exceptionalgallery

 * Physical Therapy 1997  * Attention & Image Building Therapy - Abacus/Mental Math (I) 1998 *

Physical Therapy (1997)

<published in FCSN Newsletter>

When VH was transferred from the Full Inclusion Program to Mr. Tokumoto's Transitional special class on 9/1/97, the teacher warned us that this school had a physical education class only once a week instead of a daily class as in his previous school. I did not realize the importance of this difference until he began to grow. He grew heavier each day becoming  a very chubby boy, and within half a year was among the heaviest children in school. Besides an overweight problem, VH had a pervasive gross motor problem:

1. He had trouble keeping balance on smooth surfaces and would fall.

2. He would walk and move very slowly.

3. He had a hard time catching a ball.

He failed every item of gross motor test for his age level.

His teacher recommended that he join track training since his running skill is better than the rest of his motor skills. The problem was that I could not find a team that would let him join so I had to find an alternative. My search led me to the martial arts. Oriental martial arts are famous for helping people with physical problems. There are many types of martial arts classes in San Jose but the class I was seeking had to have the following characteristics for him to get any benefit:

1. Near home. His schedule was already demanding and I really did not have time and energy left to do a lot of

    additional driving.

2. Intensive training. For an autistic child to be able to learn requires many sessions, one or two sessions per week is not

    enough.

3. A teacher willing to teach a special child. No matter how excellent a teacher may be, an unwilling teacher would do

    more damage to a special child. A special child can get confidence and skills from a warmhearted, willing teacher.

4. No permanent damage to the body. Some exercises do not have enough warm-up exercise before the more rigorous

    training begins, and can damage muscles and nerves in the long run.
    To prevent this from happening, sufficient warm-up exercise is one key concern.

5. Physical demonstration training instead of oral instructive training. VH is a visual child. 

    He learns better by seeing a physical demonstration instead of just hearing the instruction.

With these characteristics in mind, I visited three martial art schools and was lucky to find a Korean martial arts school, Yang's Kuk Sul Do Federation, that fit all the requirements:

1. It is 5.5 miles from home. I only need to drive 20 minutes instead of a half hour. It is a big relief for a poor mom who

    had to be on the road constantly.

2. The class has a daily program, except Sunday. The cost of the school is such that my child can get up to 6 days

    training per week. This is really a bargain. With up to 6 days training VH will have a good chance to learn

    something. Besides that, this class contains various daily repetitive physical exercises. And the teachers use simple

    methods to teach the various exercises.

3. The teacher is willing to teach autistic children. I confessed to the teacher about VH's disability and was ready to

    accept the rejection. I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed to accept VH.

4. The class is healthful. The complete contents of the class is designed by Mr. Yang who has expertise in Chinese

    physical therapy and the nerve/spine system of the human body. The class is so well designed that physical and mental

    health is improved in the long run.

5. The class is taught by both oral instruction and physical demonstration. This will help VH as he can learn better

     by relating oral instruction with physical demonstration.

This martial arts class teaches many interesting topics as following:

1. Stretching exercise. There is a complete set of  warm-up exercises that include stretching every muscle of the body.

    With this exercise, the human body will not be harmed from even the most energetic exercise routines.

2. Breathing exercise. This exercise teaches the student how to breathe properly to keep from feeling tired during the

    exercises.

3. Punching and kicking exercises. These exercises are an extension of the stretching exercises.

    They make sure the muscles are ready to take on the challenges of the various movements of the other exercises.

4.Tumbling exercise. This exercise teaches students how to keep from getting hurt when they fall. This exercise includes

    basic gymnastic skills: two hands/one hand car wheels and hand springs.

5. Hand and feet techniques. This exercise teaches the student how to use the hands and feet to do different things that

    we normally don't do with them. It stimulates the brain and aids coordination of hands, eyes and feet.

6. Forms exercise. This exercise combines all the above exercises into different styles of flow programs that help students

    understand how to apply all the exercises to the natural body flow.
    It stimulates the brain aiding short term and long term memory.

