It's almost halfway through Ramadhan, and as usual, time is going too fast and running out; and I have done barely anything good -- and my sis was telling me how I waste too much time, I knowwww, and my dad says: why you listen to stuff on your phone but don't read the Quran, I knowwww. I am an utter fail at staying away from my screens, especially now that a lot of my work involves journeying and lots of random wait time, that I fill with looking at my phone... noooooooo. I should look more at my Kindle but the pull of my screen is ridiculous. It is obviously a drug. I need some sort of Rehab.
Anyway, I just really wanted to record this before I forget: today, I realised how much I miss working with ASD kids. I arrived at one of the schools as per my normal schedule, and one of the girls not on my caseload -- because her needs were too high for the DSP mainstream programme (shall quibble about service delivery on another day maybe, in another post) -- was having a meltdown. At first, I kind of left the teachers to it cause this girl is with them every day what, right, so I was sure they had some set procedure to handle her. But after a good 10 minutes of this kid wailing away, some unconscious part of my system was triggered, and I couldn't hold back anymore.
I went into the fray with a few bottles of playdoh and just unconsciously did my thing, and the kid settled down within a minute. As soon as the kid settled down and got out of her tantrum mode, and I let the teachers have her back, I thought, a bit too confidently perhaps haha, ohmygosh, I'm a natural at this. Later in the afternoon, little girl S started off again because someone had forced her to do something, I think -- and you should know you can't force the rigid structures of an ASD world; she was stretched out on the floor resisting all pacifying efforts and screaming away. I came over again with my playdoh and I followed her lead for a while, and after a few minutes, I had her calmly fixing puzzles and brought her back to her classmates. At which one of the Chinese teachers asked me what exactly was my magic trick with her.
At this point, I felt gratified and thought, ohmygod, I'm a pro haha -- my years of Early clinic and my crazy hours of running after hyper kids around the gym has maybe really made me a pro at sensing what these kids need. This really does come naturally to me now, and I think I was itching to jump in when I saw what was happening with little girl S. Not going to lie, this makes me feel good -- cause the years of clinical experience has actually made a difference to who I am. Perhaps it's silly to still think like this, but I need moments like this to be able to tell myself, yes, S, you're actually a legit speechie.
And oh man, I do miss my special, weirdo, lovable, ASD kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment