The Right Eyes

Today, Little Bear has been seen by another psychologist. This came about because the last time we saw an Educational Psychologist, I became very irate and had to resist the strong urge to tell him he didn’t know his arse from his elbow. You may remember this ranty post which tells you all about it: Conversations

Thankfully, the Bear’s school were none too impressed either and volunteered to pay for a private psychologist to ensure a non-biased, useful report. I know that I have moaned at times, about the school, but things have come a long way. I feel a real gratitude towards them that they genuinely care, about Little Bear and us, and that they are willing to be creative and do things differently if that’s what’s required. In these times of dwindling budgets, I’m well aware that many schools wouldn’t have funded such an assessment.

It isn’t just that, but by inviting a knowledgeable stranger into the school, they were laying themselves bare to observation and potential criticism. They took that risk because they want to do the best they can for our son and they are willing to make changes to their practice if advised. There is something about us having these shared vulnerabilities and this shared desire to ensure he reaches his full potential and is as happy as he can be, that makes me a little emotional. I think (I hope) that we have reached that much longed for status of Having A Good Working Relationship. And also Mutual Respect. I hope so, because I do feel like giving them a collective hug.

So, having got the right professional across the threshold, how was it?

Other than the times someone from our post-adoption support service has come into school meetings, this was the first time that somebody with an evident knowledge of trauma and attachment has observed Little Bear and seen what I see. There is a palpable relief in that. It isn’t in my mind; I haven’t concocted his needs; I’m not exaggerating. A knowledgeable stranger has come in and is sitting at the table I have sat at many times before and is observing things and recommending things that I have previously talked about, at that very table. She’s more convincing than me because she’s a psychologist and she certainly couldn’t be accused of being a neurotic mother, but even so, it makes me feel a little vindicated.

It’s refreshing. It’s also reassuring and hopeful. It means that instead of things being okay for Little Bear, maybe there is hope of them being the best they could be. I probably haven’t aimed that high for a while – just hoping we could avoid abject failure. School are willing and keen and they like the Psychologist and she is passionate and full of useful ideas. Surely this is the most hopeful our status has been so far?

I complained in my blog about the incompetent Ed Psych, that I knew more about trauma than he did and I’m sure that’s true. (Incidentally, today’s Psychologist said almost the polar opposite of everything he said. One has to laugh). I’ve written about  Being an Expert Parent and how our children necessitate us being so. I have always been a little reluctant about it though, so when a professional appears who is undoubtedly more knowledgeable than me and more experienced than me and I can learn from them, it’s brilliant. There is a surprising relief in it, that allows me to relax a bit, so I can attend the meeting as a Mum, not some sort of parent/professional hybrid trying to do several things at once. It makes me realise how exhausting navigating such meetings can be and how much of my emotional energy is eaten up week to week, trying to make sure Little Bear has what he needs in every area of his life, unwittingly filling the gaps left by others lacking in knowledge. Perhaps I can relax a little about his education now because between the psychologist and the school, I think they’ve got this.

It also highlights how rarely I’m in a situation with a professional who is knowledgeable enough to give advice about Little Bear’s needs. This shouldn’t be the case – that a professional who is trauma-informed is a rarity. Any professional coming to advise on children with developmental trauma should be suitably trained and aware. It is wrong that we find ourselves in a situation where the only way of getting that expertise is to pay for it, especially as childhood trauma is so prevalent.

Anyhow, with the right eyes on Little Bear, what did we learn?

There are some real positives about how things are currently being done. The Psychologist commented how lovely it was that Little Bear’s teacher and his TA are both willing to be physically affectionate with him and allow him to snuggle close to them. His teacher (a man), calls him ‘mate’ a lot and gives him reassuring pats on the back or arm. In this day and age where figures of authority have to be so careful about touching children, and some establishments have become so wary that they don’t touch children at all instead keeping some kind of unnatural and cold distance, it is heartening that the Bear’s school feel able to react to him naturally and to provide him with the physical comfort/connection he needs.