7. Sparring practice. This is excellent training for autistic children. An autistic child usually lacks communication,

    comprehension, concentration, observation and social skills. Sparring forces him to concentrate on dealing with his

     peers, and to learn how to apply all the above skills realistically.

Although the outlook seemed rosy in the beginning of August, 1998, problems showed up very soon. VH can not learn very easily. He requires a teacher who knows how to teach a special child. A main element in teaching special children is to train him repetitively for any skill.

Paying the tuition for a normal child, I did not feel that I had any right to ask the teachers to spend most of their time with my special child. Hence, I, the mother, joined the class in October, 1998. My idea was to learn the skills from the teacher and then drill VH. Under this situation VH started to progress. After 2 months I felt the class was so great that perhaps VH's big brother should join too and the mother could relax and enjoy life while big brother helped VH in the class. Hence, Minh joined the class and the mother left. Unfortunately, something happened to change this nice plan.

One day Minh came home very angry because the teacher was unfair to him and VH and Minh wanted to quit the class. It is very unusual for Minh to be so upset so I asked him what happened in class that upset him so much. He told me that another child kept pestering VH and when he scolded that child, he got both himself and VH punished by the teacher! I had been working with this particular teacher and know him to be a fair man, and I also know Minh would not lie. So, what happened?  To prevent further problems, I rejoined the class in April, 1999. This was very hard to me since I had quit several months before and my body was soft. I had really enjoyed the relaxation of the previous months! But, for the children's sake, I had no choice, so I rejoined.

Since I became part of the training team and was in class all the time, I found out an appalling truth: There was a mischievous child, named A, who asked another child, named B, to badger VH! Minh did not realize the situation and scolded child B for playing his mischievous acts on VH. The teacher did not see the behavior from child A nor child B, and only saw Minh scold child B. Hence, he punished both Minh and VH. Since I now knew what was going on, I prevented child B from giving VH a hard time! Because child A kept manipulating child B and tried very hard to find a chance to abuse VH without my awareness, he caused child B to miss his turns of exercise. Child B was upset and his parent scolded child A. Finally, child A began to behave himself since I gave him no opportunity to play his tricks again! After this incident, I understand that I have to continue to be in the class for the following reasons:

1. Prevent the other children from badgering VH.To see through children's mischievous acts is beyond a normal

    child's ability. It is the adult's job to protect the children from harm.

2. Prevent VH's sibling from getting hurt for taking care of VH.Taking care of a special child is the parent's

    responsibility. It is not  fair to have a sibling sacrifice themselves without having their own lives completely disrupted.

    Although I do appreciate his sibling's help, I cannot impose the parent's job on a sibling.

3. I have to be the trainer to drill VH on all skills. His sibling needs to enjoy the class. It is not fair for me to make

    him drill VH extensively instead of learning the new skills himself

After one year of training VH had the following improvements:

1.    He lost all his extra weight.

2.    He did not fall down while walking any more.

3.    During a hike on the mountain at the FCSN annual camp in 1999, he did not fall even once.

4.    He could catch a ball about a third of the time.

Whenever I feel exhausted from doing martial arts exercises I always tell myself that it is all for VH. I never thought I would have had a need to use the skills learned from the class until VH entered puberty: VH's behavior had become more and more violent starting September, 1999.  I found that I had to threaten him with the fact that both his big brother and I are his trainers and he could not possibly win over us. With this method we could diminish his violence. It was a sad time but I was glad that we did help him go through a dark period at minimum expense to all.

When Wendy, VH's younger sister, went to preschool, we found out that she had all the physical problems that VH had although at a less serious level, except for one special point: if anyone got a bee stung or fell down, Wendy was always one of them. Her legs were usually covered by bruises or scars. But she had no interest in the martial arts class and refused to have anything to do  with it. Since she did not have the serious problems as VH I did not pursue this issue until she was in the first grade. Then Wendy's first grade teacher claimed that Wendy's mental and physical progress was delayed by one to two years and that Wendy would be detained if her condition did not improve within a year. This situation forced me to have Wendy join the exercise class in November, 2000.

