When I was a special education teacher, I worked in a “Developmental” classroom. This means that I had kiddos between the ages of 5 and 12 with IQs of 40 or less (and the occasional child between 3 and 5 who was transitioning into a “Bridging” class for kids with IQs of 40-70). Many of my students were non-ambulatory and most of them were non-verbal. All of them were special, and I don’t mean in a “special education” way.
Today, I was thinking about one of my kiddos, Bobby (I have changed the name to respect his privacy). He had microcephaly:
Bobby was non-ambulatory and non-verbal. In fact, he was rather shy when I first got him. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what was going on in that head of his until one day, he opened up.
It was in the first few weeks of school and I was performing skills assessments on each student in order to check their education plans for progress and record suggestions for revising and updating those plans. I was checking to see if Bobby could mimic certain gestures and sounds, and when I made a soft “aaaahhhh” sound, he said it back to me. At first I was really surprised, because he had been so quiet up to that point. I think he was checking the class out to see if he liked it or not.
After I realized that Bobby preferred verbal interaction/stimulation (over, say, visual stimulation), I began to read to him more and play music for him frequently. He really responded to that. In fact, he seemed happier as each day went by, and that made me happy, too.
Eventually, I let other teachers in my school know that if they allowed it, some of their kids could come in my classroom to play at lunch, since my kids needed help to eat and didn’t have a traditional lunch break.
One of the kids who came to my class regularly during lunch was a third grader named Joseph (again– name changed to protect privacy). Joseph especially liked Bobby, and would sit down and read to him almost every single day. Bobby would laugh and smile whenever Joseph came to see him and I was quite pleased that these two had formed a friendship.
After a few months, Joseph’s teacher came to me and asked me what it was that Joseph did in my class during lunch time. I explained to her that he really liked to hang out with Bobby, and that Joseph read to him almost every day.
“So that explains it,” she said, and then proceeded to tell me something that I thought was quite remarkable.
Apparently, Joseph had dyslexia and was struggling with his reading. The learning difference made him shy about reading in class and he also avoided reading on his own. Once he started visiting with Bobby, his attitude toward reading began to change. He became more confident and willing to participate, despite his difficulties, and his teacher had been trying to figure out what had made the difference.
It was reading to Bobby!
Bobby and Joseph remained friends for a couple of years. When I left that teaching position, I made sure that the new teacher was on board with letting them visit regularly. She was.
Bobby’s sweet personality still brings a smile to my face. I miss him sometimes, but I’m glad to know that while he was in my class, he participated in and contributed to the school environment in many positive ways.