In my work at the high school, I have a lot of “indirect” students.  These are the kids who have essentially met all of their speech and language goals and no longer require direct therapy.  Their parents and SLPs who have worked with them think they may need a little checking on every once in a while just to make sure they are still functioning appropriately within the classroom and with their peers.  Thus, the “indirect” services…basically a monitoring program.  I’ve been running around like the proverbial headless chicken in order to meet all these kids and find out how they are doing.  Many of them have just made the transition from middle school (which used to be junior high for those not in the know) to high school.

Unfortunately, I don’t have speech folders for most of these kids as their paperwork has not caught up with them at their new location and I have no idea what they may have been working on in the past.  This is what happens when a speech therapist has an overwhelming caseload and the method for servicing students with special ed related services changes every year…often the result of about 10 too many middle managers trying to make the system more efficient.  As an aside, I think if we cut about 25% of those manager types out of their management positions and put them back in the classroom, the system would be much more efficient and more money could actually be spent on educating and maximizing the students’ potential, but that’s a topic for another post.

At any rate, I’ve managed to meet most of these kids.  The vast majority of them are Asperger’s type kids.  It can be heartbreaking to see them in a high school setting, not because they aren’t managing their school work.  Watching them attempt to navigate the vast social system that exists in high school.  These kids aren’t the Freaks and Geeks who manage to find each other (as I found the others lo so many years ago).  Often, they end up isolated, on the fringes of any social group.  Some of them speak in monotone voices.  Often they don’t make eye contact and they have no idea how to make friends.

They are neat kids, though.  One student I worked with last week is developing his own language.  I asked him if he’d ever read any Tolkien and informed him that he was an amateur philologist.  When I asked if he was making friends in high school and sharing his ideas with others, he avoided the question. 

I watched another student tell knock knock jokes, one after the other, each becoming more ridiculous and devoid of humor, as helped his fellow students make pizza in a nutrition class.  He didn’t mind at all that I was there with him in the classroom.  In fact, he asked me to stay and work with him so he wouldn’t miss out on making pizza.  How many high school students are happy to admit to others that they have an adult, following them around?  The other students put up with him, listened to the jokes and pretended to be amused.  He didn’t get that they weren’t really amused and was just putting up with him, which is why the joke session escalated.  The poor kid has no idea how to read social cues.  It was encouraging to see the other kids at least put up with him.  Another student actually checked his folder to make sure he had completed all of his work correctly.  That, I didn’t expect.  It restored my faith in high schoolers a little.

A couple of years ago, there was a show on TV called Life Goes On, which loosely followed a kid with Down Syndrome.  Everyone loved Corky.  He was a loveable kid.  Down Syndrome is easy to recognize because of its tell tale physical syndrome.  Most kids with Down Syndrome are lovable characters and easy to embrace. 

A kid who looks totally normal and just doesn’t fit in, doesn’t have a chance.  They want to make friends…want to fit in.  They just don’t know how.  Social conventions can be taught, but for these guys it’s like a script to follow  That little gut feeling that tells you when to stop telling knock knock jokes can’t be taught.  When others deviate from the script, the aspy kid doesn’t know what to do.  And so they end up walking around the outside of the circle, doing fine in school, but many times (not always) friendless.

My heart hurts for these kids.  In middle school, they are often grouped together for lunch sessions so they can practice their social skills with other kids who might not be so quick to reject their approaches or simply tolerate them.  They can have a sense of belonging on one level, however superficial it might be.  In high school, with it’s three lunch sessions, necessary for an overcrowded high school, it’s just not possible.  They may not know why they feel lonely, but they know they are lonely.

No one is going to create a movie or TV show about an Aspy kid.  They aren’t cute like a Down’s kid, or strange enough, like the rain man.  And so, they walk around, misunderstood and marginalized.  This is one of the hardest parts of my job, helping these kids and separating what needs to be done therapeutically (all the while trying not to think it futile) with the emotional side of me that just wants to give them a hug…