Predictably Wendy hated the class and sat on the bench doing nothing for more than 2 months. I felt that I would rather spend money for her to sit there as long as it took to break her down. Better to persuade her now than later when it might be too late to correct her. The teachers had been very patient with her and always tried to draw her in the class but it was all in vain, she stubbornly sat on the bench.

To fit VH's schedule, we usually took the big children class. Because Wendy had adult phobia and flatly refused to join the class, we had to change VH's schedule to join the young kids class. This was a good move because Wendy has always loved to play with children at her own age. This was a magical touch because the little kids followed the class training and this caused Wendy to finally join the class at the end of January, 2001.

Before I joined this exercise, I already had minor arthritis due to genetic problems as follows:

1.  I had constant neck and back pain

2.  The inside of my hands had already started the shrinking process

3.  My left leg has been numb from a twisted spine since 1984

4.  My right leg has been in pain since 1995.

I always expected that I would become an invalid in the future. After three years of exercise plus taking calcium complex, I found out something interesting:

1.  My neck pain is reduced to a minimum

2.  My back and right leg pain are at a tolerable level

3.  The inside of my hands stopped shrinking!

4.  The toes of my left leg gained their normal feeling.

It was a big and pleasant surprise. I did not know that the exercise can stop or prevent arthritis. Now I am doing exercise for VH and myself, although VH is still a higher stimulus for me.

In 2000, a Korean family with an autistic child joined the class. Two boys, one girl and the mother attended the class. Since both our families have an autistic child, we understand each others pain, and take care of each other's children. With this friendly environment, both autistic children are blooming in every aspect!

VH's big brother is limber, and can do a kick-up and a handspring which earn a lot of applause. VH admires his big brother very much. He practiced kick-up very hard for a year, and surprised everyone to complete it successfully. Now he works very hard on a handspring although he gets a lot of pain from working on it. We all believe he will achieve his goal someday because of his never-ending spirit to succeed!

Kuk Sul Do offers an excellent physical therapy to everyone that is willing to work hard. It helps my family immensely, both physically and emotionally. If you live nearby and are interested in improving your health, you can call 408-269-8000 to find out more details

Attention & Image Building Therapy - Abacus/Mental Math (I) (1998)

   <published in FCSN Newsletter>

<Published in The 9th Pan Pacific Abacus & Mental Arithmetic Competition 2007>

VH is a high function Autistic child. When he was 10 years, he had pervasive problems, but the following problems were able to be resolved with the help of the

Abacus/Mental Math class:

•   Severe attention deficiencies. 

   In 9/97 it took VH 35 minutes to complete one item.  

• Could not remember anything.

  For example, if you told him to go to the kitchen to get a

  drink of water, he would go but when he got to the

  kitchen, he would not know what he needed to do.

• He could not understand images based on descriptions/drawings.

  He could not understand anything we described to him
either orally or picture-wise.

          We had to show real things to him. Hence, he had problems
               comprehending anything.

•  His math was too slow due to Dotted Math.

        Although Dotted Math was good for building his concept

           of numbers, he could not cope with more advanced  
           functions of math. For example, he understood the 
           numbers ‘23’ and ‘38’ but it took him 5 minutes for him to 
           add 23 and 38 together.

•  Poor regrouping/borrowing (subtraction)

        He had major difficulty doing problems like '2235 - 787'.

•   Low level of multiplication/division.

        He could only do multiplication/division directly based on
           multiplication table; nothing else.

The Abacus/Mental Math class was recommended by my sister after she heard about his problems. She believed that mental math could help him re-structure his brain which would help solve his attention, image-building and math problems. Since I knew nothing about Mental Math, it was hard for me to imagine the effect.

To improve his math ability was on my bottom list. Key to VH’s comprehension and communication is the attention, image-building and short-term memory problems. Because these three problems, he could not have conversation capability. I had tried to improve these three areas many times but in vain. I made a decision that I would give it one more try for three months to see whether it would work for him.

To make him study a new subject was very difficult since he was over ten years old already and a little stubborn.

•  I asked help from his big brother, Minh, to study Mental Math with VH since VH worships his big brother.