There are also real positives in terms of a multi-sensory curriculum and learning being fun. Little Bear is largely happy in the classroom and his trusting relationship with both members of staff is evident to a new onlooker. These things are reassuring.

What is more concerning is that Little Bear was not observed to be regulated at any point during the morning-long observation. I’m not surprised though. We achieve periods of regulation at home but that’s because we work really hard at it and we have spent three and half years getting tuned in and figuring out what works. I can see that without a trained eye, it would be difficult to figure out the underlying causes (often linked to Interoception in my opinion). I am still very much trying to untangle Little Bear’s sensory needs and that is with Sensory Integration training under my belt and a lot of time to puzzle. I can fully understand how, without the training or the experience, school would struggle to interpret and manage these aspects of Little Bear’s needs. The good thing is that today’s visit has brought them better understanding and the report will bring many practical suggestions for ‘sensory snacks’ to hopefully improve regulation across the day. I’m excited to read the ideas and maybe steal some for home too.

Little Bear was also observed to be anxious, hyper-vigilant and attachment-seeking in the classroom. Staff were observed to be inconsistent in making Little Bear adhere to the rules and at times punished possible self-regulatory behaviour. The big take home message for school was to ask themselves, ‘what is Little Bear showing us with this behaviour?’ ‘What is he showing us he needs?’ ‘What can we do to make him more comfortable/reduce his anxiety?’ instead of saying, ‘how can we stamp out this unwanted behaviour?’

The take home messages for me were more questions to ask of myself: ‘Are we doing enough to meet Little Bear’s sensory needs?’; ‘Should I get somebody else to assess him in this area?’; ‘Do we make appropriate accommodations for his sensory needs, particularly at mealtimes?’ I do find myself saying “sit down properly” a lot more than I probably should.

We talked a lot about difficulties with executive function and employing strategies to support that, such as visual supports, timers and short sharp bursts of learning, interspersed with sensory snacks. We talked about positive feedback, a proper meet and greet, a better transition for the end of lunchtime and closer supervision if unstructured play is leading to difficulties.

One of the main reasons we initially sought psychological input was due to the upcoming need to re-apply for funding for Little Bear. Today’s Psychologist was strongly of the opinion that Little Bear’s supportive adult should not be removed from him – he needs her support to get going with tasks and frequent check-ins to help him complete them. He cannot learn without adult support currently – an opinion we also hold strongly and one of the key reasons I got so frustrated with the LA Ed Psych who thought we should be working towards independence. The fact that today’s Psychologist independently and without any vested interest, drew this opinion is a great outcome and will hopefully add significant weight to our case for funding. I would love to say I’m not worried about that but I am because there are a few wider things also happening, relating to staffing at school and some problems with our back-up plan, should the funding application be rejected. There is always something to worry about it seems, but, today, I’m going to bed hopeful that now Little Bear has been seen through the right eyes, we might be on the right track to him getting the right support.

Speak Up For Communication

With absolutely no mention of decorating downstairs toilets this week, I am back talking about the serious matter of children’s speech, language and communication needs – SLCN.

Last year, I wrote this post – Ensuring Children’s Speech and Language Needs Are Met: A Call to Action– about The Bercow10 report – a damning reflection of the state of speech and language therapy services in the UK and the enormity of unmet need. RCSLT and ICAN last week began a new campaign highlighting the changes that have been successfully brought about in the year since Bercow10 and asked for renewed efforts to speak up for SLCN.

Of the 47 recommendations made in last year’s report, 17 have already been fully actioned, which is a promising start.

You can see some of the key successes here:

I mentioned the petition begun by @GillianRudd at the end of last year’s blog post. Following an incredible effort, this was successful, gaining 11,622 signatures and leading to a debate in Parliament. The government have stated they are committed to meeting the needs of children with SLCN, and Teresa May herself has committed to change during Prime minister’s question time.

However, there is widespread agreement within the speech and language therapy profession that this is not enough. Budget cuts have decimated speech and language services up and down the country. Yesterday, there was an article in the Daily Mirror about children languishing on waiting lists for as long as a year before getting any sort of meaningful help (see Mirror Article). The NHS department I used to call my professional home no longer exists – its contract having been lost to a private provider – and those children I work with in independent practice talk of long waits, minimal input and quick discharge in their NHS services. I never thought I would have to end up working privately to be able to give children the quality therapy they deserve and part of me is still saddened by it, not least because private services are out of reach for so many vulnerable children who need them.

Pressure on NHS speech and language therapy departments has been growing over a number of years, with an increase in need and a decrease in funding. Clinicians are under pressure to move children through services as quickly as possible and to be inventive with the budgets they do have. The department I worked for, put a heavy emphasis on others, such as speech and language therapy assistants and teaching assistants, carrying out therapy with children. This was part of being ‘lean’ and making savings but ultimately I think it has devalued the work and knowledge of speech and language therapists and contributed to the demise of services. We also worked to an ‘episodes of care’ model, in which children were seen for a block of therapy to target a specific aim and then discharged, with the plan for them to come back again when they needed more. Although this was effective for some children – the ones whose parents or school would make sure they did come back – I’m sure it put vulnerable children with poorer support networks at increased risk. Although the service was designed for children to come in and out of, I think it gave the message to some people that nothing else could be offered and that children’s needs had resolved, where they hadn’t, and were unlikely to for their lifetime. In trying to be frugal, I suspect some services have inadvertently misrepresented the severity and long-term nature of some SLCNs as well as lessening children’s chances of getting the additional support they needed at school (funding is difficult to justify if a child isn’t actually under any external services).

As it stands, Little Bear has also been discharged from speech and language therapy. He too could be re-referred but that would require energy I’m not sure I have. I would need to prove his needs were severe enough to get through referral criteria and no doubt start back at the beginning of the initial assessment to waiting list process again, which took a year last time. He clearly does have ongoing needs – he has Developmental Language Disorder – but proving the daily impact on him would be difficult now his needs are more subtle. Like any parent of a child with SEND, I am already pretty stretched with managing behaviour, seeking funding, trying to get school to understand his needs etc. etc. I’m not sure that I should have to jump through hoop after hoop to get him the help he needs. Yet I would have to. And so too do parents of children with SLCN in all corners of our country.

For me, it has been far easier to create a speech and language therapy programme for Little Bear myself and to train his TA to carry it out myself. Clearly this is a perk that other parents cannot rely on.

The majority of clinicians want what’s best for children and many are deeply frustrated by the limits of the services in which they work. In an unprecedented move, RCSLT and ICAN wrote an open letter to government last week, asking for SLCN to be given the attention it deserves. It was countersigned by 60 organisations, ranging from Autism charities to fostering and adoption charities, who share a deep concern about the future of children with communication difficulties. You can find it here: Open Letter

Five key areas requiring change have been identified as priorities for action and are the five areas the open letter asked the government to act upon. They are:

Joint commissioning of Services – as SLCN impacts upon children’s emotional wellbeing, education, future employability and likelihood of involvement with the criminal justice system, a joined up approach to meeting need would be ideal. It is hoped that this would also help to iron out the postcode lottery which currently exists in the provision of speech and language therapy services.

Long-term support for SLCN – although support has improved in the early years, support for the 10% of older children and teenagers who will have ongoing needs continues to be poor.

Professional Development – there is a pressing need for all teachers and those working in the field of childhood mental health to be aware of SLCN and the many ways it might present. Professionals need to be able to identify SLCN and be aware of clear pathways to support.

Incentivising schools – budget cuts are impacting on education settings too. In these times of reduced funding and fewer EHCPs, it is imperative that schools are supported from the top down to identify and meet SLCN. The anniversary report asks for provision for SLCN to be considered during Ofsted inspections.

Supporting vulnerable groups – as children who have been excluded from school, those in Care, those with mental health difficulties and those who are involved with youth justice are more likely to have SLCN and are more at risk of their needs going unidentified, improvements need to be made to the support available for these groups as a priority.

This is the main area where I have tried to make an impact – providing training workshops for adopters and prospective adopters to arm them with knowledge of communication development; how to identify red flags and what to do to best support SCLN at home. Myself and another speech and language therapist adopter have also written a social communication group specifically for children with trauma backgrounds which is currently being advertised. It is good to see that work is beginning to happen with children who have experienced, or still are experiencing the Care System in other areas, and training for speech and language therapists in this previously neglected area is becoming more common too.

There are pockets of hope but in short, our work is far from done. RCSLT and ICAN are asking for our ongoing activism. We need to continue speaking up for communication and for children with speech, language and communication needs. We cannot stand by and do nothing.

If you would like to help, here are some things you can do:

• Use the hashtags #SpeakUpForCommunication and #SpeakUpForSLCN on social media
• Make a Vox Pop clip to pledge your commitment to speaking up for SLCN and share on social media (advice here: Vox Pop Guidance ) . I’m still pondering how I can get involved with this anonymously…
• Visit the website here: www.bercow10yearson.com where you can download speech bubbles and get tips on other ways to join in
• Write to your MP, or tweet them. Are they speaking up for communication? They are our representatives in Parliament – we need them to know about SLCN and Bercow10. We need them to speak up most of all.
• Retweet and share this blog
• Tell anyone who will listen about SLCN

Perhaps if we all shout loud enough, real change will happen.

Schools Out

For the past fortnight the Bears’ school has been in transition, with each class getting settled in their new classroom and with their new teacher. Things seem to have gone fairly smoothly but I checked in with Little Bear’s teacher yesterday, just to be sure.

I wrote a few weeks ago in Support about school (and us) having secured funding top-up funding for Little Bear. I have recently found out that the school have been able to advertise for a TA and that they have employed somebody and this person will provide Little Bear with 20 hours of support per week. Obviously this is great. They will work from 8:30 am so will be able to greet him and will finish at 12:30 meaning he gets support for some of his lunch time – a flashpoint when things often go awry. He will have 1:1 or small group support available for all his core subjects.

I’m very pleased about this.

Things are never perfect though and there are a couple of little niggles at the back of my mind. Firstly I didn’t expect the TA to be anybody that I knew. It turns out she is a parent of children in the same school. I don’t know her but I know of her as she has previously volunteered in the school, in fact in Big Bear’s class. She used to hear them read and was quite infamous amongst the parents for making slightly judgemental comments in their take home books.

I have noticed that if you smile at her she tends to look the other way.

I feel a little uncomfortable that she is a parent too and that she is going to know lots of things about Little Bear’s background and his behaviour and his learning needs. I have to assume that she is a consummate professional.

I am going to need her to start speaking to me though because I consider there to be a team around Little Bear, consisting at the moment of the teacher and myself & Grizzly, and Mrs. C will soon be an integral part of that. We will need to work closely together and will need to be consistent in our approaches. I am trying to keep an open mind and am hoping that we can achieve the partnership that I’m aiming for.

Little Bear’s teacher and I have agreed to let Mrs C settle in and get to know Little Bear and then for us to have a meeting in maybe the third week. This will help us all get up to speed and hopefully signal the start of a good working relationship.

Unfortunately Mrs C has been tied up in her old contract and has not been able to meet Little Bear during his transition weeks. The school have provided a different TA for the interim. Little Bear has bonded with her well and has been happy to work with her. His teacher and TA have been impressed with what he has been able to achieve with support. He has concentrated well and been co-operative.

There is an obvious risk that the inconsistency of returning to a different TA could throw Little Bear. There is a risk that he may not bond with her as easily and may not be as keen to work with her. I hope this is not the case and it is just my natural tendency to think of all the things that could possibly go wrong talking. I am keeping everything crossed that Mrs C’s firm approach will be ideal for him and that he will work with her quite happily.

My chat with the teacher also revealed that whilst things are going pretty swimmingly in the mornings, the afternoons are a different story. Little Bear does not have support in the afternoons. He seems to be doing ok with accessing the carpet time plenary session but when the children are meant to be doing some independent recording it sounds as though he is doing whatever he fancies. I can see why he would because he cannot do independent writing yet and it sounds as though he is struggling to occupy himself with something constructive and is tending to get into a bit of bother instead. The reduced supervision will be difficult because we know he has a tendency to lash out where verbal negotiation is needed and we also know that the other children have a tendency to purposefully push his buttons. With the best will in the world the teacher cannot see everything at once and it is quite a full on class. I can see why things are going belly-up.

It sounds as though the one thing that will occupy him is the IPad… I really don’t want him to spend every afternoon glued to a screen. Hmm.

Also, it seems as though Little Bear is not being particularly co-operative with things such as tidying up when asked. This is interesting because he generally will tidy things away if I ask him to at home. Ever the opportunist I suspect he is just doing what he can get away with. It is so important that we all handle situations like this in the same way otherwise Little Bear picks up on the inconsistency. When he detects that the boundaries aren’t particularly clear or firm I do think that his anxiety rises and his behaviour deteriorates.

My plan is to let the holidays happen and to send an e-mail ready for the start of term with some thoughts on things that might help. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a bank of activities that would occupy Little Bear when he can’t access the work – things that would provide him with a bit more variety and learning potential than the IPad alone. I’m also wondering about alternative recording options for him such as recordable switches and talking tins, until his writing has developed a bit more. I will need to be clear about how we manage it if Little Bear refuses to tidy up or turn the IPad off when asked.

It could be that afternoons without support are not ok but we’ll have to see how things go.

The conversation made me even more thankful that we got the funding that we did and made me shudder to think what things could have been like if Little Bear was trying to manage whole days without tailored support.

I need to forget about it all for now though: school’s out! I have no idea how a whole academic year has gone already. Time really does fly.

When I tucked Little Bear in tonight I told him how proud I am of him and how well he has done at school. I know it hasn’t been plain-sailing but overall I am very happy with how his first year has gone. He’s done brilliantly. Over the summer we can really focus on his speech and keep trucking with the reading and writing. I know school is out but the learning needs to continue. He’s pretty keen these days and we can easily weave lots of learning into the things he chooses to do.

So far I am feeling keen and enthusiastic for my task ahead but I think we should take bets as to how long I will last before I’m tearing my hair out and counting the days until term starts again!

 

 

Support

Support can come in many forms and from a range of sources and this week we have experienced some of them.

The first thing was that we got an outcome on the funding application we made to the LA for additional support for Little Bear on his transition to year 1. We had not applied for a full EHCP but for ‘top-up funding’, of which there are several levels. This is short-term funding, just for the next academic year. It avoids a full assessment (which is required for an EHCP) but obviously does not give the long-term commitment and legal obligation of an EHCP. The point of top-up funding is to support “accelerated progress” for those children who need it. We felt this was ideal for Little Bear because given his background (neglect) he does need more support to catch up with his peers and it is difficult to say at this stage whether he will continue to need that throughout his school life or not.

Our application for funding was supported by the school and the Educational Psychologist and we had all contributed to the paperwork. We know that the leap to a more formal education in year 1 will be huge for Little Bear and that he will still require access to the EYFS. We also know that Little Bear needs very specific and 1:1 support to learn new tasks and to move forward with his educational targets – I wrote about the type of support that makes a difference to him last week in Jigsaws. Therefore, we were all agreed that additional funding would be required, on top of the £6000 the school are obliged to provide from their SEN budget.

On Wednesday the SENCO was waiting for me when I came to pick Little Bear up from school. “Have you seen the letter?” she said, “we’re fuming!”. I had not seen the letter as although the LA had addressed it to me, it hadn’t (and still hasn’t) found its way here. She ushered me in and we went through to the office she shares with the Head to read it. The first thing I noted was that the letter referred to Little Bear in his birth name. I have no idea how that came about as he has been legally adopted for over a year now and neither school nor us had used that name on any paperwork. It is quite concerning that the name is still in circulation and still on somebody’s data base somewhere.

The letter itself said that the LA were rejecting our application for funding as it had been sent in on the wrong paperwork (it hadn’t), Little Bear was making “excellent progress” and there weren’t any Speech and Language targets even though we had talked a lot about his Speech and Language Needs (there were targets included with the application). This was very annoying and disappointing. However, school had been very proactive and the Head had already phoned the LA and given them a telling off. He had got them to agree to read the paperwork properly and to take it back to panel, which happened to be taking place the next day.

Although I was annoyed, there was nothing I had to do as school had handled it and I felt reassured that they were on our side and were prepared to fight for Little Bear, just as I would be. I do feel lucky that this is the case as I’m only too aware of others in a similar position where the school would not have supported their application in the first place. Other schools would have just accepted the rejection letter and would not have queried it and the outcome would have been completely different.

When I shared what had happened on Twitter, it was lovely to get virtual support from friends and people I have never met who were outraged on my behalf.

Last night, I got a call from the SENCO. They had heard back from the LA, who had evidently realised they had cocked the whole thing up and who had now read the application properly and have granted us the funding! In fact, now they’ve thought about it, they have seen fit to grant us a level higher than the one we actually applied for.

I’m so happy that this has been resolved as I really feel it will make the difference between a rocky transition and Little Bear being able to do the very best that he can next year. Getting the right support in place for him is absolutely essential and thanks to the ongoing support we receive from school that has now been achieved and they are looking at employing a TA.

 

The second bit of support I got this week was rather unexpected. Little Bear has not been well at all. He had a course of antibiotics a couple of weeks ago but it has made little difference. He has a horrible cough and is just not himself, even though he is still running about all over the place. I have been umming and erring about taking him back to the doctor for a few days now but I had to go myself on Tuesday and sat waiting for over an hour and a half in the ridiculous ‘sit and wait’ clinic they operate. The thought of sitting there for that length of time with Little Bear filled me with dread so I have to admit I was avoiding it and hoping he might miraculously recover. When I saw his pale face and not as enthusiastic as usual running at sports day yesterday I knew I really did have to take him.

I decided to call them and be honest: maybe they could help me out by letting me have an actual appointment slot? I wasn’t too hopeful as the receptionists at our doctors are just like everywhere else – a little scary and you have to basically beg and give them far too much medical information to even have a chance of getting in.

I rang them anyway though and explained that Little Bear has some difficulties with behaviour and cannot tolerate waiting for a long time. I felt a bit fraudulent doing it though I’m not sure why as it is true. There weren’t any slots yesterday but the lady assured me that if I called in the morning they would be able to help me. A while later she called me back and said someone had just cancelled, would I like to book their slot? It was really good of her to take the time to remember us (they must get loads of calls) and to bother to find my number and call me back. This morning she called me again – the doctor had phoned in sick but she had jiggled things about so we could still have an appointment.

We have now been and only needed to wait 15 minutes which was much better. Little Bear was hanging off the reception desk and licking my arm and running about so I think they could see my issue!

Once again I feel lucky that when I asked for the support, it was there. I suppose it was a small thing but it did make a big difference to my day.

 

The third type of support I have observed this week was from Big Bear towards Little Bear. At sports day whenever Little Bear was participating in a race, Big Bear and the entirety of his year 3 class chanted and shouted for him. It was lovely.

 

This week I have also run one of my Communication Workshops. It was attended by prospective and current adopters. I love meeting other adopters in this context as hearing their stories is always so interesting. Sometimes I meet someone who is having a hard time of it and I can really sense their anxiety and worry and their being constantly on the brink of tears. I think it’s because I can see myself in the early days in them. I tend to go home and think about them a lot and hope they have the support around them that they so badly need.

Adoption is not an easy route. There are so many things that we have to constantly have on our mental agendas, so many things we have to chase up and even fight for. Good support is absolutely critical. I am, as ever, incredibly grateful for the support and kindness we have been shown, not just this week but every week. I know others are not so fortunate but I do think it is reassuring for us all that good support does exist and can be found somewhere.

 

Jigsaws

I know this seems a slightly strange blog topic but Little Bear has taken a real interest in jigsaws recently and in doing so I have learned a lot about how he learns and how he needs to be taught.

Up until very recently Little Bear has not shown an interest in activities that require sitting still and concentrating, such as jigsaws. He has had lots of other needs in terms of developing his play skills so I haven’t been too concerned. Having a bigger brother who does sometimes (not a lot as he too doesn’t like sitting still) do these types of activity has helped Little Bear a lot though. If Big Bear is doing something, Little Bear generally wants to do it too. As I have got really strict with screen time and have been encouraging Big Bear to find other things to occupy himself one evening he did sit down and start doing a jigsaw. Of course Little Bear was in hot pursuit and got one out for himself too.

I had to intervene as I knew that the one he had chosen was too difficult. We swapped it for a very simple one with 4 large pieces. At that stage, it was too much to ask of him that he try to complete it on his own. Little Bear put the first two pieces he found together, couldn’t make them fit immediately, growled and chucked them across the room. It would have been easy to abandon ship at this point. However, I was feeling particularly resilient that day and decided to persevere. “Come on, you can do it” I cajoled, shifting the pieces about so that two that went together were close to one another. Little Bear managed to put them together with a surreptitious jiggle of the bits from me. I made a big thing of how clever he was. Could he stick another piece on I wondered aloud.

I began to get concerned because he didn’t seem at all able to see that we were making a picture and with only two pieces left there weren’t many options. He would try to put a straight edge into a hole or a corner piece into the middle. Each time he perceived himself to be failing at the task (which happened every few seconds), he would lose his temper and throw the pieces and sometimes break the ones we had already done if I wasn’t quite fast enough. Rather than losing my temper (which would be easy to do if feeling frazzled) it made me even more determined that he should feel success and complete the task. I think at one point he got up to wander off and give up. It was hard to know how far to push him but I knew that he wouldn’t think he could do jigsaws unless he actually did one so I pretty much made him come back and finish it off. I gave a lot of help and short of actually putting the pieces in place for him, heavily scaffolded the task. All the while a part of me wondered if I was placing too much pressure on him as perhaps he actually wasn’t capable of doing it?

However, jigsaw finally completed, we were able to high five, applaud and do lots of bows. Big Bear is always fabulous in these situations and spontaneously joined in with the praise. Now that the marathon of completing one 4 piece jigsaw was over I thought we could tidy up and go to bed. However, to my surprise Little Bear had other ideas. He wanted to do another jigsaw. So off we went again. It wasn’t much easier the second time and Little Bear certainly wasn’t a natural at ‘seeing’ the picture and matching bits together. I thought back to the discussions we’d had with the Educational Psychologist in which he said that Little Bear’s language scores were in advance of his visual skills, a statement that at the time I had felt must be wrong. However, was this the type of thing he meant? I had to agree that what I was seeing was concerning and that without a significant amount of adult support, Little Bear would not be able to complete even a very simple jigsaw at the age of 5.

We persevered and geed on by his previous success Little Bear was pretty determined to complete the next one. That is not to say that he didn’t lose his temper or become easily frustrated but with encouragement and a calm approach and I have to admit, an element of me refusing to allow him to fail at it, we completed another and another and about 5 more. In the end I had to call time on it and put him to bed.

