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Can you tell me something that's round in the color orange?

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Uh, orange.

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Uh, orange.

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What can you do with an orange, Malba?

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Eat it.

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Eat it.

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What shape is it?

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Round.

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Round.

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Look what happens.

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I can peel it.

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Can you do that?

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Try that with your orange.

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What does it taste like?

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Is it sweet?

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Sweet.

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Ooh!

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Ooh, that orange gave you a shower, didn't it?

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I'm so glad that my little girl started early walking.

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At the age of 10 months, she started already walking.

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But my little one now is a little bit behind, you know.

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Your mind didn't start walking until she was about a year old.

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Then the second one, she started to walk about when she was eight months.

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You know, she was real skinny, I guess.

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That's why she started to walk, you know, earlier than the other ones.

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So he actually didn't walk until he was 14 or 15 months old, when he got too heavy for

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people to carry around.

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It was like she got her teeth, her first teeth on her first birthday, but we used to always

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make jokes about her, having to get dentures so she could learn how to talk.

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To Bria, I'm sorry, I had her first tooth at seven months, and at eight months she had

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four teeth.

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And she bit me on my cheek.

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That's the only way I found out that she had teeth.

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My second son, Frankie, when he was born, he was a little sick.

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At three months old, he had anemia.

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And my little niece, who's two months older than him, came over and used his pot, and

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from that day on he would not touch it.

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He would not go near that pot.

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He would go and use the regular stool.

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So that got him potty trained.

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These are our children.

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Each as distinct as a fingerprint or a snowflake, but each as precious as the other, each a

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need of nurturing care.

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Loving care is their human right, but so should be the opportunity to achieve their fullest

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growth.

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A head-head start.

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A head-head start.

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A head-head start.

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Because it is the parent who best knows the child, it is the parent we turn to, to tell

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us about the child's strengths, weaknesses, special talents, special needs.

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Hi, Colleen, how are you doing?

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Fine, thank you.

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Okay.

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I have some things here that I'd like to find out about Bobby, since he's new to our program.

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We know that you as the parent know a whole lot more about Bobby than we ever will.

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Okay.

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Have you noticed any particular physical handicaps at all?

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No, physically handicapped.

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Do you think your child might have any kind of hearing problem?

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I don't think so.

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Has he ever had ear infections or ear aches?

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He had one ear ache at the first of last year, but no more.

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Does he seem to understand you when you talk to him?

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Oh, yes, I think he understands.

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When he chooses?

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He chooses.

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I understand, yes.

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I think it's common among three-year-olds.

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Okay.

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During the first weeks of Head Start, the teacher's observations may or may not confirm

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how the mother sees her child.

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The results of both the KEDZEE, the parent interview, and the KEDZIT by the center staff

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are the basis for determining whether or not further evaluation is in order.

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If so, referral is then made to a professional team by the Department of Human Services.

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Enrolling 11,000 children every year, the largest program in the nation,

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Chicago's Head Start classes are held in over 200 centers under the direction of more than 25 agencies.

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Public and parochial schools, settlement houses, youth centers,

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and a variety of other church and community groups.

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In 1965, the federal government created Head Start to fill the gaps in learning and social

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experience among three- to five-year-old children from low-income families.

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Because poor health can interfere with learning, a strong health program was also included.

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The parents of some of these children are either unemployed or underemployed.

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They have dreams of moving into better neighborhoods.

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Some families do move on.

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Others must find success or failure where they are.

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It can be a world in conflict between squalor and pride, between poverty and ingenuity.

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Between unemployment and survival.

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Between indifference and creativity.

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By the mid-1970s, a minimum of 10 percent of enrollment was to consist of children with handicaps.

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Head Start undertook to identify and evaluate the handicapped and provide whatever else was needed.

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All right. Now, Renee was referred several months ago and has been seen by several of you.

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Now, I would like to know, first of all, what did you see in the classroom? What concerned you?

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The first thing that I see of Renee is he's very shy and quiet boy.

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He's trying to communicate with all the children and myself, but he can't. He can't express himself.

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Do you feel that he understands?

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Yes, he understands very well all the things. He follows directions very well.

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Also, he likes to play in the kitchen area. He enjoys in that area a lot.

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Yes. Let's see. He was born in March of 75, which means that he's four. Yes.

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Rosa, you have seen the mother.

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Right.

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Is the mother concerned?

