Lost at School (26 page)

In kids whose communication skills are more limited, developing a rudimentary vocabulary of concerns is still the goal. This may seem impossible for kids who are nonverbal, but your situational analysis should permit you to home in on triggers that are routinely frustrating the child and help you choose the vocabulary to be trained. If the child is unable to provide you with information about their concerns, you’re going to be entirely dependent, at least for now, on your own
observations and intuition. The initial goal may be to depict the child’s common, predictable triggers or concerns in pictures so he can point to the concern that’s causing problems at specific times. Over time, it may be possible to begin pairing pictures with specific words so that the child becomes less reliant on pointing at pictures and more proficient at using words.

One such kid—for what it’s worth, his Full Scale IQ was in the mid-50s, and he had only rudimentary expressive language skills—was having great difficulty letting people know what was frustrating him, and this was precipitating some pretty extreme challenging behavior. However, through observation and past experience, the adults in his life were able to identify the concerns that were frustrating him most often: being hot, being tired, being hungry, thinking someone was mad at him, being surprised, and having difficulty with an academic task. The list of triggers was depicted in pictures on a laminated card, and the kid’s teachers and parents familiarized him with their new communication tool. When the kid needed to let adults know there was a problem, or when he began exhibiting signs of frustration, the adults would ask him to point to the picture that best captured what was frustrating him. As the kid pointed at a picture, the adults would verbally confirm the problem (e.g., “Ah, you’re hot”), thereby kicking off Plan B and, eventually, setting in motion solutions that had been agreed upon in earlier Proactive Plan B discussions. After multiple repetitions, the verbal prompts (such as “You’re hot”) provided the kid with the vocabulary he needed to eventually become less reliant on pictures and increasingly able to articulate a greater number of his concerns independently. As the kid’s concerns became well-delineated and as specific words became part of his rudimentary vocabulary, the list was periodically modified so as to fit his evolving vocabulary and changing needs.

Naturally, when a kid has significant language delays or other cognitive impairments, it is crucial to give serious thought to which words or concepts are of the highest priority and need to be taught first. My usual vote is those words or concepts needed for pinpointing concerns, solving problems, and handling frustration, because the lack of this vocabulary causes the kids’ most challenging moments and impedes their ability to learn much else.

You may have noticed that the CPS model doesn’t place a strong
emphasis on teaching kids a “feeling vocabulary.” While it’s useful for a kid to learn to let you know that he’s “sad,” “mad,” or “frustrated,” it’s more important for him to let you know what concerns are causing him to be sad, mad, or frustrated in the first place. Otherwise, it won’t be clear what problems need to be solved.

Specific concerns, such as “I’m hot,” apply only to situations in which a kid is hot. You may find it useful to teach a “problem vocabulary” that can be applied across many situations. A variety of more generic phrases—for example, “Something’s the matter,” “I can’t talk about that right now,” “I need help,” “I don’t know what to do,” and “I need a break”—are applicable to a wider range of circumstances and can be similarly taught through repetition (for example, saying “Looks like something’s the matter” whenever it looks like something’s the matter). Most kids need to be taught only the one or two phrases applicable to their specific requirements. We adults overestimate the linguistic skills we use to let people know we’re frustrated, embarrassed, stuck, or overwhelmed; the truth is, most adults rely on only a few key phrases. By teaching kids a few of them, we’re helping raise them to the same level as the rest of us.

GENERATING SOLUTIONS

With Plan B, kids are being asked not only to generate solutions but also to try to make sure that the solutions they generate take another person’s concerns into account. Many kids become frustrated in response to this challenge—or simply shrug or stare blankly—so be prepared to lend a hand in helping them develop this skill.

Why wouldn’t a kid be able to generate solutions to a problem? Given the variability in development of every other skill, we shouldn’t expect less variability when it comes to thinking of solutions. Black-and-white thinkers often have difficulty envisioning solutions that differ even slightly from their original configuration. Disorganized thinkers often become overwhelmed by the sheer universe of potential solutions and need us to find ways to help them structure their thinking. Kids with delayed communication skills need us to help them find the words. And, of course, kids who get lots of Plan A thrown at them
don’t get much practice thinking about mutually satisfactory solutions (but get a lot of practice with solutions that are imposed by others and are not mutually satisfactory).

For kids whose communication skills are fairly intact but who seem unable to generate solutions, observing an adult proposing solutions in the Invitation step (as described in
Chapter 5
) often promotes imitation. But some kids, especially those whose communication skills are limited, will need something more basic and structured. Fortunately, the universe of Plan B solutions can be reduced to a framework of three categories:

1. ask for or seek help

2. give a little

3. do it a different way

These categories can be used to guide and structure consideration of possible solutions and, as with articulating one’s concerns, can be taught and facilitated through repetition and the use of pictures. If the child is able to understand the general idea of each solution, then, after being oriented to the pictures, he should be able to point to the one he thinks would make the most sense for resolving a specific problem. The adults then provide a verbal prompt (“Ah, do it a different way”) so as to confirm the kid’s idea and encourage the use of words. Then the different ways in which things could be “done a different way” (so as to solve the problem) can be explored.

