Teachers like them....
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JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I was totally unprepared and ignorant when my child was diagnosed with a speech delay. The research is ongoing, but the main school of thought believes it a genetic condition. Meaning, it is almost entirely inherited.
A speech delay is just that….a delay in speaking. My son can say probably 20 words clearly while other “normal” kids can say well over 100. As with most kids having this delay, his receptive language is higher than normal. Meaning, he’s a very smart cookie. There just seems to be a disconnect between his brain and his tongue.
I won’t go into the dozens of tests, home visits and appointments undergone just to come up with this diagnosis. Once diagnosed at two, he was eligible for “early intervention.” A state program for speech delayed kids his age twice a week for two hours each session. All the play is centered around speaking.
Now that he is turning three, the local school district has to take over as early intervention is for 2 and younger. More interviews, home visits, hearing tests, meetings, etc etc.
He started last week. He goes 4 days a week, two hours a day. He hates it because he doesn’t like being away from me. I hate it because I stopped my career to raise my kids and not have to force them into a pre school situation too early. But he has to go. I’ve worked with him all his life and still this delay.
The wing at the elementary he now attends is devoted to pre-school (they call it that because there are 12 kids per class and 8 are delayed and 4 are not). The “are not delayed” kids get a significant discount, meaning they pay like $100 a month total. My son goes for free. Next year the classes will be 6 delayed and 6 not delayed kids in each class. The thought is the not delayed kids will talk a lot and the delayed kids will want to mimic.
I dunno. We talk a LOT in this house, non stop. He never really has much to say.
Anyway, last Monday was his first day. I walked him into the hall and almost turned around and walked back out. There are 15 classrooms down this hall and his is the last one. There were freaky looking apparatuses and wheel chairs up and down the hall.
You see, this wing is devoted to all developmental delays. There are kids who can’t walk, who can’t talk, who can’t see, who can’t hear, and some of them can’t do ANY of those things.
It’s speech therapy, physical therapy, mental therapy and social therapy.
As I walked down the little hallway I became increasingly sure my son did not belong. He is smart. He is above average in everything academic except speaking. I wasn’t sure I wanted him exposed to 5 year olds who can’t walk or use the bathroom on their own. Not to mention the kids who have oxygen tubes permanently inserted in their little noses and hanging on the back of their wheel chairs.
Yeah. Not something I knew about myself until that moment.
Here’s one worse. When we arrived at his class, I took quick inventory. All the kids appeared normal except two. One kid is about 4 but can’t walk or talk or sit on his own. They say he’s not retarded but has some kind of disease that keeps him from controlling his muscles. The second kid, can’t tell if it’s a boy or girl, has a “stretched” face. Meaning, it looks like the child’s face was melted and his/her eyes are pulled way back and the nose is askew as if it might fall to the side toward the ear at any moment.
The teacher reassured me, and I left. But I came back a half hour later and watched through the little window on the heavy wooden door. The class is run like any other pre school class. There is “centers” with reading, free play, class leader, singing, colors, snack, counting etc.
The kids in my son’s class are all about 4 (so way ahead of him). But as I watched I noticed several of them taking him under their wing. They could all speak well, but I guess not as well as they should? So I watched. Every day last week I stood outside the door for almost two hours and watched.
Today I watched.
As I am out in the hall I see therapists and teachers coming and going from the other rooms. The kids are older in the other rooms, and usually louder. I watch everyday as these women, because there is not one single man among them, teach these kids.
But you know what else they do? They wipe up drool. They clean up barf. They wipe snot off the faces of 5-6-7 year olds. They change diapers for these older kids, and they do it with a SMILE. They walk endless miles up and down the institutional green and white hallways helping kids learn to walk on crutches, learn to walk on braces, learn to crawl. They work around wires and tubes and all manner of body fluids to get at the child beneath it.
I watch, and I listen. It’s not an act, it’s real. They speak in loving tones to these kids not just in the class, but when they are alone with them and unaware I am standing in the alcove listening.
And they touch. My son cries when I leave. All his little friends try to comfort him, but his teacher picks him up and gives lots of hugs.
The school is crumbling. They got the worst wing in it. The tools they use for physical therapy have more duct tape and PVC pipe than metal. There is one speech therapist for 50 kids and yet she sees every single one of them once a week. She knows every kid in that hall by name, and they know her.
I don’t understand how these women do it. And not just do it, but do it with grace, with smiles, with ~gasp~ love on their faces.
I am told by our personal speech therapist my son will outgrow his delay by kindergarten and it will not effect him there after. Then he will leave the halls of this preschool and head to the halls of his brother’s elementary. There hugs are frowned on, and there will be no strange looking miniature PVC and duct tape walkers with wheels in the hall, no spare oxygen carriers with black straps and shiny metal wheels…..