•    I told my sister that the condition for VH  to study Mental Math was that both Minh and VH had to study Mental Math at the same time and I had to sit next to VH in the classroom too.

There were three classroom issues:

•   The teacher said that she does not have the  

   credentials to teach special children, and she never taught one before.

•  The teacher did not allow parents in the classroom 
cause parents usually cause distraction.

•   Minh was too old to get benefit in studying Mental Math.

My answer to these three issues was the following:

•  I do not care about if the teacher has special 

      children education credentials or not. I only care about whether the teacher has a loving heart or not.

•   I  knew VH is doomed to fail if I was not in the classroom, and I promised that I would not be a distraction in the classroom.

•   If Minh did not benefit from the exercise that, it was fine. The main purpose was to make VH study Mental Math.

Thanks to my big sister, the teacher was persuaded to give us a chance. VH started to learn Abacus/Mental Math in 6/1998. To make sure he had a chance to be successful, I made him work very hard on this subject:

- Because VH had concentration problems, I

  did the following:

   * We sat the very front table to avoid distracting him.

   * There were only three of us instead of four kids in a standard
      table setting.

   * VH sat next to Minh and I sat in front of him.

      Every time Van-Hai lost concentration, either Minh or I would
      catch him and made him come back to study or look at the
      teacher.

   * Prohibited VH from copying answers from the

      other people.

      We found out that VH was very good at copying. If we
      stopped watching him, He would copy all the answers from
      Minh’s paper.

      The first half hour was spent on training him not to

      copy answers.

   * I learned the lessons from the teacher to drill VH  

- The class started by using a real abacus.

   He had to practice each problem by reading, out loud, the
    problem and formula combined with left hand signal for the
    formula and right hand controlling the beads.

- He had to do double the amount of homework

     compared with his classmates.

- He had to study the subject 4 hours a day during
  weekdays and 8 hours a day during weekends.

- In July, the class advanced to paper abacusand
  then mental math.

  He was totally lost. Luckily, the teacher had summer off, and
   during these two months, I trained him to be able to switch
   from a real abacus to a paper abacus and later to mental math.

- Based on his progress, I sometimes needed to alter 
  the problem sheet to his needs and continued to drill 
  the skill.

Mental Math has been a very important therapy for VH. Even though it required a lot of work, the reward has been great.

- VH’s attention problem vastly improved.

   After two weeks of drilling. He could catch, or tried

   to catch, the tennis balls instead of letting them fly by

   him. After one year of drilling, he did not have any

   attention deficiency problem.

- Remembering more orders/commands.  In

   9/1998 his teacher told me that he could
   carry out 2 commands. In 11/1998 he could

   carry out 3 commands.

- Comprehension improvement.

   In 11/1998 he tried very hard to describe the

   scenario when we showed him a picture.

- Math operation improved tremendously. 

   He did not need to use Dotted Math any longer to

   do the computation although he had a tendency to

   revert to Dotted Math since he had 5 years drilling

   on it before and  understood it better.

 珠心算與自閉症

<改進注意力及腦力影像建立的治療>

   <刊載於第九屆泛太平洋珠心算比賽期刊 2007>

文海是有基本學習能力的典型自閉症的孩子 ◦在他十歲(9/1997)的時候，他下列的毛病能借由珠心算來解決 :

• 嚴重的缺乏注意力
  他需要花上三十五分鐘的時間才能完成一個簡單的事項 ◦
• 記不得任何的事情 ◦  
  比方說，如果你要他到廚房拿杯水，當他走到廚房， 他已經忘記要做什麼事情◦.
• 他無法瞭解用口語描述或圖片顯示的事物◦
  他必須要看到真正的東西才能夠 瞭解 ◦
• 他只會用點算做算術而點算的方式非常慢 ◦
  雖然點算能建立他的數字觀念，但不能處理進一步的算術，舉例來說 : 他了解數字23和38，但他需要花上五分鐘的時間才能把23加上 38 ◦
• 做減法的能力很差◦  
  他作重新組合和借位方面的減法時，有嚴重的困難. 例如2235 – 787 ◦
• 乘法和除法的程度低
  他只會做九九乘法表上的乘除法的算術題目 ◦