Do these suggestions represent the universe of possible ways to go about training these skills? No way. Your creativity, expertise, knowledge of a given child, and sense of the specific increments and doses of skills-training he can handle will be crucial. So long as you’re recognizing that teaching the child skills, rather than relying exclusively on imposed solutions and punitive measures, is the key to helping him overcome his challenges, you’re good to go.

Skill-Focused Plan B

Let’s now turn our attention to other skills that might be better taught in a direct fashion. A kid wouldn’t learn these skills through mere participation
in Plan B, but Plan B is a good format for making the skills-training process more collaborative, thereby increasing the kid’s investment and participation in learning the skills.

Let’s say you were trying to help a kid who was lacking some basic social skills, like seeking attention in appropriate ways. In this instance, Proactive Plan B might sound something like this:

      A
DULT
:
Sann, I’ve noticed that it’s been a little hard for you to make friends this year. I was wondering if you have any ideas about that. You know, about why it’s been a little hard for you to make friends.

      S
ANN
:
Oh, I have plenty of friends.

      A
DULT
:
Well, let me put it a different way. I’ve noticed that some of the other kids aren’t too crazy about some of the things you do. Like when you pull the girls’ hair and run away.

      S
ANN
:
Oh, they like that!

      A
DULT
:
How can you tell?

      S
ANN
:
They laugh when I do it. Plus, it doesn’t hurt.

      A
DULT
:
Well, Sann, this might surprise you, but several of the girls have complained to me about you pulling on their hair.

      S
ANN
:
They have? Then why do they laugh about it?

      A
DULT
:
Sometimes people laugh when they think something is funny, but sometimes they laugh when something is making them uncomfortable. Because they’re complaining to me about it, I think they might be laughing because they’re uncomfortable.

      S
ANN
:
Oh. OK.

      A
DULT
:
Sann, are you pulling on the girls’ hair because you’d like them to notice you?

      S
ANN
:
Um, kinda. But they don’t want to hang out with me.

      A
DULT
:
I see.

      S
ANN
:
Not just the girls. A lot of the boys, too.

      A
DULT
:
So a lot of the kids don’t want to hang out with you. And that probably doesn’t feel so great.

      S
ANN
:
Well, it’s not like I don’t have a lot of friends.

      A
DULT
:
But it sounds like it bothers you a bit that some of the other kids don’t want to hang out with you, yes?

      
S
ANN
:
Yes.

      A
DULT
:
Do you have any ideas about why some of the other kids might not want to hang out with you?

      S
ANN
:
No.

      A
DULT
:
And you wish more kids were interested in hanging out with you, yes?

      S
ANN
:
Yes.

      A
DULT
:
OK. I think I might be able to help you with that. Would that be good?

      S
ANN
:
I don’t know … I guess so.

      A
DULT
:
My concern is that some of the things you’re doing so the other kids notice you actually make it less likely that they’ll want to play with you. Do you know what I mean?

      S
ANN
:
Not really.

      A
DULT
:
Well, you’re pulling the girls’ hair and running away because you want them to notice you. But the more you pull their hair and run away, the less they want to hang out with you, because your pulling their hair and running away is annoying to them. You with me?

      S
ANN
:
Yes.

      A
DULT
:
So I wonder if there’s some way we could help the other kids notice that you’d like to hang with them in ways that don’t make them annoyed or uncomfortable. Do you have any ideas for how we could do that?

      S
ANN
:
No.

      A
DULT
:
Well, let’s think about it. Would it help if you and I practiced ways—you know, good ways—of letting kids notice that you want to hang with them?

      S
ANN
:
I guess so.

      A
DULT
:
So I wonder how I could help you with that?

      S
ANN
:
I guess you could teach me. I was in a social skills group once, but the kids were weird so I quit.

      A
DULT
:
You know, Mrs. Tobin, our guidance counselor, is thinking of putting together a lunch group of kids who need some help making friends. If you want I could tell her about you and see if she thought her group would work for you.

      S
ANN
:
Nah. I don’t want to do any more groups.

      
A
DULT
:
OK, well that’s only one idea. Do you have any others?

      S
ANN
:
Could you teach me?

      A
DULT
:
Me? Well, I suppose that’s a possibility. But I’m not exactly sure when I’d do that.

      S
ANN
:
Well, I don’t want to be in another group.

      A
DULT
:
You know, Sann, I’m not sure I’m the best one to be teaching you these things. But let me give it some thought. I’ll do it if I can, but there might be someone better than me. Can you give me a few days to think about it?

      S
ANN
:
OK. Or maybe Mrs. Tobin could teach me about it, but not in the group.

      A
DULT
:
There’s an idea. Why don’t I check with her about that, and if that solution isn’t possible, we’ll put our heads together again and see what we can come up with. Yes?

      S
ANN
:
OK.

      A
DULT
:
Thanks for talking about this with me.

      S
ANN
:
OK.

Again, in the above dialogue, while Plan B wasn’t being relied upon to teach the skills, it did provide a structure for approaching skills-training in a way that improved the prospects of a kid’s participation in the process. In other words, approaching skills-training in this way helps the kid feel that learning skills is something that is being done
with
him rather than
to
him, thereby increasing the likelihood that he will actually think about the skills he’s trying to learn and how to best go about learning them rather than being a passive recipient of adult ingenuity.