The Joseph Robert Shaw Foundation

Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury

Age Appropriate Humor – (Giggling about poop)

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    In my day to day life, I spend a lot of time with the four to eight year old crowd. And I have to tell you, despite what you may think about gender differences, or good parenting, or what is proper dinner conversation – poop – and all things poop and fart related, are universally funny to this age bracket.

Joey, I recently learned, is no exception.

Poop was apparently recently added to his device. When I watch Joey use new words I monitor to see if he’s using them appropriately. Is he just selecting the word to see what it says, or does he know what it will say before he selects it? Is he able to use it correctly with conversation or to answer a question? Is it a word he likes because of how it sounds but not because of what it  means?

When Joey used poop for the first time with me, I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what he was saying. It was in the midst of asking him to do talk about something else. He’d answered me – begrudgingly – and then he nonchalantly said “Poop.” and grinned, as all five year olds will do when they know they are putting their toe over the line to see what happens if you cross it.

Poop.

Now, in my house, I have the rule that bathroom words can be used in the bathroom, so if you feel the need to scream “poop” at the top of your lungs, you’d better do it in the bathroom. (Unless we are at dinner, in which case then you can whisper it and we’d better not be able to hear it.) My kids can also find times to whisper inappropriate words like poop and fart at times when adults aren’t around. I’ve had lunch with my daughter at school. I know the horrors of first grade lunch and the jokes they find funny.

Joey doesn’t have the luxury of whispering the word ‘poop’ to a friend and then snickering devilishly while a teacher gives him the evil eye. Yet he clearly does find it funny, and wants to giggle about it on his level.

Often, we tend to teach children with disabilities the “proper manners and social expectations of an elite society none of us actually engage in. We fail to let them have those moments of age appropriate behavior with peers.

It’s a hard balance to find because, of course, we don’t want to tell kids it’s OK to say poop and fart at random times. We don’t want them saying “poop” in church. But we also want them to know it’s OK to laugh (at appropriate times) at things they find funny.

My current solution? I’m not going to engage Joey in poop jokes, but I did find a book about a dirty dog who gets ridiculously filthy – and eludes to poop. Hopefully, it provides a safe context to laugh and explore the silliness of the word – and an opportunity to discuss when it is OK and not OK to say poop.

*The other day Joey said “nasty hears funny” to me. I’m pretty sure he was saying that nasty sounds funny since he doesn’t have the word sounds on his device. Nasty does sound funny, especially when said in a child-like robot voice.

The Importance of Peers

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When I arrived at Joey’s house a few Fridays ago, I was thrilled to find his seven year old cousin there with him. She could only stay for about ten minutes of our session, but it was one of the best, most targeted ten minutes I’ve seen from Joey.

Typically, when I first begin to work with Joey each session, he fills me in on random parts of his week. Sometimes I introduce a topic and he changes the subject to a preferred topic, or if he is really bored with me, he might begin exploring his words. I live with a five year old at my house, so while these behaviors are frustrating, I’m also 100% sure they are age appropriate. I find myself giving Joey reminders to stay on topic like I would with any five year old, or reminders that we can talk more after we do our work first.

On this Friday however, in the presence of his cousin, Joey needed no reminders. He was alert, engaged, and on topic. I asked “wh” questions like “who is in the story?” “where does the bear live?” “when does this take place?” and Joey quickly gave me answers. He had a few mis-hits in trying to find the correct word, but he stuck with it to show his cousin what he knew. Changing the subject suddenly did not seem as interesting as sharing his ideas with the two of us.

Even after his cousin left, Joey remained on point. He was quick to share jokes about books we read, and to add “funny” or “silly” after he told me a joke. I think he throws those words in to make sure I know he’s joking and not just clicking on the wrong buttons.

