Pipe Down

Maggie’s class is very small. There are only four full time students assigned to the class. Other kids come in for part of the day, but generally, it is intimate. Lately it has been only three kids as one is still recovering from surgery. She will be back next week, though. Until then it is just Maggie and the boys, “Y’ and “G.” All four of the kids are in wheelchairs so there is a lot of equipment in the room. In addition, the class focuses on augmentative communication and all the full time students are non-verbal. Maggie has additional medical challenges that the other kids do not have to deal with, but she has an advantage over the two boys in a different way. She comes from a family where English is the first language.

Imagine if you can, a child trying to overcome his physical handicaps and inability to speak by using augmentative communication – and having that “augmentative communication” taught in a language you do not hear at home. It is very difficult. “Y” is Chinese and his family does not speak English at all. “G”’s family is Spanish speaking. They are able to speak English, but do not do so at home. That puts them at a tremendous disadvantage trying to learn a communication device that is speaking a different language.

It is particularly difficult for “Y” who only recently joined the class. He is still getting familiar with the concept of being able to communicate. It is frustrating for him; and when he’s frustrated, he tends to scream. Then when he gets the feedback for screaming, he screams again. It can be trying for everyone.

The other day Maggie and I were in the kitchen and she was jabbering away on her communication device. It is normal enough for us that I was only half paying attention to her. I was just responding to what I heard without really listening. (Oh, come on now, other mothers do the same thing). I realized after a bit I didn’t know what she was saying. When I finally stopped to really listen I heard something that sounded like “Moo CHO.” I went over to her talker to see which button she was hitting, but she had moved off that page. I asked her to go back and press the “Moo CHO” button again. She started navigating back to that page.

I figured it was either a mistake or she was saying “mucho” in Spanish. Keep in mind, the communication device speaks phonetically and it could have just been reading it wrong. Often when I am programming it, I have to misspell words so that they will be pronounced correctly. (For instance: “let’s read a book” comes out "let’s red a book" so I spell it “reed”)

She found the button and hit it again. Apparently, Maggie also speaks Cantonese. Moo CHO means stop screaming. The whole read out is “Stop screaming. Moo CHO.” I was very impressed. I asked Maggie is she says that to “Y” and she said yes. I asked does he still scream a lot and she just hit “Moo CHO” and started laughing.

Pretty cool. I've always said Maggie was the one child who cannot talk, but can still "talk back," Now I have to add that she cannot speak, but can bark orders in several languages.

She gets that from me.

Also, Maggie received a new jean jacket from her Aunt Dianne yesterday. It just arrived in the mail for no particular reason. We’ll call it an early birthday present. She looked pretty cool heading off to school this morning.