Why’s he crying? Is it me?
I started at a new school this year, and since I specialize in CAS, the other SLP in the building gave a second grade student who has Childhood Apraxia of Speech to me.
Not surprisingly I liked him immediately; just like I liked all the other kids with CAS I’ve had the honor of treating who came before him.
I’ve only known him for about three months, but he is my buddy. My district’s motto is to inspire every child, and the superintendent wants every employee to pick a new kid each week that they are taking under their wing to inspire to “think, to learn, and to care.”
I love all my kids on my caseload, by “Eli” has a special place in my heart.
Still extremely unintelligible in second grade, Eli struggles in reading and writing. He wants to write so bad and has AMAZING ideas, but sadly just can’t sound out words because his output is still so jumbled. I’ve been having him orally tell me stories in tx that I scribe, and then I pull out his target words from there. In our short time, he’s made amazing progress.
Last week I went to get Eli, but he was working hard and diligently on a writing assignment in a small group with his teacher. I pulled up a chair behind him and watched him work, scribing what I heard him tell his teacher. This, after all, is my end goal. To have him orally tell an intelligible story and then transfer it to paper in his classroom.
He noticed me 20 minutes in, and we worked on speech related to his class story.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Eli started crying uncontrollably!! I tried to ask him what was wrong, but his little chest heaved heavier.
The teacher called him over, and could only make out something about “speech.” It seemed obvious the reason he was crying was because of me. 🙁
It was then time for the class to go to ARTS. I got up to leave, and asked him if he was okay. He was still sobbing. The teacher asked him again what was wrong, and seemed to understand he was worried about not finishing his story because he had to go to speech. However, he wasn’t going to speech, I was in his classroom for this speech session, so it was all very confusing. She assured him other kids didn’t finish their stories either and he will have time to finish.
She asked me what was wrong because she had NEVER seen him cry, much less like that. I didn’t know and I felt awful. I’m supposed to be his ally, why is he crying?
He sobbed harder.
I pulled him quickly into a quiet room to see if I could figure it out.
“Are you upset at me?” I asked. “Did I embarrass you by being in your class?”
“No,” he said. He explained he was upset we didn’t finish the story him and I had started in our speech therapy sessions. He has already written two marvelous stories that I have scribed since the beginning of the year; and we are on our third one. I am able to understand his elaborate stories, and then I pick out my target words from there.
He said he had been waiting to finish that story with me all day, and had wanted to practice speech all day; but since I was in his classroom and then it was time for ARTS, he realized we weren’t going to speech that day, and he was sad.
Darnit! Stupid apraxia. Poor baby.
Also, really? He wanted to come to speech that bad??
Me: “So you’re crying because you wanted to come to speech and write your story, and I spent the time instead in your classroom?”
Him: “Yes!! I have been waiting all day!!”
My poor Eli. Stupid apraxia. We’re going to beat this together buddy. I promise.
As a side note, since I’m new to this district I have to be evaluated a lot to make sure I know what I’m doing. I chose Eli’s session to be my first observation. When I told him the principal was coming to observe, he asked me why. I told him it was to make sure I’m doing my job.
I’ll never forget his reply.
“To make sure you’re doing your job?? Can’t she see you’re teaching me how to talk here?”
🙂 Love him. At that point, even if she couldn’t see I was helping him it wouldn’t have mattered. What mattered, is that he can tell, and that means everything.
