What They Said about Me in 1979 and 1980

Continued from the previous post.....

Below are more of my physical/occupational therapy notes from early childhood (at John Muir Elementary School in Madison Wisconsin)

In May 1979, towards the end of my kindergarten year, the therapists said:  

Adina is a 6 year old ambulatory girl in the kindergarten class. She is seen four times weekly by the OT/Pt or therapy assistant. Treatment emphasis has been to increase general muscle strength and improve motor planning and fine motor skills.

Adina continues to exhibit general weakness of muscles but participates well in strengthening activities.  She has tightness of the hamstring muscles which may continue to gross motor difficulty. She performs stretching exercises regularly and has shown noticeable improvement. She is now able to touch her toes with straight legs after passive range of motion to her hips and knees.

I remember a little bit of the therapy.  I think there was something with them lifting my legs up and down...probably stretching the muscle.

Adina also participates in hand strengthening and coordination exercises. Her hands are still weak but her prehension pattern is improving. She is beginning to use a more adult type grasp.  Shoulder girdle weakness is still present as shown by her fine motor coordination. Her motions are still shoulder directed when performing fine motor tasks. Her endurance for performing gross and fine motor skills is improving but this area skill needs to be worked on.

Kind of strange that I'm expected to use a more-adult type grasp at 6-years-old.  I get what they're trying to say. But it seems it would have been better to describe it as more "Age-appropriate" or "age-typical". 

Adina performs self-directed activities confidently however seems apprehensive in gross movement activities that are directed by someone else. She often responds "It's too hard" "Is this good?" or "I'm scared". Demonstration, encouragement, and repetition have increased her success and self-confidence. She is cooperative and enjoyable to work with.

Now moving onto first grade....

In May, towards the end of the school year, they said:

Adina is a 7 year old girl in the first grade. She receives OT/PT services four times per week by the OT/PT or Therapy Assistant.

Adina has primarily worked on general strengthening activities. She has demonstrated improved shoulder girdle strength and stability through increased amounts of exercises such as wheelbarrows and dental dam.

I know what wheelbarrows are.  But what the hell are dental dams?

Also I'm wondering if I know what wheelbarrows are, because I remember it from therapy.  Or did I encounter it later in life somewhere?  I mean did I see it somewhere?

Well, I just Googled dental dams along with physical therapy and then occupational therapy.  I found nothing except literal mouth related stuff.

I'm wondering if the person writing the report was thinking of her teeth issues or her child's teeth issues when writing the report.  Maybe she wrote the wrong thing and no one noticed.  Or they did notice, but they didn't have the Internet back then.  They couldn't look it up.  Maybe everyone who read over the report assumed they themselves were the ignorant ones instead of assuming the writer made a mistake.

OR maybe there really was a therapy exercise called Dental Dam in 1980, and it's so obsolete that even Google is unaware of it.  OR maybe if I kept scrolling through Google, I'd find something about it.

Maybe I'll try again.....

I Googled dental dam and Gross Motor skill.  I got stuff about oral sex....which I had also seen when I did the term with physical and occupational therapy.

Well.  I give up.

Continuing with the report.....

She has shown the ability to maintain trunk extension while simultaneously coordinating a bilateral fine motor activity. She continues to need practice of gross motor skills however seems to have a better awareness of her body and more self confidence which allow her to learn new skills more quickly.

Lower extremity range of motion has been maintained through passive and active stretching of the hamstring muscles.

Hand and finger strength remain weak but Adina has shown improvement in coordination in fine motor activities such as pinching clothespins or small pegboards.  She uses a tripod adaption on her writing utensil to promote proper prehension.

I remember the adaption.  I think it was a rubber thing.  I'm picturing something red....

As tested on the Frostig Test of Visual Perception, Adina scored an age equivalent of 7-0 on the Eye-Motor Coordination section.  This is compared to the 4-9 age equivalent scored last year.  She showed improvement in all areas tested as listed below.

And then there's a comparison of scores:

With Eye Motor Coordination, I went from 4-9 to 7-0

Figure Ground, 4-9 to 5-3

Form Constancy 7-0 to 8-3

Position in Space 5-0 to 7-0

Spatial Relations 5-6 to 7-6.

I really wish I knew what all that meant.

Although at least (I think) I can understand that my biggest weakness was Figure Ground, and my biggest strength was Form Constancy.  

I think maybe my biggest improvements were in eye motor coordination and spatial relations?  

I just Googled.  Figure Ground is a problem with finding a visual among a lot of noise.  They give the example of Where's Waldo.

I'm not sure if I'm still bad at that or not.  I feel I'm probably average.   

Or maybe it's something I did improve on significantly. One of the symptoms of being challenged in the area is struggling with reading books with many words.  I don't think that's been an issue for me in life.

As for what I was strong in, Form Constancy,  that's the ability to recognize the same object or type of object in different situations.  So it's like if you take a chocolate chip cookie out of the kitchen and put it in your lunch box, you still know it's a chocolate chip cookie when you see it later.

If applied to academic stuff, being disabled in that area could make education especially challenging.  It really helps to recognize numbers and letters in a variety of situations and setting.  

Along with Adina's over all improvements in skill has been her increased self-confidence. She no longer required reassurance in everything she does and is motivated to try new things.

There may have been improvements.  But I will say that there wasn't enough.

Adina has made some significant gains this year and it is felt that her progress can be maintained through a home program of exercises and encouragement of skill development through play. Therapy will be discontinued at the end of the school year with recommendations for a home program.

Though I didn't like therapy, and seven-year-old Adina was probably very pleased for it to end, now I look back and feel somewhat abandoned.  

Sadly one of the reasons I hated therapy was some major ableism. The therapists who worked with me also worked with severely mentally and/or physically disabled students.  I saw them as less-then, and I worried that I was like them or that other students at the school would see me as being like them.  

Along with that, I think there was some physical discomfort in the therapy itself.  

Now...the other thing I have with me is a report card from first grade.  

This goes back in time a bit, because it was written for the first semester.  The therapy report would have been written at the end of the second semester.

I got an S in most areas which is for satisfactory and the highest grade possible.

I got I's (improving) in penmanship.  Probably....thanks to the therapists.

I got an N in Language Arts for oral expression.  It kind of sucks to be a child who can't communicate well orally but then has shitty handwriting so can't communicate well that way either.  Later I would learn to type, and I've always been quite good at that. So that's nice.

In Social Studies, I got an N for contributing to class discussion...and the same goes for science.  

In science I also got an N for "exhibits curiosity".  Did I really lack curiosity?  Or did I merely lack the ability to communicate that curiosity?  Or was it that I lacked curiosity about things that were not currently a special interest of mine?  

Under learning skills, I got an N for participating in class.  The teacher was really driving home that theme.

The report also has lots of comments.

For reading: Adina shows good progress in reading.

At some point, I remember my best friend pointing out that everyone but me could read.  That was either kindergarten or first grade.  It took me a bit longer than the other kids in the class to pick up the skill but once I did, I really took off with it. 

For math: Seems to have a good hold of math concepts.

I think that's true still today.  It's not a GREAT hold.  But...it's good.  Or sort of good. 

For language arts: Adina's writing has improved greatly. She is very soft spoken.  The teacher underlined very soft-spoken twice.  

For social studies: Although she rarely participates verbally, Adina seems to enjoy our study films and discussions.

I'm intrigued by that.  Does that mean most or all of social studies was taught through films?  OR...did it mean I didn't usually show enjoyment of class.  But I did enjoy it when we had films.

The latter seems more likely.

For learning skills: Adina is a conscientious worker.  I wish she would feel like smiling more often.  She is a fun student.

I like that she said she wishes I FELT like smiling more. That's much better than those who wish we'd smile more; fuck how we're feeling inside.

One of the complaints I've heard in terms of ABA therapy is that it's about getting autistic kids to ACT more typical and more pleasant...and let's not care so much about how the kids are actually feeling.

That being said....

It can also be problematic to wish for people to have certain emotions. I think it depends on the meaning behind the wish.  

Well...actually, I take that back.

I think it's quite okay to WISH people had certain emotions.  Most decent adults are going to wish for the kids in their life to be happier.  Wishing is different than demanding, shaming, or guilting them into having more positive emotions.  

So....

I feel compelled to add that something going through my head while transcribing all this is that this was probably the school year that my dad had me watching parts of The Exorcist which was very traumatizing for me.  

I think it would be hard enough for an outgoing, self-confident, smiley young child to watch the movie.  But I wasn't any of that.  I was a timid, soft-spoken, fearful child with low self-esteem.

My sister Melissa recently asked me...and I've asked often asked myself.  Would my life have been better if I had been diagnosed with autism when I was young?  I really don't know.  But maybe one thing I would have been spared is the whole Exorcist drama.  Maybe if my issues had been given a stronger label, my parents would have been given more sympathy and protection.  

That being said....just reading the report cards and therapy reports makes me feel sympathetic and protective.  But maybe that's because it's myself.  And also...I know what happens in the further chapters of the story.  

 Read my novel: The Dead are Online