But most of all, there won’t be love, and grace......
and teachers like them.
A speech delay is just that….a delay in speaking. My son can say probably 20 words clearly while other “normal” kids can say well over 100. As with most kids having this delay, his receptive language is higher than normal. Meaning, he’s a very smart cookie. There just seems to be a disconnect between his brain and his tongue.
I won’t go into the dozens of tests, home visits and appointments undergone just to come up with this diagnosis. Once diagnosed at two, he was eligible for “early intervention.” A state program for speech delayed kids his age twice a week for two hours each session. All the play is centered around speaking.
Now that he is turning three, the local school district has to take over as early intervention is for 2 and younger. More interviews, home visits, hearing tests, meetings, etc etc.
He started last week. He goes 4 days a week, two hours a day. He hates it because he doesn’t like being away from me. I hate it because I stopped my career to raise my kids and not have to force them into a pre school situation too early. But he has to go. I’ve worked with him all his life and still this delay.
The wing at the elementary he now attends is devoted to pre-school (they call it that because there are 12 kids per class and 8 are delayed and 4 are not). The “are not delayed” kids get a significant discount, meaning they pay like $100 a month total. My son goes for free. Next year the classes will be 6 delayed and 6 not delayed kids in each class. The thought is the not delayed kids will talk a lot and the delayed kids will want to mimic.
I dunno. We talk a LOT in this house, non stop. He never really has much to say.
Anyway, last Monday was his first day. I walked him into the hall and almost turned around and walked back out. There are 15 classrooms down this hall and his is the last one. There were freaky looking apparatuses and wheel chairs up and down the hall.
You see, this wing is devoted to all developmental delays. There are kids who can’t walk, who can’t talk, who can’t see, who can’t hear, and some of them can’t do ANY of those things.
It’s speech therapy, physical therapy, mental therapy and social therapy.
As I walked down the little hallway I became increasingly sure my son did not belong. He is smart. He is above average in everything academic except speaking. I wasn’t sure I wanted him exposed to 5 year olds who can’t walk or use the bathroom on their own. Not to mention the kids who have oxygen tubes permanently inserted in their little noses and hanging on the back of their wheel chairs.
Yeah. Not something I knew about myself until that moment.
Here’s one worse. When we arrived at his class, I took quick inventory. All the kids appeared normal except two. One kid is about 4 but can’t walk or talk or sit on his own. They say he’s not retarded but has some kind of disease that keeps him from controlling his muscles. The second kid, can’t tell if it’s a boy or girl, has a “stretched” face. Meaning, it looks like the child’s face was melted and his/her eyes are pulled way back and the nose is askew as if it might fall to the side toward the ear at any moment.
The teacher reassured me, and I left. But I came back a half hour later and watched through the little window on the heavy wooden door. The class is run like any other pre school class. There is “centers” with reading, free play, class leader, singing, colors, snack, counting etc.
The kids in my son’s class are all about 4 (so way ahead of him). But as I watched I noticed several of them taking him under their wing. They could all speak well, but I guess not as well as they should? So I watched. Every day last week I stood outside the door for almost two hours and watched.
Today I watched.
As I am out in the hall I see therapists and teachers coming and going from the other rooms. The kids are older in the other rooms, and usually louder. I watch everyday as these women, because there is not one single man among them, teach these kids.
But you know what else they do? They wipe up drool. They clean up barf. They wipe snot off the faces of 5-6-7 year olds. They change diapers for these older kids, and they do it with a SMILE. They walk endless miles up and down the institutional green and white hallways helping kids learn to walk on crutches, learn to walk on braces, learn to crawl. They work around wires and tubes and all manner of body fluids to get at the child beneath it.
I watch, and I listen. It’s not an act, it’s real. They speak in loving tones to these kids not just in the class, but when they are alone with them and unaware I am standing in the alcove listening.
And they touch. My son cries when I leave. All his little friends try to comfort him, but his teacher picks him up and gives lots of hugs.
The school is crumbling. They got the worst wing in it. The tools they use for physical therapy have more duct tape and PVC pipe than metal. There is one speech therapist for 50 kids and yet she sees every single one of them once a week. She knows every kid in that hall by name, and they know her.
I don’t understand how these women do it. And not just do it, but do it with grace, with smiles, with ~gasp~ love on their faces.
I am told by our personal speech therapist my son will outgrow his delay by kindergarten and it will not effect him there after. Then he will leave the halls of this preschool and head to the halls of his brother’s elementary. There hugs are frowned on, and there will be no strange looking miniature PVC and duct tape walkers with wheels in the hall, no spare oxygen carriers with black straps and shiny metal wheels…..
But most of all, there won’t be love, and grace......
and teachers like them.
Maybe in time it will become a blessing, this time apart. I hope so.