Adventures in Missing the Point

Usually this sort of title is followed by a snarky little rant on someone (else)'s cluelessness. However, today I realised that this phrase best explains my daughter's type of neuro-immune dysfunction.

Now, sequencing is hard for most of these kids. They miss out on all the typical temporal clues that other kids usually cotton on to by age four. For this reason, they also struggle with verb tense expressions. Action is usually expressed in present tense, even if it was well over two hours ago. eg: "I'm playing the computer!" spoken while she's jumping on the bed in our room. It's a little Dada-esque at our house.

As you can imagine, getting a story, even a simple explaination of what happened even two minutes ago, is not going to happen. You might get something out of her, but unless you were at the scene you couldn't say for sure when the described activity happened or in what order it happened--or (in my daughter's case) if it happened at all. I'm always amazed when I hear stories about a young child who helps the police by describing some event or person that passed, and think it's a wonder than any child can do that at all.

So this morning I got out a box of four step sequencing cards. The box says, "For ages 3 and up," so I figured we're in the right range. 4.75 years is the right time to begin for us. The cards are simple illustrations of everyday activities that require multiple steps, eg: dressing to walk in the rain, blowing out candles at a birthday party and sharing cake, making a card, etc. There are no words, but there are lots of visual clues about what happens first, second, third, fourth.

I made a poor choice with my first 'story,' but it did show me, quite obviously, T's deficit. I picked a set of pictures that show three girls taking turns crawling into a play tunnel and out the other side (see my picture, above). First of all, it was too complicated. Too many variables with the three girls, and object permanance challenges--it was just too much. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was the tunnel. It was a rainbow of colors, but it was missing the red band where a red band ought to be in the color spectrum. Actually, it's there; it just looks very dark orange on the cards. So while I'm trying to get T to pick the first picture, she's protesting over and over, "The red! It's gone! The red! It's gone!" She could not have cared less about those girls, or which end of the tunnel they went into. They could have crawled to China for all she cared. The red band, where red ought to be, was gone.

And this, folks, is my life. Adventures in missing the point.

Imagine trying to teach your child to fold a t-shirt, and he only wants to poke his fingers through the hold he found in the hem. Or telling your daughter to pack away the stryofoam peanuts, but she's too hung up on the fascinating shapes to even begin the task.

People think it's amazing that my girl can read, or spell, or that she knows the color spectrum by heart and the names of all of the planets. But she can't figure out what's most important in a situation when presented with visual clues. So while she's supposed to be telling me if the boy blowing out the candles or the mommy lighting the candles comes first, she's fixated on the boy in the picture who looks happy. Or his stripey socks...or whatever catches her fancy.

So sit back, close your eyes, and recall a recent situation--perhaps one with your own child--where you were trying to explain a story that illustrated a principle or a feeling or an idea, and your own beloved kept harping back on the shoes you were wearing or the earring in the other guy's ear or the fact that it happened before lunch...until you finally blow. "THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!!"

Yup. That's my life.

We're gonna work on this.