Perfect Enough For Me!

And so, a communication system was implemented. Of course there were plenty of times Ben didn't comply, but we worked through them. We had a system going, and that's all that mattered.

When he was ready (attending and compliance somewhat controlled), we began working on colors. I had been eagerly anticipating the day we'd finally start working on his receptive language, and alas, it was here. Now that Ben would point on command, I knew he would be able to let me know when he knew a correct answer.

We started with the color blue. I laid a bright blue flashcard on the table, met his eyes, and said, "Ben, touch blue!" He started to giggle. This was a no brainer for him. He slapped his hand on the flashcard and rolled his eyes as if to say, "c'mon Mindy.. this is peanuts." I gave him some verbal praise, and wondered...... if this was so easy, does it mean he already knows his colors? Thinking quickly, I placed a yellow, red, and blue card on the table. "Ben, where's the blue card?" I asked. He looked at me like I was from Mars, then slapped his hands on all three. "Okay, not ready," I thought. But the only way to know was to try.

While Ben mastered the colors quickly in isolation, he struggled a little when I laid out a distractor. The first distractor I tried was the picture of a dog. I figured if I put down a color together with something that wasn't a color, it would be less confusing. "Ben, point to the blue card," I said. Without hesitation, Ben grabbed the dog, and started imitating a dog's bark. I was baffled. There was so much this child knew. We just had to find a way to get it out.

I'd once observed a child who responded quite similarly in a situation just like this one. When faced with two very different cards, the child grabbed the picture he recognized, and his therapist corrected him. I didn't correct Ben. I didn't think he did anything wrong. Sure, he didn't point to the blue card, but he didn't even hear me. He was too busy being excited that he recognized something he knew, and he was sharing that with me! Why would I reprimand that?

Of course, Jessica the programmer disagreed with me. "....But you reinforced the wrong thing," she said.

"I didn't," I said in my defense. "I told him 'yes Ben, that's the dog! The dog says woof woof!' I reinforced what he knew, and then put the cards back down and stressed the word blue. He got it the second time around."

"These children are very concrete; they aren't going to learn that way," Jessica stressed.

"...But if I saw that he was fixated on the dog," I argued, "I would have errorlessly prompted right away..."

...And then I stopped. Why bother explaining all this to someone who obviously did not share the same viewpoint as me? Apparently I was having a debate with someone who barely even showed for a session.

What was the point? I didn't need her to tell me this child was different. She obviously didn't see the way Ben was eager to learn, eager to smile, and eager to make ME smile. He laughed, he played, and he thrived. While things weren't always perfect, it was fine with me, because nothing in life is ever perfect.

But the truth is, in my eyes, Ben WAS perfect.