonful of cobbler, and went back to his family. And I got my cobbler, went back to my family, smiling all the way.

“That’s private!”

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The concept of “privacy” is a hard one to teach. It’s a very abstract concept, that has many exceptions, and no one hard-and-fast rule. Most of our special needs cherubs, especially those on the spectrum, thrive on hard-and-fast rules, and exceptions are tricky. Abstract concepts, like privacy, are hard for our kids to understand and generalize. They may act in ways that seem disrespectful or rude, but really, they just don’t understand. This may look like a kid who picks his nose in front of his classmates; a kid who scratches himself in private areas in the middle of the lunchroom; a kid who shares exactly what he did in the bathroom; a teenager who announces to the class that she has her period. This is a kid who might have heard, many times, from many adults: “That’s rude,” “Don’t say that,” “That’s inappropriate.” The problem is – those terms are equally as abstract and confusing, and have just as many exceptions to the rule. If a child is picking his nose during class, and hears, “Don’t do that,” it may be unclear to the child exactly what you’re saying. Should he not pick his nose in this specific class? Should he not pick his nose right now but he could in a few minutes? Is nose-picking in its entirety something he should never do? These are answers that you or I might have figured out on our own when we were kids, but neurologically, his brain doesn’t make those conclusions. Can you imagine how stressful and anxiety-provoking that would be, to just not understand?

Sometimes, when we start to really teach and explain the concept of privacy, the pendulum swings to the other extreme. Instead of sharing every single bodily function, nothing gets shared. Everything is overgeneralized to being “private.” This is when you ask the kid what he had for dinner last night and he said, “I don’t want to talk about it, that’s private.” Or when a parent asks his son what he has for homework, and the response is, “That’s personal.” It’s when the student tells you, multiple times throughout the week, “I need to talk to you in the hall” and what he needed to say was either, “Max is absent today,” or “I have P.E. next,” – none of which are actually private. But the drastic shift shows that he’s working on it, trying to get his brain to understand.

As with so many of the concepts that we try to teach our kids, perspective-taking is an underlying necessity. If you think about how you act in your own day-to-day life, the reason you don’t walk into a meeting and announce your bathroom habits is because it’s rude and inappropriate, sure, but ultimately it’s because others would have weird thoughts about you. And those weird thoughts may lead to a short-term and/or long-term consequence about how your colleagues view you. Without even realizing it, in a split second you evaluate what you want to say, then evaluate the situation, realize that in this specific situation, saying what you want to say would result in others having weird thoughts, and you decide not to say it. And you do this automatically.

But our kids don’t. So we talk them through it. We say to them, “Hey Noelle? When you keep tapping Sam on the shoulder, he might have a frustrated thought. He is trying to work, and it is very distracting to him to keep being tapped.” We say, “Noah, when you pick your nose at the lunch table it makes the other kids have grossed-out thoughts. They might feel they don’t want to sit with you if you’re picking your nose.” We label various settings. We say, “Sarah – this is an unexpected time to be making people laugh, because we are trying to work. You can save your joke for lunch time; that would be a more expected time to make people laugh.”

We teach our kids that actually, everything is expected and unexpected at one point, which is why curricula like Social Thinking® are so helpful, because they don’t tie our kids down to a set of rules that in reality have a million exceptions. Instead of teaching them what to do, we teach them how to think so that they can figure out what to do. We teach our kiddo that if he runs into my therapy room and announces to the group that he just had an accident in the bathroom, the other students will have uncomfortable thoughts, because having an accident is private, since it’s about his own body and bathroom-related issues, and other kids don’t want or need to hear about that. And we don’t teach him that punitively, we teach it factually, in a calm voice. We then give him the flip side, which is to label what he could do, and how he could think about it. We explain that announcing that he had an accident to a teacher, after she is in the hall away from other people, is completely expected in that situation, and would not make the teacher have any uncomfortable thoughts; the teacher would have happy thoughts and proud thoughts and the teacher would help him solve this problem (i.e., call the nurse). So it is not as though telling someone he had an accident is always unexpected or never “okay”. It just depends on where, with whom, etc. And that’s what we teach. And our kids need help, and they need to be talked through it time and time again. But they get it. They can get it. And they learn how to think and consequently how to act and then they are more independent, and more successful. And that’s, well, just awesome.

Talking ‘Bout the Brain

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Sometimes something just works and feels right. And maybe there’s no evidence-based practice, but I feel it, and I notice the shift in energy and connection and action, so I run with it.

I’ve been talking about my students’ brains a lot.
I think it helps them understand.
I’ve noticed a shift.

In the past, when I’ve said things like, “Kelly, it looks like you’re not paying attention” or “Kelly, are you paying attention?” the response is usually defensive, anxiety-filled, or frustrated. “I am paying attention!” Kelly will say, even if we both know she’s not. When I’ve said, “Kelly, it looks like your brain is thinking about another thought” or “Kelly, is your brain distracting you?” more often than not, she will agree, and accept ideas to re-focus.

Really, it’s just a subtle shift. From “you” to “your brain”. But for whatever reason, it’s working. I wonder if it’s because it allows them to accept their actions from one step removed. It lets them understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. It doesn’t mean letting them off the hook, it doesn’t mean telling them they “can’t help it”. It just gives them a little cushioning to accept that yes, they are behaving in this way, yes, they are speaking in this way, yes, they are acting in this way, and it’s okay. It reassures them that they are not intrinsically “bad” (which is often how a lot of our special ed. kids portray themselves and name as the reason for their struggles), but their brain causes them to act in certain ways. It gives them a reason for why. And it seems to help them be more open to trying to get past whatever obstacles their brain is throwing their way. I’ve noticed a shift in their willingness to embrace their actions, and work to find strategies to bypass the obstacles.

So I say things like:
“Did your brain forget that word?”
“Looks like your brain is thinking about something else”
“Tell your brain that we’re moving on from that topic”

Remember Joey? (We still do the silly 911 script at least once during each speech/language therapy session – he now takes the “phone” from me and sometimes talks to “911” himself.)

I’ve been using the “brain” terminology with him, and he took it and ran with it. Joey used to push, giggle, or yell when he felt something. If anyone asked him why, he couldn’t identify a reason. He would say, “I’m not sure” or “I felt like it.” Now, he can often say, “Because I’m worried about _______” or “Because I’m mad about ______.” And, sometimes, even before he starts to push, giggle, or yell, he will say, “My brain is feeling worried” or “My brain is feeling disappointed.” (Do you see how huge that is for him? To identify how he’s feeling.) And that has evolved into a script, too.

He will say, “My brain is feeling disappointed” [or whatever he is feeling]
Then he says, to me, “Be like, ‘Brain? Why are you feeling disappointed?’”
So I say, “Brain? Why are you feeling disappointed?”
And he says, “Brain says, ‘Because it’s not my day to use the ipad’” [or whatever reason]
Then it’s my turn, because he’s still learning. So I say, “Hmm. I have an idea. What if we tell your brain, ‘Brain, it makes sense that you are feeling disappointed. What if we take a few deep breaths and remind your brain that you get to use the ipad tomorrow?’” [or whatever suggestion is pertinent]
Then he usually nods, and grins, and we move on.

And it’s working. For now. And when things work, I keep it going.