To help my child, I must see him.

I am the parent and support person to my 10 year old son.
He is a non-traditional learner.

Having a Semantic-Pragmatic Language Disorder effects his social understanding of language.

What does that look like on a daily basis? The most complex part of the sensory system, auditory and visual perception receive information at a different rate. In order to "see" and "hear" for thinking in "language" these systems would need to work succinctly.

He learns by an individualized approach; the learning input needs organized to impact "his" learning system. That is different from most educational designs.
We (parents and educators) manually put pictures in for new learning and integrate what is heard to what is seen.

He is very conversational, has a very good memory and loves sharing his life and interests with others, he wants to learn what others like too.
SO what's the big deal? He has Down Syndrome, and the stigma associated with what is culturally expected from the diagnosis leads to a story of different personal meaning.
A story that assigns cultural meaning to his uniqueness, and takes his abilities away.

This practice makes it very difficult to See the Child, the person within.

When learning is organized in sequential ways that give meaning to the adults and how the system rewards them, there is no way for him to integrate the learning.
This means he cannot show what he knows, socially or academically.
Adult systems (and typical systems) would call this the inability to generalize or a memory deficits.
In our effort to develop the learner we insist he learn by the typical sequence. But not all people learn the same way.

It's very disturbing, do we really think we can change the way anyone is hardwired?

Disability is what happens when someone does not get what is needed from the environment. Educators and experts (adults) are granted the right to assign their meaning to my sons uniqueness and take away from his abilities, not only in the eyes of the adults but also in the eyes of his peer group. They say this is to inform us what he needs. I reject these assignments and ask "how can he"?

What if we believed that being a different minded learner meant one needed a different order, and not a program.

Input the learning in order to access the individuals learning bed.
Instead of being disordered, we would agree that the way to develop the individual, is to meet them where they are and develop the concepts needed for a quality of life expected by the opportunity for a Free and Appropriate Public Education.

Concepts that underlie the use of language (semantics)for reading, writing, thinking, viewing, listening, speaking and calculating. The same ways students without a label are educated.

I guess that's my opportunity to change our world, one bite at a time.

Stay tuned, new stories to come.

Oh, the Possibilities.

I have often felt that visuals supports help my son with Down Syndrome think and learn.

While attending the Dallas Down Syndrome Guild's Fall Conference, September 2008, I learned to shift from using visuals that make sense to me (and other adults) to making visuals that facilitate his understanding.

The presenters were Lynn Campbell, CCC-SLP and Sidney Crim, CCC-SLP and the session was "Strategies to Improve Reading and Behavior". The theory behind the "intervention" is Semantic Language Learning.

I started using the strategies immediately, and over the past year he has improved his "use" of language by learning concepts that underlie functional reading, writing, thinking, viewing, listening, speaking, and calculating.

First, we "wrote what he said" (scribing with a white board); it helps him hear what he says.
Then, we implemented the use of "cartoons", with "thought" and "speech bubbles" to define himself and others in a specific space and time.
Third, we conversed about pictures. The types of pictures needed were pictures of people in activities he could relate to.
He was learning to "see" people in relationship to himself in a variety of events pictured.
And after he learned to "converse" (no questions) about these drawings and pictures, we started "writing" "text to self statements" (agent, action, objects).
Then adding to the text, an action or description word.

I started to see, the layers for learning oppurtunities are endless.
He needs a variety of relationship understanding to be successful.

From conversing and scribing we moved onto "drawing" the "visual symbol" associated with
content words.

Today he is learning,
*color coding and self correcting strategies in word morphology games and activities.
*to work independently and in peer groups with a variety of visual supports that facilitate his neurological development.
*to complete statements about text read.

No matter where my son is placed, he needs visual supports. Learning in a segregated environment is not any easier and learning life skills does not facilitate his functional learning.

I believe we can learn so much about ourselves from these lifelong relationships with our children. I hope you will join me and share.