Something mysterious was going on at Kyle’s school. Maybe. Or maybe not. Every time I asked him, “How was school today?” he would get a big grin on his face, blush, and cover his eyes.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” He’d say.
This was his answer no matter what I asked about school. It was strange. I was curious, so I tried to probe further. “Kyle, who are your friends in class?”
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” Although Kyle, who is fourteen, has autistic disorder, his language skills are strong enough to answer these questions. But he was choosing not to.
During a visit with his speech therapist, I brought up the problem. She mentioned that Kyle’s other therapists and teachers had experienced the same thing in reverse. He would not discuss his family or anything related to his home environment while at school. “I didn’t even know he had six siblings living with him,” she said, “until you told me. He never talks about his brothers or sisters or anything he does at home.”
“I can’t talk to my son about school.”
We discussed the possibility that Kyle had a crush on his peer tutor, a very cute girl. That might explain his blushing and embarrassment, especially when I asked about friends. Or maybe he was overwhelmed at the idea of crossing these two separate “worlds.” Before he started with this new “I can’t see” routine, he still found it difficult to give more than a few short answers about school.
I wanted to help Kyle improve his ability to talk about school at home, and home at school. This is an important part of social communication. Someday as an adult, Kyle should ideally be able to tell people about things that happened on the job or share events from his life with people he cares about.
Giving Kyle a Visual Anchor for Conversation
We decided to create some mini-scrapbooks. I would take some pictures of Kyle’s brothers and sisters, and more photos of him doing his favorite things around the house. Together we’d talk about the pictures and then arrange them into a binder, sending it with him to school. Then his teachers and therapists could ask him questions about the pictures and initiate conversations about his life at home.
At school, his speech therapist would take snapshots of his classmates and friends, plus pictures of Kyle participating in school activities. She would then send that book home with Kyle to me.
These two booklets would provide Kyle with a visual anchor to help him participate in and maintain conversation. Using the scrapbooks, I would be able to ask him specific questions by referring to the pictures. This would be a tremendous help, because it’s hard to know what to ask a language-impaired child about his school day when you’re not there to see what’s going on. Once Kyle becomes more conversational about his day at school, the goal will be to phase out the books.
If you struggle trying to have a conversation with your special needs child about school, discuss the idea of trading home and school scrapbooks with his or her teacher. This can be an excellent starting point. Remember that the teacher will need to receive prior permission from the parents of any classmates to be photographed.
Now…if I could just get my regular-ed kids to talk about school!
Kristyn Crow is the author of this blog. Visit her website by clicking here. Some links on this blog may have been generated by outside sources are not necessarily endorsed by Kristyn Crow.
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