The Kids in Special Education

Last year I worked in several special education classes for about three months, teaching students who, though in special education, still had a fairly high ability to function. They could all talk. All but one could read and understand history texts. They could all understand instructions and do pages of math, fill in the blanks on pages about health care, and so on.

Only one, Ralph, was fairly low functioning. You would not have known it from looking at him, but he could not read. He spoke well enough, but he could not remember his own telephone number, so he knew that if he pushed "1" on his cell phone it would ring his mother at home. When I first saw him, my immediate impression was utterly wrong. I saw a very dark-skinned African-American student who wore his hair in neat corn rows and who dressed in what I have come to call "the uniform" -- baggy pants with a bit of embrodery on one or both trouser legs, expensive sneakers, a loose pullover top, and, some of the time, a baseball cap. He looked very ghetto, very "street," and somewhat mean to me.

What I could not immediately see was this young man's kindness. He may have dressed very "ghetto," but he had one of the nicest dispositions of any of the students in the class. More than once when I saw him learn that another student didn't have food or money for lunch, I saw him offer to share what he had. As I got to know him, I saw there was no meanness in this kid.

This year, the autistic kids I have been working with for several days remind me a little of him, except that they don't dress "ghetto," they just dress clean and practical, trying to impress nobody. They also have the same kind disposition, However, as unable to function as Ralph was, his abilities far excelled those of my students this year.

At least half of this year's students cannot talk. They make inarticulate noises -- so inarticulate that the sounds really cannot be understood 99% of the time. They sit by themselves, paying almost no attention to anything but their fingers or their hands. A few do a lot of bobbing up and down. A few of the more active ones do a fair amount of screaming or noise making. They will be sitting in their chair, and all of a sudden they will simply hoot or scream. The ones who make the most noise this way seem also most prone to wanting to roam. We have to watch all of them all the time to be sure someone doesn't slip out of the classroom and wander around outside.

To teach them a few practical skills, we took the whole class on a short trip two days ago. We walked to a bus stop. As the bus pulled up, each student received a bus pass. Each boarded the bus and ran his or her bus pass through the payment machine. Then we collected their bus passes so they wouldn't be lost during the rest of the field trip. We ended up in a park. Some of them played on the swings. Others just ran around hooting and dancing and shouting. One of the lowest functioning kids sat on the ground, just playing with the sand.

After about fifteen minutes, the main teacher and I took three of the higher functioning students on a walk to a local grocery store. There we had the kids find the items we needed -- fruit juice, a package of frozen strawberries, etc. At the checkout stand, they were given money to pay for the purchases, which they did. They learned that the cashier will give them back the paper money owed, and that the silver money drops into a tray and they have to pick it up. They also learned that they would have to get a receipt.

Two of these three kids cannot talk. One of them can, and in fact is fairly articulate. He sometimes assumes a leadership position among the other students. For instance, I saw him several times urging another student to eat his breakfast during our breakfast time at the cafeteria.

I am wondering whether or not a few of the kids who supposedly cannot talk can be taught five or ten words. I don't know. I need to discuss this with the lead teacher and give it a try. If one who cannot really talk can say "pleh" when he wants play dough, he is certainly making the connection between his version of the word and an object. Maybe in the next months I'll be able to teach him a few more words like "food" and "sleep." We'll see.