NM
I am very grateful that I got to work with my clients this semester. I had one little girl, NM, who has Down Syndrome. This was my first experience working with that, and I have been very intimidated. I have no training or knowledge about Downs, and had no idea how to work with this girl. My experience working with autistic kids did carry over, and I managed okay. She did not meet her goals for the semester, BUT she definitely made huge improvements anyways. I was just listening to a recording of our last session, and I'm struck my how wonderful she is, and how much I didn't appreciate the experience. It was hard to work with her because getting any engagement from her took every ounce of energy I had for 30 minutes nonstop. 30 minutes doesn't sound that long, but to be going with full energy, full force for that long was hard, especially in the middle of the day between lots of other commitments and stress. During our sessions, I was always so focused on going going going that I think I missed some subtle aspects about her that are so wonderful. You know, I never stopped to smell the roses. But listening to this session just now helped me realize what gift it was to work with her. She really is very funny and has a great personality. You have to be able to put in the time to learn how to understand her because her speech intelligibility is so poor, and she is definitely a fireball who runs all over the place verbally and physically (I've had to chase her down the hallway a couple times cause she just bolts). I get a few more sessions with her. I'm really proud of her for what she's accomplished this semester, and also proud of myself for meeting this challenge.