Fingers Are Everything

My daughter has been doing better lately.   My husband and I had a conference with her teacher earlier this week and found out something distressing that I mentioned in the post two days ago.   For the first part of the year, my daughter was regularly, sometimes more than once per day, having full-on meltdowns in the classroom.   She would have to go to the "safe corner" and stay there with the stuffed animals and bean bag chair until she was ready to function in the classroom again.

This happened every time there was an "assessment" which is like a quiz or an "evaluation" which is like a practice quiz.   There is more pressure for performance in second grade which shouldn't bother my daughter in the slightest because she knows all the spelling words and the math is a snap for her.   Academically, she has no issues.  School is almost easy for her in that respect.  

And yet she was having dramatic problems in the classroom.   Her second-grade teacher didn't know this was not normal behavior and we didn't pick up on it until we got an email because of how she was treating other students and teachers.   Fortunately, with the anti-depressant medication, my daughter is taking, she is now back to herself.   She's doing well in school and is even happy to take the assessments.

I've been working on my braille curriculum and over the last week have been translating a fully contracted braille article on Haben Girma, the first deaf-blind graduate of Harvard Law School.   Her story is powerfully moving and compelling and I wanted to tell my daughter about Girma's story and how she went from holding out her tray at the cafeteria and having no idea what she'd get for lunch because she couldn't communicate with the staff.  How Girma learned to advocate for her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and eventually got her law degree and has helped pursue cases to further the ADA's reach.

My daughter asked me a lot of questions.   It was interesting to her and we had to think about it.   She couldn't ask what was for lunch because she couldn't hear the responses.   She and I talked about how she communicated primarily through a refreshable braille display like the Orbit my daughter has.  My daughter said, "When you're blind, fingers are everything."

Did you get that?  That was her, talking about herself as a blind person.  That's not something she's done before.   We talked about how her fingers were important and how Girma's were even more so because she couldn't hear people talking.

It was a good conversation and my daughter was in a happy mood.   She went in to see Dhruti with the most upbeat attitude I've seen in a while.  Things are definitely getting better for her.   She has a long way to go, but we're going places now.

The Big Boy Update:  My son came onto my bed the other morning and did something with his fingers on my head.   When I asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm doing a bain inspection."  He told me if it turned out my brain was out of whack, he had some steps to to to correct it.   Thankfully, my brain was fine.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We have had another braillewriter in need of repairs.   They are heavy, sturdy machines and it seems like they should be indestructible but they can be quite delicate.   My daughter's teachers sent home a different one while the main one gets repaired with some admonishing that she not do some of the aggressive carriage returning and "flicking" of the keys she's done a lot of recently.   I asked my daughter if she could explain to me so I could be sure to treat the braillewriter with respect too.  She told me, "it's not possible for you to hurt the braillewriter, you type too slow."