Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Kindness of Strangers































Jim Weiss' audio books can be bought from his website, Greathall Productions, among other vendors. The library also tends to have copies.

The audio books of Bible stories referred to in this piece are called Living Adventures from the Bible. They can be purchased from eyeintheear.com, among other vendors.

Some months ago, Simon and I started to drive to Miami Beach for his weekly piano lesson. It's a long drive, so I plug in an audio book and off we go. For the last few weeks, we've been working our way through stories from the Bible. Simon had noticed an advertisement for this particular series of Cd's and had asked for them.

Few audio books have given him as much pleasure. The mix of history and grand story-telling, the looming catastrophes, the booming voice of God, the focus on obedience and its opposite, the faithful loyalty of the converted--Simon loves it all. He loves it so much that recently, while driving by a evangelical church promoting its Summer Bible Camp, Simon asked it he could go--we're secular Jews. Not since he was eight and discovered Greek mythology have I seen him so hooked on a particular cycle of stories. Every time we have to take a long car ride, he dashes back into the house to get his Cd's.

"I'm torturing you with Bible stories, Mom," he says, giving me a sly smile as he shoves the story of Queen Esther, or Jonas and the Whale into the player.

He's torturing me with these stories not because I object to them, but because he makes me listen to them over and over and over. I've allowed him to move into the front passenger seat--he's grown four inches this last year--and from that position he controls the sound. Once a story has played all the way through, he says: "It's a really good story, Mom. We have to listen to it again," and quickly presses the necessary button before I object.

Watching him do this, I'm reminded again of the degree to which our Simon is teaching himself, is healing himself, is his own best therapist. I've never hesitated to buy audio books because since we put a CD player in his room four years ago, there's been an audio book playing in the background most of the time. He plays them over and over, decoding every nuance of meaning, of plot, of intention, even of intonation. I've noticed that when he reads to me from Vol. III of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World, a book he has heard many times as an audio book, he aims to recreate Jim Weiss' (the reader) intonations and exaggerations.

Moreover, Simon knows the content of his audio book library so well, he can find something in it in no time. If we watch a movie about the crusades or Cromwell, I invariably find him in his room the next day listening to those sections of The Story of the World. Our Simon, this child with auditory processing issues, doggedly spends most of his free time decoding auditory stimuli, making the effort to overcome his deficits. And his overall increased listening, comprehension, vocabulary and expressive skills, are in part the result of the delight he takes in the dramatic fireworks that Jim Weiss imparts to pretty ordinary historical exposition.

* * *

I've been thinking this week about how lucky we've been, how strangers--people who were marginal in our lives or not in them at all, have provided the most important advice-- the keys to comprehending our son, the therapeutic tools, the hopeful long-term perspective.

Many years ago, while we lived in Washington, D.C., I cold-called most of the speech therapists in the city. We'd been very unhappy with Simon's individual speech therapy sessions, so I left messages on endless machines stating that I was looking for group sessions that focused on play, games, and craft activities.

A week or two passed and one morning the phone rang. It was someone who had received my message. She wasn't offering a group sessions, nor was she taking any new patients; however, she was curious as to why I was looking for such a group—she just had to call and find out.

I explained that the therapist we had been working with had focused on teaching Simon new words. My sense was that Simon knew lots of words, he just didn't use them when interacting with others. Maybe a group of kids and a therapeutic game would be a more powerful modality than one-on-one therapy.

She kept me on the phone. She asked me endless questions about Simon. She wanted to know what I and my husband thought was amiss with Simon.

I told her we didn't think all the disorders that fall under the autism spectrum explained Simon—he was too smart, too attached, too connected, too funny a kid. Very high-functioning Asperger's maybe, but even for that he was too attached, too empathic, too charming. To us, he just seemed like a child who heard much too much and couldn't function in loud environments, couldn't decode sentences coming at him because he couldn't filter out all the other sounds in the room. And we could see him having trouble smoothly mastering basic social and academic skills because he wasn't picking up on all of the instructions or social cues.

“I want you to get a pen and paper and write down the following: semantic pragmatic disorder and auditory processing disorder. Those terms might help you. Take good care of your little boy. Whatever you do, make sure you soak him in language. Bye, bye.”

Click.

I often think about this woman who so generously gave of her time and know-how.

The other stranger in our lives who gave us invaluable advice was the mother of a friend of ours. Because his mom had a PhD in Speech Pathology and had orchestrated special services for children in all of southern Illinois, our friend offered her to us. She would be visiting him in Miami and could come over and spend a day with Simon and me and watch me homeschool. Maybe she would have some advice to give.

I didn't want her to come, but I couldn't say no—the offer was so generous, and this friend of ours is much loved by everyone in our family.

I remember that when she walked through the door I had a small panic attack. She was wearing a pink pant suit, not the kind Hillary wears but one made of something synthetic with stretchy pants and a loose fitting top with buttons down the middle. How was someone from a parallel universe going to understand our choices?

Simon was eight at the time. He read out loud for her and did some math. I came up with a treasure hunt that involved written clues. I made lunch. She looked over my curriculum and made warm, supportive noises. And then she said something that was invaluable.

“They used to say that if your child wasn't functioning smoothly at age level by seven, you were probably looking at a child with significant disabilities. But the research shows that boys can take until age twelve to master all the basic skills.”

It was a throw away sentence, an off the cuff comment that made all the difference. We had a few years more years. Overcome by emotion, I kissed her.

* * *
Simon is turning twelve this summer. A few weeks ago he won a chess tournament in his division. In math this year, he's gone from limping behind to being ahead. I've a new problem—I often have the feeling that he's not listening to my comments or observations because I bore him. I know, Mom. I know that all already, he says. His handwriting continues to be atrocious but the sentences are beginning to have some meat to them. At dinner, he turns to George and says: Dad, how was your day? His social skills have been hard won, but he's beginning to not only know about them, but also use them.

* * *

This feels like a draft of something longer. But it's all I've time for this week.

* * *

As for Simon's interest in the Bible, I've explained to him that next year he will read his way through the Torah, and then he'll read the Bible, even the New Testament.

“You know, Mom," Simon said, "I'm a lot like Abraham Lincoln. I also like the Bible. You know that was one of the only books he owned? He read it over and over.”

“The things you remember.”

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Reading List

100 True Tales From American History by Jennifer Armstrong.

Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents by Mike Venezia. This is a series. Also check out all of Mike Venezia's other incredible books at his web-site.

Simon loves The Story of the World, Vol. I- IV, by Susan Wise Bauer. He listens to the audiobooks for many hours every day. They play in the background while he fiddles with Legos or does math.


www.theexaminedlife.org

Together with Toni Deveson, Claudia was one of the founding members of www.theexaminedlife.org , a net-based home-education support group for families teaching a secular curriculum in the Miami area. Claudia remains a very active participant. The group is inclusive, welcoming families of all faiths—or lack thereof, and all life-styles. The Examined Life runs a small enrichment co-op for children in grades 4-6. This year, the co-op is covering biology, art appreciation (nine painters), music appreciation (seven composers), history—the Renaissance and beyond, and Latin. All the portfolio-ready materials that Claudia and Toni have developed themselves are available for free at www.theexaminedlife.org , including a comprehensive 36-week enrichment curriculum for the above named topics, as well as the American history project covered in this blog. The website also has a bookstore that carries all the books necessary to teach the curriculum.