A Safe Place for Joey. Mary MacCracken

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СКАЧАТЬ the azaleas, swerved back onto the driveway, up onto the low stone wall that ran beside it, lifting Joey with me. He laughed out loud as we made one fast turn through the parking lot, down the slate path along the other side of the building, running at top speed, Joey right beside me, back to the front door of the office building. Joey was smiling but was breathing hard, and I waved to Mrs. Stone with my free hand. “See you in about an hour,” I called. Not stopping, I propelled Joey through the door and up the stairs to my office, hoping I’d used up some of his excess energy.

      We watched from the window as his mother backed the station wagon out the driveway and onto the street.

      “She’ll be back,” I promised. “Come see the rest.”

      Joey was immediately involved. He no longer raced madly, purposelessly; now he explored the shelves of books, the children’s drawings that covered the walls. The same electricity that drove him to random motor movements could be used to divert him. Joey wandered from the bookshelves to the table of games. “Can we play one of these?”

      It was the first time that I had heard him speak a full sentence, and I was pleased that his speech was clear and well-articulated. “Sure. But first come over here and let me show you the stopwatch.”

      I settled Joey behind the big desk, handed him the stopwatch, and sat down beside him to show him how it worked.

      He was obviously surprised and pleased to be holding the heavy silver watch by himself. “Is it s’pensive?” he asked.

      “Yes,” I said. “See, you push this to make it start, this to make it stop, this to take it back to the beginning. Let it run for one minute, and then open this drawer and put it in the box. I need to ask you some questions.”

      Joey sat perfectly still for a minute, immersed in the stopwatch. Then he carefully put it in the box, but he couldn’t resist picking up a Magic Marker from the drawer. “Later,” I said, putting the marker back and closing the drawer, and making a mental note that Joey had continually used his left hand so far. “Now,” I said, “see if you can tell me your name, address, and telephone number.”

      Joey was getting happier all the time, and so was I. What did the school find so terrible about this little boy? There was energy and a contagious exuberance about him. He could speak; he could follow directions.

      Joey had been referred to me by Dr. Grayson, his pediatrician, who disagreed with the Child Study Team at Joey’s school, which felt he belonged in a special class. Dr. Grayson recommended that Joey be seen by a pediatric neurologist, who reported “a mild ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) not severe enough to require medication at this time.” Dr. Grayson then recommended that the Stones contact me for a diagnostic educational evaluation. I had been somewhat reluctant, feeling that Joey had already been tested by qualified people. But Dr. Grayson was eager for a second opinion, and because he was an old, respected friend, I agreed to see Joey at least once. Now I forgot my earlier reluctance to evaluate Joey – I wanted to know everything I could.

      I spent the next hour concentrating hard on Joey, noting all the things that were right with him. First of all, he was an appealing boy – his thick shock of red hair plus freckles and a wide mouth and slightly asymmetrical face made him look like the kid on the cornflakes box. His movements were quick and graceful, and I liked the way he got interested and involved when I showed him how things worked. I liked his laugh. I liked the information he had stored up. He knew that his dad worked in a bank and that his dad’s name was Al. His mother’s name was Gail, and she ran computers. He knew his two older brothers’ names and ages and that the reason he didn’t have any pets was because his mother said he was “lergic.”

      I liked the way he understood about the chips, which I used as a reward system, immediately comprehending which colour was worth how much. I liked the independence with which he took over. “No. Don’t tell me which colours I earned,” Joey said halfway through our first session. “Just how much. I can figure it out.”

      Joey pulled the old cigar box that held the chips close to him and studied the list on the back cover of the box. “Oranges are five, blues ten,” he said out loud, “reds are twenty, greens are twenty-five, yellows are fifty, and these silver ones are worth a hundred each, right?”

      “Right.”

      “Are the silvers real?”

      “Yes, they’re fifty-cent pieces. My dad collected them. I put them in with the other chips to make it more interesting. All this testing can get to be pretty dull stuff, so at the end of our time you count up the chips I’ve paid you and then decide if you want to spend for something little or save for something bigger. You buy stuff from the basket – stickers, balls, pens – things like that. I’ll show you when we’re through.”

      I didn’t say it out loud, but chips can also help keep a child from getting too discouraged. Most tests have “ceilings,” and when a child misses three or four questions in a row, the test ends. So in the course of an hour’s evaluation, a child may “fail” a dozen times or more – and most of the children I see are smart enough to know when they’re wrong. Shoulders slump. Heads droop. But if I pay at the end of each test, counting up the answers by fives or tens, adding a fifty or so, and say something like “Pay yourself one hundred eighty-five,” shoulders straighten and heads perk up like flowers after a summer rain. As the child’s pile of chips grows, his confidence grows along with it. I may be skewing a few statistics, but I’m seeing the child at his optimum, and that’s what’s important to me.

      Every once in a while I’d ask Joey a bonus question like “Why do you think you’re here, Joey? I ask all the kids that.”

      “’Cause I’ve got a lot of problems.” Joey’s voice was barely audible.

      “What kind of problems?”

      Joey shrugged. “I don’t know. I think maybe there’s something wrong with my head.”

      And Joey was right, in a way. There was something wrong with his head. The federal government has defined “learning disabilities” in Public Law 94–142 (the Education of All Handicapped Act) as follows:

      Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include children who have learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor handicaps, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

      The Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities states, “Each child with a learning disability is unique; each shows a different combination and severity of problems – each has one or more significant deficits in the essential learning processes and is considered to have near average or above average intelligence.”

      Most of the children I work with have a learning disability that is known as a specific language disability – dyslexia. The Orton Dyslexia Society, which promotes the understanding, treatment, and prevention of the problems of dyslexia, suggests that while some people have a natural talent for learning their native language and learn to read and write and express their thoughts clearly in the early years of school or even before, most of us must work much harder and need more teaching.

      Some (the Orton Society says as many as 10 percent of us) find this learning exceptionally difficult СКАЧАТЬ