It was wonderful to see Joey so motivated to participate and talk with his cousin. I was also happy to be able to share Joey’s insights and ideas with her. For many kids (let’s be honest – and adults), it can be hard to understand that a child who does not speak has something to say. We can be quick to make assumptions. I watched Joey answer my “wh” questions through her eyes – and hoped that she was impressed as I was with his ability to navigate his words and talk about the story in a way I’d expect any five year old to do. His answers might not have been as robust as a talkative five year old, but my questions are the same.

I need to find more opportunities to include other children in my work with Joey to encourage his motivation and give him the experience of interacting with children his own age. Talking and playing with a peer is far more interesting than having one on one conversations with a boring adult.

The Power of the Baby Animal Book

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Over my 16 years as an educator I’ve learned one valuable lesson: Never underestimate the power of a cute baby animal. This has proved true for working with angry five year olds who have difficulty regulating their emotions (somehow looking at pictures of baby animals can sometimes immediately cause a child to relax).

So a few years ago when I saw a Ready to Read pack of Zoo Born books I immediately grabbed it because I figured at some point there would be a student who would want to read them, or just look at the pictures.

Lately, when I’ve been preparing Joey’s book crates I’ve been including a Zoo Born book or two into the box to add variety to our work. I quickly found that Joey really enjoys looking at cute baby zoo animals as much as all the other five year olds out there. Who wouldn’t?

The books are super simple with a set pattern – four to five sentences on the left hand page, and one repeated phrase on the right. They are perfect for early readers because the adult can read the left hand page and then the child can read the repeated phrase “Goodnight Baby Owl” or “I love you, Baby Panda!”

For Joey, these have been perfect. They allow us to look through and talk about the pictures with his AAC device. What does he see? Is the animal cute? Small? Silly? Furry? Soft? Many of the animals are in his vocabulary, so I can turn the page and he can tell me what he sees and describe it for me. Then, I can read the left hand page and pause so he can use his early reading skills to read the right hand page. I model putting together at least part of the sentence on his device the first time so he knows what I expect him to do, and has a reminder of where the words are. The next time I come to a repeated phrase, I pause and say, “You read!” He doesn’t have all the words to complete the full phrases, but he is able to put together at least part of it. “Love you Panda!” “Good night Owl”.

For our newest five year old readers we want them to begin to understand that print goes from left to right, the words contain a message, and words maintaining their meaning across each page – the group of letters – LOVE – says love on each page. These are the early reading concepts pre-kindergarteners are exploring right now, and Joey seems to be ready for this work as well. The Zoo Born series allows us to enjoy talking about books and cute animals, practice his core words, and build on his early literacy skills. And who doesn’t want to gaze at pictures of sleeping panda babies?

 

Somewhat related – I was listening to the podcast Wow in the World with my own kids and learned about the universal reaction to looking at cute animals. See, it’s a thing!

Not Just a Box: Exploring Tinkering with Joey

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One of my favorite new children’s books is Not a Box. Throughout the book, a voice (one assumes it is an adult) asks a rabbit “Why are you in that box?” next to a picture of the rabbit on, in, next to, etc a box. When you turn the page the rabbit replies, “It’s not a box.” This time the picture shows the rabbit imagining the box is a race car, a mountain, an elephant, etc.

It sums up my own childhood perfect – no cardboard box was ever just a box. It was whatever my imagination could make it become.

Typically I read it with children before handing them an empty box and setting them free to create and pretend. Originally, my plan for Joey was different than that. I thought he would like the rabbit’s imagination, and it would give many opportunities for Joey to practice core words, along with some of his favorite nouns (like car and fire engine).

And it was perfect for this. It allowed me to model using the “not” button for Joey, which he does not use often. We worked on prepositions as the adult voice asked why the rabbit was in, on, next to the box, and Joey had the opportunity to predict what the rabbit would do next. It was a simple, fun read aloud with lots of engagement.

After awhile I started to feel bad. It’s hard to read a book about an imaginative rabbit and not give Joey a chance to imagine too. I’d brought empty boxes to play with, but typically I let kids decorate the boxes and get crafty. I hadn’t done that yet with Joey.

