So Much To Talk About
January 24, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Charlisms, Education, Language, Technology
Tuesday morning Charlie woke up, as he does about once a month, at 5.30am, full of energy and jabbering away. He put his pajamas in the washing machine and dressed himself in jeans and long-sleeved blue shirt. He packed his backpack and would that the bus could have come then and there: He was wide awake and more than ready for school. As the bus does not come till around 8.30am (Charlie’s school day starts at 9am), we suggested that Charlie try to lie down and get a little more sleep and he tried, but kept sitting up and talking until 7.30 when he curled up in our bed; his eyes were half-open when I left for work, after quickly emailing his teacher about his early rising and likely fatigue. Sure enough, by the time I got to my office, Charlie’s teacher had left me a voicemail and an email: He was not himself, on edge? I was able to speak to her as I walked to my classroom and she said she’d call after the class.
What followed was a series of emails that reminded me of how important good parent-teacher communication is in a school program for kids like Charlie, who struggle to talk and to otherwise communication. Charlie used to have a “Communication Notebook” that the teachers and I each wrote in and sent back and forth in his backpack everyday and while this was certainly better than nothing or notes only two or three times of week, I often felt that communicating this way was more frustrating than helpful. I would only know that Charlie had started the day with a terrible tantrum and a tough rest of the day after school at the very end of the day, when a silent Charlie, more often than note with a bump on his forehead, appeared at the door wearing his backpack.
Charlie’s current teacher often emails me immediately if “something happens” and we go back and forth aout how he did getting on the bus, if he ate anything unusual the night before, if he slept well. I don’t spend a whole day worrying and, most of all, Charlie benefits from everyone knowing as much as they can to help him. At Charlie’s IEP meetings, we’ve made sure to have it written into his IEP that we want to make sure we receive a daily note about how Charlie did (even a brief “okay day” makes a difference), and that we completely appreciate daily and regular parent-teacher communication.
And to ensure that Charlie speaks up about his own day, too, his teacher has been sending home a Language Master card on which he has recorded a simple sentence. After he unloads his backpack, he puts the card into the Language Master on his desk and tells me: “I played bingo”; “I played on the playground”; “I had fries!”.
It’s very good talking.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
We have also done away with the “daily communication logs”. In our case, because we were getting either no information (teachers not writing daily) or that the teachers weren’t paying attention to their writing. So, they’d be scratching their heads, not understanding something about Pop, while they were missing patterns of behavior easily traced if they were using the log effectively.
Instead, we’ve asked for emailed “progress reports”, though that isn’t working for us either. We’re going to yet another meeting to air our grievances. Our ongoing problems are due to the fact that Pop is 100% autistic and 100% at grade level in academics, the public schools aren’t equipped to deal with him here.
It’s great when you get teacher that are actually interested in being effective and creative.
What a wonderful coincidence to have found this post today. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make communication more effective with my daughter’s teacher, who is a great teacher, but a rather defensive communicator.
I am bookmarking your site. Thank you!
We have a communication notebook with my son’s current teacher, with notes going both ways every day. This is the first time this has ever really worked for us, but then again, this is the first school year when my son has had a teacher (and aide) who are working for him and with him, rather than actively working to try to get him transferred somewhere else.
KimJ: We went through something similar with my son throughout kindergarten and first grade. He was on track or ahead academically, but the school’s preference for “one size fits all solutions” was that he should either be able to make it in mainstream with virtually no help, or he should be shoved in a self-contained classroom for children with mental retardation. We had to go the due process route with an IDEA claim in order to get them to shape up. Hope you have better luck with your district!
“this is the first school year when my son has had a teacher (and aide) who are working for him and with him, rather than actively working to try to get him transferred somewhere else.”
Well, unfortunately, we’ve had that backwards. When my son was in kindergarten and had a pattern of problems, the teacher would call a meeting to solve the problem-not to blame us, punish him or get rid of him. But since we’ve been here, we’re getting the runaround. It seems to be based in the teachers not having the time, the schools not having the money.
The parent/teacher communication issue has long been a really huge one for us. There’s the simple reality of Charlie’s very limited speech and communication skills. When he started to have some really serious behavior issues when he was about 7, the communication book became a sort of site of contention (sigh). I felt we so needed to know why Charlie had engaged in head-banging or anything aggressive; these are not easy things to write about day and day out. I do think that issues of not having time or training and more affected all this—–it made for a very difficult situation.
Sounds like you have an excellent teacher working with Charlie. You are very lucky. The last school M was in we began getting phone calls asking if I let her stay up watching T.V. all night. The counselor had asked M some questions because M was tired all the time. I am sure M’s answers were beyond interesting. Apparently, me telling them about her seizures and insomnia was not explanation enough. They had to find things to blame me for. I was beyond upset. That was one of the precursors to us pulling her out for homeschooling.
Good schools and good teachers make all the difference.
@Marla, I feel very lucky—I remind myself all the time, not to send too many messages and to be patient for responses. One advantage of email is very practical: My handwriting has declined to a scrawl and typing is not only faster, but far more legible!
@Eleanor, what a relief to be in the right placement….
@alex s, it’s very nice to “meet” you! I have struggle a great deal to get the communication between the teacher and me “just right” (and have made numerous errors in the past) It’s so important for us, again, because my son Charlie does not have a lot of language and what he does have, he uses to describe the present and what is in front of him—-talking about what happened earlier in the day is not something he is yet doing. We had a lot of trouble in a previous school district and I know that there were many reasons for this, but so often it seemed that Charlie’s teacher and I were trading notes that did not help to make things better.
I find email to be a more and more useful form of ongoing communication, both with my child’s teachers and with my students’ parents. I’m now in a school where many families don’t have email, and I have to communicate through an interpreter. No matter what the situation, it’s so important to open up the lines of communication early and often.
J’s teachers and I have used a communication book since he started at the school in 2nd grade because I insisted on one. It was rough at first but then we got together and revamped it. It’s now used with all the kids in the autism program.
Even so, I call J’s teachers about twice a week to fill them in on a rough night, morning or weekend, or if something is going on that may affect his behavior at school. I also call to just find out how he’s doing. I like that communication better because we’re able to discuss more things.
One of the unfortunate things with the concerns, and sometimes rightfully so, with confidentiality and liability, that I wonder why we don’t make more use of the technology that is increasingly available.
Sometimes words fail, or fail to be recorded, but uploaded video from a cell phone or webcam would seem to be able to make some things much clearer to all concerned.
Just something that I think about from time to time. Does anyone use this type of cyber communication?
We haven’t started that yet but it sounds promising (and also a potential legal headache, but if it’s to help kids learn better, those headaches can be be worked through, I think). I visit Charlie’s room regularly and his teacher makes twice-monthly home visits—those really help to keep a conversation going.