I was astonished when in the morning he wanted to do more still. He got out every jigsaw we own one by one and we painstakingly completed each of them until the playroom floor was covered. I tried to teach him strategies to make it easier e.g. that one has a straight bit. It is an edge. It goes at the side. Or that was has two straight bits. It is a corner. I pointed at similarities between pieces. Look, that one has purple on it too or the cat’s tail is missing, I wonder where it is.

I repeated myself a lot. No matter how much I said it, the task didn’t seem to be getting any easier for Little Bear, not least I suspect because ‘edge’ and ‘corner’ were new words for his vocabulary. But I had to admire his persistence. I don’t think there are many children who would want to keep going and going at something they are finding so hard. I kept the praise level high and despite Little Bear repeatedly saying “I’m rubbish at jigsaws” I tried hard to re-frame that thought and help to show him otherwise. Once the floor was almost entirely covered, he began to admit that he might be The Jigsaw Master.

This was just a couple of weeks ago. Little Bear still likes to get the jigsaws out but now he can complete a 30 piece jigsaw on his own.

Nothing about this situation is as I would have predicted it and it has taught me several things:

Firstly, when Little Bear doesn’t appear to be able to do things, is it because he really can’t or because he doesn’t believe he can? I rather suspect that he often gives up at the first hint of failure as his default position is to assume that he can’t. This leads me to think that sometimes putting a bit more pressure on him to complete a task the first time he encounters it is the right thing to do to show him that he can (with a high level of support of course).

However, it is hard to know which tasks to target and whether it is realistic to expect him to achieve them. Taking a hard approach to tasks that he might not be able to complete would be really damaging.

Secondly, I do feel there was an element of Little Bear having difficulties learning the task. I don’t think he was ever going to spontaneously figure jigsaws out by himself. However, it has shown that with specific teaching he can learn and he can generalise his skills pretty quickly. He needs specific teaching of strategies e.g. he couldn’t notice the similarities between pieces so I had to verbalise things that seemed obvious. Once he has been taught these strategies and there has been a lot of repetition of them, he can apply them well. I suspect this is due to differences in his neural pathways, caused by years of neglect. However, just because he can’t learn something the usual way, doesn’t mean we can’t find a way around it and create a new neural pathway for him.

Thirdly, because of the first and second point, Little Bear can’t really be expected to try new tasks by himself. He needs a grown up by his side to keep him regulated, focused and to give him heaps of positive feedback. I really hope we get the EHCP funding we have applied for as this is the very reason why he needs it.

I have found at home that if I get the support wrong the first time we try a task that can be the end of his engagement with it forever, so good support for new tasks is essential.

I am genuinely shocked at his progress with jigsaws and at what he can do now. The fact that he was so motivated to succeed, despite all the barriers, is nothing short of inspirational. He allowed countless repetitions of the task over the course of a few days which will undoubtedly have cemented his skills much more quickly. He even sat and helped with a huge jigsaw of the world that the 4 of us were working on the other day. It was hard for grown-ups but he now believes he can do jigsaws so wasn’t unduly phased. He did brilliantly and Big Bear got bored before he did.

I am now thinking about what other tasks we could tackle in this way. We have managed it with Maxi Hama beads – we had the same “I can’t do it”, “you do it for me” situation the first time we tried those but by the end of the morning he was pushing my hand away saying “I do it myself”.

I have also noticed that once Little Bear has mastered a task his attention span suddenly increases beyond recognition. His teacher called me in the other day as she was shocked that he had sat on the rug in a corner of the classroom for a whole hour by himself doing jigsaws. They had all been muddled up and he had painstakingly sorted and completed them. She had never seen him concentrate for more than 10 minutes on anything and didn’t know that he could.

This weekend, Little Bear spent several hours making Hama bead creations until he had used every single bead and I had to make a hasty Amazon purchase.

Evidently confidence is playing a huge role in Little Bear’s ability to learn. Little Bear, you really need to believe in yourself as much as I do because what you have achieved so far is nothing short of astounding.

And thank you to the humble jigsaw, who knew I could learn so much from you?!