So the next time I came back I brought my arts and crafts box, determined to let Joey make something from the box.

This in itself provided us opportunities for natural, back and forth language.

“Should we use the big box or little box?”

Little.

“What should we make?”

Car

What color paper should we use?

Green

What shape should the wheels be?

Circle

How many should we have?

6

What color should they be?

Black

So we did. We used the small iphone box, covered it in green construction paper and added black wheels. (Once we started taping them onto the box we decided to stop at 4).

Joey LOVED his car. In fact, he loved it so much he said “love car.”

We got to play car. Joey even made the engine noises as we pretended to roll the car around on his tray. And every time the car fell off his tray?

CRASH!

I could ask, “Where should the car go?”

Grocery store.

“What should he buy?”

Cake.

“Where should he go now?”

Mall.

It honestly was one of the most fun and playful sessions I’ve ever had with Joey, who usually wants to work or read. And one of the times that he showed such natural five year old imaginative play skills.

Toward the end Joey said “Make helicopter”.

Eeeeek. I’m going back with some more boxes, craft sticks and dowels, but I’m a bit nervous about this…

What’s Involved in Learning to Count?

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Joey loves numbers. He gives me big smiles when he sees that we are going to work with numbers, and loves to tell silly number jokes where he gives me the wrong number when we are putting our numbers in order. After giving me the wrong number he will crack up, and give me that large Joey grin that says “I think 1, 2, 6” is the funniest thing ever.

Yet recently in my work with Joey I realized that although he can give us the numbers in sequential order, and can match the numeric word with the numeral (which is something not all kindergarteners can do), he has difficulty counting a set of numbers.

How am I just now discovering this? I wondered. How is this possible? Yet once I sat back and noticed how I worked with number with Joey, I always did the majority of the counting – I touched the items and counted aloud, pausing before the last item to say “Now how many?” Joey was almost always correct in these situations – because he was able to identify the numeral that came next in the series. He was not counting the objects with one to one correspondence. When I give Joey a set of objects or pictures between 3 and 6, and I say “how many are there?” he has difficulty counting each object and then telling me exactly how many there are.

Why is this? With everything else we know about Joey – his ability to remember sequences, make predictions, tell jokes, and identify numerals and letters – it seems odd that he would have difficulty looking at three objects and telling me there were three.

This difficulty makes me stop and think about what skills are needed in order to count sets of objects. Typically, we don’t think about it, but when we learn to count independently, we are using our visual motor integration and processing. In order to count each object, we need to see that there is only one of each object, and typically, kids touch each object as they count. As they touch each item they know there is only one of each item, as they match the feeling of the item with their vision of the item. As they count they can say each number, matching the verbal cue, the item itself, and what they see.

For Joey, counting sets of objects is a bit more difficult. Looking at an item to touch it is a difficult task – he has to concentrate to move his hand to an item, and hold his arm still in order to touch the item. This itself takes a significant amount of cognitive energy. Then we are asking him to hold each item he counts in his mind with the numeral, and to move on to the next item.

We are also assuming that Joey can see each item, and only one of each item. This requires Joey’s head to remain stable so he can clearly see the item in front of him, and for his eyes to easily track each item, and not go back to an item thinking it’s one he hasn’t seen before. Are his eyes converging? Is he seeing double? Or is he simply having difficulty coordinating everything he needs to put together in order to count?

Or, is he being stubborn, and refusing to give me the correct answer, as he sometimes does when he decides we are wasting his time?

For now, I need to be re-thinking how we learn to count with one to one correspondence, the different components necessarily to count groups of items, and Joey’s strengths and limitations. How can we use his strengths to help him take in sets of objects in order to count? Should we re-think how we measure Joey’s ability to count? Instead of using objects, can we use sounds or physical touch? How do we transition from counting sounds to counting objects we are not sure what Joey’s visual processing is doing?

Saturday Serenade

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