Instant connections aren’t a coincidence
There have been times in my career that I have instantly connected with kids I first meet. Usually, time is spent building trust and rapport, which would be expected really. However, there are rare times when the connection is instantaneous.
The first time this happened to me was with a Kindergarten boy who had apraxia. He was nonverbal, anxious, and highly sensitive. I had just come off of maternity leave, and my substitute SLP described him as not having a desire to communicate, but otherwise, she just couldn’t figure him out.
When I walked into his classroom, he hugged me like he had known me our entire life. I will never forget it, especially since I discovered he was not this way with ANYONE. I felt special, and I vowed to make him feel special too. I documented that experience in my blog post Instant Connection with Ben.
Yesterday I met a new client who is almost 3 1/2. I’ll call him Joe. Joe was described in the case history as friendly and social, but I was certainly surprised when I went out to meet him and he jumped into my arms. His mom was surprised too, wondering who I maybe looked like that he knew. Yesterday was just the initial evaluation, so I couldn’t really interact playfully with him as much as I would have liked.
However, it made me think of Ben. I left for another school after two years of working with Ben. When I left, he was talking with his peers in mostly simple and some complex sentences. He had found his voice, and I knew he would be okay. It was still hard to leave him, and his brown eyes looked so sad and worried when I told him he would have a new speech teacher. His parents wrote the letter that helped me get into the Apraxia Intensive Training Institute. It was a handwritten, heartfelt letter in Spanish, and they were so worried that it wasn’t good enough. I was so excited to tell them I had gotten in. I always say apraxia is a journey, but it’s also a journey for the treating SLP. We become so invested, and we frequently don’t get to see the end result.
So here I start on a new journey with my new instant connection. I believe instant connections happen for a reason, and I don’t plan on letting Joe down either.
