This past fall was my last semester of graduate school. I didn’t have any classes, so I spent 5 days a week at my externship site. I was at the elementary school in our town. The school was about 14 blocks from home, so I was able to walk most days. The school is for kindergarten through second grade with two Special Ed preschool classes. My supervisor has been at the school since the mid-80s! She was an amazing teacher. I learned so much from her.
Most of the kids we served had language or speech problems. We did a lot of assessment of kindergarteners. The kids were great! They were well-behaved and so much fun. I had to create a lesson each week to do with the groups. Because that age group is so focused on literacy, many weeks I went through a book and asked them lots of questions. Therapy was conducted in groups of 2-8 kids.
My favorite group was the preschoolers. The 3-year old preschool class was across the hall from our room, and we were in there quite a bit. According to state law, for every special ed preschooler you have to have a normally-developing peer. Of course the parents decided whether or not their child was normal, which made some interesting situations (there were two boys who were supposed to be normal, but seemed to have some mild autism characteristics). The class had about 14 kids. The special ed kids included 2 boys with autism, a boy with a seizure disorder (and did not speak), a girl with a cleft palate, and a boy with childhood apraxia (we think). The kids loved sitting on the adults laps during circle time. Sometimes I would have 2 or 3 kids trying to sit on my lap at once.
Here are a few funny stories from the semester.
We evaluated a little boy for speech and language. We see his sister for speech, and she is not the brightest light bulb in the box. After talking to the father, I think it might be hereditary. After the testing, the father asked if the boy would need speech. My supervisor said we would have to calculate the scores before we knew. The father said, “Well, if he has a 7 year old brain he won’t need to come to speech.” Then, with a very pronounced lisp and accent said, “I know where he gets his speech impediment from. His mom’s cousin has a real bad country accent.”
Dawson (one of the preschool boys whose mom is the teacher) went with his father to a meeting. The lady had short, dark, and curly hair. Dawson pipes up, “You have dark curly hair just like Miss Melanie!” When they got home the father asked his wife (the preschool teacher), “Who’s Miss Melanie?”
Fall Fun Day was a school-wide day of different activities to celebrate Fall. I helped the preschool class as they went to their various activities. Our first stop was singing and story time in the library. We sang a song, and then a lady portraying Mary Draper Ingalls told her story. Unfortunately, she didn’t do a good job of bringing her story down to a 3 and 4 year old level. Add Special Ed kids in the mix, and it was an interesting time. The kids did a great job paying attention during the first 15-20 minutes. But then attention started to wane. One 4 year old girl lay on the floor and sang the “ABC” song. Our probably-autistic boy started scooting closer and closer to the story teller and eventually had to be held. Thankfully he did not hum much during the story. At one point they passed around sunflower seeds for the kids to eat (since that’s one of the foods Mary found to eat on her way home). I was surprised how many of them like it. Our little syndrome boy devoured his seeds and then held his cup up saying “more” several times (meanwhile the story is still going on). At one point Mary talked about how she was in the river and she didn’t know how to swim. She asked what happens when water goes over your head. Instead of saying “you drown,” Dawson pipes up “You go up to God.” Mary didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Then she asked the kids what language we speak (like they know the answer to that). “Do we speak French?” The 4 year olds say no. “Do we speak Spanish?” The 4 year olds again say no. “Do we speak English?” Our little syndrome boy, who is pretty unintelligible above the one-word level says “no!” Thos of us who know the boy started laughing because listening to him talk you wouldn’t think it was English!
Our final stop on Fall Fun Day was to listen to a man talk about bee keeping. He mentioned honey and then he had some honey for the kids who wanted to try it. One of the aids went around and put it on the finger of the kids who wanted some. Several of the 3 year olds were interested until the honey was put on their finger. One “normal” kid had some sensory issues and started wiping it off on his clothes. The autistic boy gestured that he wanted some, so the aid went and put a large glob on his finger. While they were trying to get him to put his finger in his mouth he freaked out about the texture on his finger. He spastically shook his hand and honey went flying in the air, on the aid who was holding him (who didn’t react because she was probably expecting it) and the aid next to them who freaked out (she helps the other preschool class that isn’t as severe and I think she got some in her hair). It was pretty funny.