By Teek
© 2022
“There’s another one,” Olivia shouted as she went running off toward a butterfly.
“Look at its wings,” Lori said as she ran after Olivia. “It’s a Mo-arch butterfly.”
“Monarch,” Tammy corrected. “Isn’t it pretty with those orange and black wings?”
The three girls came to an abrupt stop in front of a kid holding their ears and looking all around.
“What’s wrong Brenda?” Lori asked?
“It hurts! Make it stop,” Brenda contorted her face while continuing to look around the playground.
Olivia, Lori, and Tammy also looked around trying to figure out what Brenda was talking about.
“It hurts!” Brenda shouted before letting out a giant scream of pain.
“Tammy, go get a teacher,” Lori directed. “Brenda, what hurts?”
“The bird, make it stop.”
As Tammy ran off, Lori and Olivia looked around. They could hear a bird singing off in the distance, but they couldn’t see or hear anything closer.
“What’s wrong with the bird,” Olivia asked? “It’s off in the trees. I can barely hear it.”
“It’s so loud. It hurts,” Brenda scrunched her eyes together, fell to the ground, and curled up into a ball, while holding her hands over her ears.
“What’s wrong,” Mrs. Thompson asked as she approached the group?
“I don’t know,” Olivia responded? “Brenda is saying the bird’s singing is hurting her, but it is way over there.”
Mrs. Thompson looked over to the edge of the playground. She could just barely hear the bird singing over the kids playing. Getting down beside Brenda, “It’s okay Brenda. Let’s go inside where it’s quiet.”
Lori looked at the locked door to the school and back at Mrs. Thompson, “She needs her special headphones.”
Smiling down at Lori, “Yeah, she does. When I unlock the door, do you want to take her down to the SpEd room to get them?”
“I can do that,” Lori said with pride.
“Office,” Mrs. Thompson said into her walkie-talkie. “Sending Brenda to SpEd room with Lori.”
“Office acknowledges,” came back through the walkie-talkie. “Notifying Mrs. Diamond.”
When they reached the door, Mrs. Thompson unlocked it and stepped inside with Brenda, Lori, Tammy, and Olivia. Once the door was closed behind them she stopped and got down on her knees in front of Brenda. Then everyone was silent as Mrs. Thompson just waited for Brenda to respond.
Slowly Brenda started to open her eyes and look at Mrs. Thompson.
“Can you still hear the bird?” Mrs. Thompson smiled at Brenda.
Hesitantly Brenda took her hands off her ears and shook her head back and forth.
“Lori will take you down to Mrs. Diamond. Can you go with Lori?”
Brenda shook her head up and down.
“Lori, take her to the SpEd room. Don’t talk with her unless Brenda starts the conversation. Let her recover.”
Lori nodded her head, and Brenda smiled at the directions. Then Lori took Brenda’s hand and headed down the hallway.
Tammy and Olivia looked at the two girls walking down the hall away from them.
Mrs. Thompson opened the door, “Okay, girls, let’s go back out and finish recess. Brenda will be okay.”
Olivia looked down the hall one more time before turning to Tammy, “I’ll race you to the twirly slide.”
Tammy smiled and darted out the door.
Comments
You made me smile
I am so lucky to only have a mild case of autism. I hate that word mild but really don't have a different word for it. I wear special underwear to avoid anxiety attacks and im not afraid to admit they are just adult diapers. My hubby is more embarrassed by them than I am and since we both work in the same place now I have to make sure our coworkers don't find out. Not everyone would understand.
EllieJo Jayne
So what was wrong with the little girl?
There is a lot I did not understand about this story.
Sensory Stimulation
Individuals with Autism have problems processing all the sensory stimuli we take in during a normal day. How this impacts the individual differs because everyone's processing is different. I pulled this one from one of my own experiences. I was out on a walk around the block, and my senses were being processed all wonky. Visually things appeared the wrong size, and auditorily everything was off. At one point I was walking along the sidewalk, and I heard a bird tweeting. I could not see the bird, but it was coming in louder than any other sound around me. Even louder than the cars driving down the street right next to me. At one point the tweeting was actually painful for me. I was used to my brain taking in all sounds around me at the same volume, so noise on the other side of the room can be just as loud as the person talking right next to me. This was new to me, where a far off sound was louder and more actually painful to listen to. My brain had decided to process the bird's tweet in such a way it actually hurt.
Sensory overload for individuals with Autism is a common thing. Little kids have a harder time dealing with it. They will often wear noise-canceling headphones to help compensate, but that only helps a little. The problem isn't hearing, it is how the brain is processing the information. Because the little girl's brain was in overload, she was unable to process other things, like her need to go get the noise-canceling headphones. She needed someone else to do that processing for her. Thankfully she had a few good classmates that were willing to help.
Keep Smiling, Keep Writing
Teek
Intro Text
Huhu Teek,
Seams that this Intro
"A bird disrupts a playful recess. Friends will come together to help a classmate with autism."
is only on the BC Main Page.
On the other Hand, must every thing described to the nines?
Some times, it's also nice when things are left open to the Imagenation of the reader.
Tschau Freggel Buster
Sensory overload
Living with ADHD I can empathize to a certain extent with sensory overload.
This story is a very good example of the need to educate peers and make them aware of issues and limitations that come with certain "disabilities". And it also shows that even very young children can help others with disabilities, and thus grow to become more aware of other peoples needs and limitations.
You make a very compelling case of how integrating children with disabilities into the "normal" school environment and population can have a very beneficial effect for ALL involved: the "normal" children, as well as the ones with "disabilities".
Greetings,
Jessica
Never Hide
The world tends to hide things that are "different" from perceived "normal". The problem with this is that it only makes the difference appear more different than they really are. The more exposure people have to individuals with a variety of disabilities, the more they accept it to be a normal part of human life. 12 to 14% of school age children have a disability of some type. We don't need to hide these children. Kids are accepting of differences as long as the adults are. The only way the adults become accepting is if they are exposed to these individuals from a young age.
I have spent my life educating people about disabilities and teaching them that we all have more in common with each other than we have differences. As I started to transition, I found a lot of the issues people were facing with discrimination and rejection were the same issues I faced growing up with a disability. Minority groups all have slightly different factors but they all have a lot of commonalities. Wake up people, there are more people in the minority groups if they all got together, than those in the "normal" group.
Keep Smiling, Keep Writing
Teek