OCR Text |
Show to her good ear to listen to their voices with her hand on their throats. And laughs when they talk to her, a laugh like an elephant's roar on a record with the needle stuck in one groove. She is more patient now, and she pats the smaller children in her class on the head, but they are still terrified. She is learning mobility, but has to drag her club foot along the edge of the sidewalk diagonally. The mobility teachers argued for an hour over how to get Patty to do it correctly. "Trailing" is the first difficult level leading to the use of a cane. One arm is held in front of the body at all times for self-protection, while one foot moves parallel with the edge of the sidewalk or wall, etc. Patty's foot refused to remain parallel, because Patty's foot was built permanently at an angle. The first day they saw her, she kicked me hard with the leg that was suppose to be trailing and I kicked her back. I thought they were going to faint on the spot. They slowly edged back a ways from us both and proceded to argue about how to begin. Later, Patty and I found our own methods that worked best for us both. The motor teacher volunteers to teach Patty her first trailing routine in the out-of-doors. She dons her furry hat and coat and mittens, walks to the door, trails along the sidewalk, locates the middle of a doorway, makes a precise military turn, tells herself "good," and diagonally moves to the sidewalk edge again. She makes a second turn and goes into the cafeteria, locates a hook for her coat and hat, trails along the wall to her table, locates the utensils, sets the table for six students, and sits down. She has learned that in a month, and is quite proud of herself. Others begin to volunteer time with her- The monster image fast disappearing. Tantrums soon lessened by a third. Perhaps we had accomplished this by treating her as a human being; she treated us in the same manner- Eventually we learned that another third of her tantrums were being caused by the constant drugging, and the last third by an incredible menstrual cycle that lasted sometimes eight days and came every two weeks. Watching Patty jab herself in the side when her period caused cramping, we saw that here was another problem to be solved. We began an education course on taking care of one's self in the cycle. It was tea and sympathy, and pills because she was -9- |