Teens with communicative difficulties

This is my attempt to analyse and highlight the critical factors in supporting teens with communicative difficulties. We often have a narrow definition of communication - spoken words. However gestures or using alternative modes like typing or drawing are also communication. Think of Student X and Y as case studies.

Critical factors:

1) Understand the child and build trust. I intentionally found time at least once a week to check-in with them even if they did not respond in spoken words. For some students, they might not even look at you. It does not mean they do not want to connect with you. My regular touch points were my way of saying, "I care for you."

2) Be comfortable with silence and explore the most comfortable mode of communication for them. Some might prefer gestures or drawing. Others just take a while to get use to connecting with people. Just the act of initiating regular conversations is in itself an intervention as people rarely speak to them (frequently overlooked due to their tendency to avoid people).

3) Identify their interests and strengths. Use those as bridges to connect with them. Our aim is for us to be a bridge for them to the world. Using their strengths is also a way to build their self-esteem.

4) Be patient and persevere. It is like germinating seeds. Most of it starts underground. In good time with the right conditions, the first visible growth happens almost miraculously. :)

Student X

In lower secondary, he frequently ran out of class or sat under desk when he was upset; hid in cupboards when he was bored. He didn't like to speak and teachers had issues communicating with him. He was involved in an incident when he accidentally injured his classmate. He had favourite hangout spots in school (besides the classroom) during breaks as he does not buy food or drink from the canteen. Only once with my company, he bought a bottle of mineral water. He said he liked to be alone but it was mostly the anxiety that kept him from socialising with people.

The intervention for him was: 1) regular opportunities of conversational skills and socialising, 2) helping him grow his vocabulary and 3) establishing social support through my mediation.

Every week, I will go to his classroom or his hangout to speak to him. We went from a lot of questions and answers to a dialogue. I've never heard a single 'thank you' or sign that he is appreciative. Boy! Did he caught me by surprise with the note below! Learning point 1 *The outwardly less communciative teen can be moved by sincerity and love.

This note was worth a million dollars! :)

For Care week in April 2019 (after 1 year of learning support), when students were asked to write a note of appreciation to anyone.... his form teacher was surprised by his note. X subsequently wrote another 'thank you' note to the Year Head in the second half of 2019 after the camp.

It started with me going to his classroom. Just 2 weeks earlier after 2 years of learning support, he started coming on his own to the learning room. :) Learning point 2 *Intentional regular contact is a good way to build trust. It just takes time.

He started to speak more often with prompt after 1.5 years. Currently at 2 years, he is speaking more voluntarily, with new teachers, and faster response speed. He also did well in his recent English oral. We have been practising conversational skills because he wanted to improve his conversation stimulus part for the oral examinations. Learning point 3 *He has his preferences and a mind of his own but he needed time and space to share. Being a bridge or building bridges to others is an effective strategy.

Student Y

He had superior cognitive skills that were masked by his apparent communicative and emotional difficulties - self-loathing tendencies- and perfectionist mindset. He was a deep thinker which can work against him in a fast paced and time-constrained setting. Teachers feedback was mostly about him disrupting the lesson with his specific behaviours. We tried many strategies and I think some were unique to the teacher/subject. We even had to invite the psychologist to school to share with the teachers as it became particularly worse in the graduating year. Performance was one of his triggers. Both X and Y have less involved parents or parents who were less accepting of special needs.

Given his cognitive ability, I used a CBT-based anxiety intervention to work on his anxiety first. This involved training his parents (mostly his mother; only saw his father at the 'O' level result release) to understand what she could do to reinforce support at home. After the anxiety intervention, we targeted the self-loathing/inner critic and started on self-monitoring over 2 years. He improved but continued to need support with self-regulation.

The 3 learning points for X was similar for Student Y. A much shorter time was needed to build rapport with Y than with X. As Student Y was keen to socialise (only that he didn't know how), he eventually joined the social skills group. Honestly, I enjoyed the group session although they do irritate me sometimes when they get too carried away talking - shows how much they enjoyed being together - instead of listening to instructions. After they had mastered the basic skills, I enjoyed listening to their special interests time - showcase their interests and some really impressive Gunpla/Transformer models they assembled and collected.

It was also amazing to see how much they could talk with common interests! I feel privileged that I get to see the 'spark in their eyes' for some of these students who seem 'uncommunicative' or 'disruptive' in the classroom. It was some of these moments that made me feel that this work is truly meaningful and impactful.