珠心算的課程是當家姐了解文海的問題後，推薦給我的課程， 她相信心算能重組文海的頭腦，因而改進他的注意力，建立腦內影像和增進算術的能力 ◦ 但我對珠心算一無所知，實在很難想像到珠心算的效果為何 ◦

我並不在乎他的算術能力，我最關懷的是他的理解和溝通的問題，而這兩個問題是由於缺乏注意力，無法建立腦內影像和極為短暫的記憶力三個毛病造成 ◦ 我嘗試過很多的方法想改善這三個毛病都失敗， 決心再用三個月的時間做最後一次的努力，看看是否能對他有所幫助 ◦

由於文海已經超過十歲，相當固執，想要讓他學習一種新的技能是非常困難的事情 ◦ 但是文海對他的哥哥很崇拜，所以我要求他的哥哥和他一起上心算課，並告訴家姐，文海學心算的條件是文海和他哥哥一起上課，而我必須坐在他的身旁 ◦

有三個問題發生 :

• 心算老師說她從來沒教過特殊需求的小孩，並且她也沒有教授特殊學生的證書 ◦
• 老師不允許家長陪讀，怕影響學生的學習 ◦

·      他哥哥年齡太大，無法從心算課中得到利益 ◦

 我的答覆是 :

·         我不介意老師是否有證書教導有特殊需求的孩子，我只在乎老師是否有愛心來教育我的孩子 ◦

·         我知道如果我不在課堂陪讀，文海將注定失敗，我答應老師我不會干擾教室的上課次序 ◦

·         至於他哥哥無法在課堂上得到學習的利益，我並不在乎，我主要的目的只是讓文海能學習心算 ◦

我非常感謝家姐說服老師給文海一個寶貴的機會，從6/1998年開始學珠心算，為了讓他有成功的機會， 我非常努力的督促他作功課 ◦

 - 因為文海有注意力不集中的問題，我採取了下列的做法

·         我們坐在教室的最前面避免他受到干擾

·         我們三個人佔用一個原本為四個人所使用的桌子

·         文海坐在他哥哥的旁邊，我坐在文海的前面，每當文海不專心作功課的時候，他哥哥或是我會要他專心作功課或看著老師

·         為了防止文海抄襲其他人的答案，(我們發現文海很會抄襲別人的答案， 在我們不注意他的時候，他能抄襲他哥哥所有的答案) 在前三十分鐘 ，我們訓練他不能抄襲別人的答案

·         我從老師那兒學習如何教導文海珠心算的辦法

- 這個課程開始時是使用真的算盤
 文海必須在做每一題時，要大聲唸問題，同時用左手比公式，和用右手打算盤的珠子

- 他必須做比別人多兩倍的功課

- 他在週日每天必須花四個小時做珠心算的功課，在週末時須花八個小時做珠心算的練習

- 七月時，教室進展到心算，但文海完全無法吸收學習

   幸運的是，老師放了兩個月的暑假，在這期間，我訓練他從

   真算盤轉換到紙算盤再轉成心算

- 根據他的進度，偶爾我須要更改練習的問題

心算訓練一直對文海很重要，雖然這須要花很多的心力，但這回饋是非常大的.

- 文海注意力不集中的問題有極大的改變

  在訓練他兩週之後，他在打網球時能接到或嘗試著去接網球

  而不會讓球從身邊飛過而不以理會 ◦  ** 訓練一年之後，他不

  再有注意力不集中的問題 ◦  **

- 他會記得更多的指示/命令

  在9/1998，他能記住兩個指令，到十一月時，他已能記得住三

  個指令. 

- 理解能力的進步

  在11/1998， 我們給他看畫相片時，他會非常努力的說明相片

   的內容 ◦

- 算術的計算能力得到無以言喻的改善， 但他不再需要用點算

  法來計算

  但由於他學點算有五年的時間， 他常會自動使用點算而不用

  心算 ◦