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Yes, she is very concerned that Renee isn't talking at this point.

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Especially with the father, when he wants to communicate with the father, he goes to her.

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All right. Have you had contact with the father also?

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Once.

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What did you feel the father's attitude was?

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It bothers him a lot that Renee can't talk.

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The father thinks that there's something wrong. He doesn't know what.

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Does the mother understand him better?

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The mother's always understanding the children.

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Okay. All right. So then we referred Renee for a speech language evaluation.

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Carmen, you saw Renee.

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Yes, I did. I first observed him in the classroom.

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Then I observed him later in a free play activity in the kitchen.

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I found him to be an interesting looking child with very large expressive eyes.

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He uses these eyes to take in what is going on around him as a compensation for the lack of verbal communication.

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His quietness, I felt, was not really a shyness, but rather this inability to communicate.

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He really appeared comfortable with the other children. I thought that was striking.

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He happily fixed me eggs and coffee and gestured appropriately to let me know that he knew what he was doing.

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So it was rather obvious that he did comprehend a great deal more than he could express.

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There was never any feeling that he couldn't hear, was there?

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No.

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You felt he could hear?

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Yes. It's obvious that he comprehends what people are saying to him.

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He verbalized nothing spontaneously. He could repeat individual words when stimulated to do that,

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such as my saying to him, are those eggs? And he would repeat back, eggs.

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Of course, I spoke with him only in Spanish because he really does not understand English at all.

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And then later in my individual evaluation with him, that was also done entirely in Spanish.

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So that the bilingual aspect is not, that's not a reason for his not communicating.

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It's in his own native language that he is not communicating. I do want to make that point.

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And so we did ask Bonnie to see him, and that was the next step.

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I saw Renee twice. I saw much the same kind of behavior that Carmen talked about.

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During the lunchtime, he sat there, was a very light eater, didn't engage in conversation

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or in the kind of jovial play that the other children did while eating. He really was not very much involved.

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Now what we find in this child is a very great variation in skills.

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When it comes to simple kinds of drawing skills you can see here, he can't begin to draw a person.

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He can barely do a circular motion, which is a minimal three-year-old item.

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So this is quite delayed development in visual motor skills.

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In other kinds of less demanding coordination tasks, he was able to do some sorting tasks.

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He could do that quite well, but when it involved fine motor coordination, he simply was not able to function.

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His skills vary from below the two-year level to above the four-and-a-half-year level.

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And so we find this tremendous variation.

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This is, I think, the problem that we have in trying to look at a child like Renee,

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that you cannot really separate out these issues nice and neatly as you might wish.

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So overall, I think we have to be very concerned about the academic outlook for Renee.

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Okay, fine. So, Dr. Wall.

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Well, today we had an adventure, didn't we, Rosa? A home visit.

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Because of the snow, Mrs. Green couldn't get Renee here,

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so Rosa was kind enough to go over there and ask if we could have our interview in the home.

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And we did.

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Mrs. Green was very gracious in welcoming us to her home,

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and she participated through Rosa, who was the interpreter.

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She is obviously worried about Renee and is very sensitive to his problems and needs.

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She is concerned about three issues, namely Renee cannot express himself,

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he is too close to her, and he is nervous.

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A very perceptive mother.

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She elaborated on the nervousness by describing how Renee retreats into himself when he is in a group of children.

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He imitates the speech of his two-year-old brother and in fact imitates the younger child in other ways.

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He initiated contact with me through play with the toy telephones.

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Interesting that a child with a communication problem would choose that particular toy.

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He seemed to understand my questions and would respond with nods and gestures, even when he smiled.

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He seemed confused, anxious, and unable to really enjoy what was going on.

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You gave her a spanking.

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His drawing skills were far below age-appropriate levels as Bonnie demonstrated before.

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His grasp of the pencil was immature, laterality was not yet established.

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There were evidences of perseveration.

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Let's explain perseveration so that we all understand what that means.

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It's a kind of automatic, mechanical repetition of something.

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You get stuck?

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Getting stuck.

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That is reflective generally of what?

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We begin to wonder about organicity if we see a good measure of that.

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Renee perceived his lack of skill and became quite exasperated.

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He didn't give up and he didn't become hyperactive, but he clearly was distressed.

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He's also very dependent for his age.

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A multi-handicapped youngster showing many areas of delayed development.

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Even though the Head Start program is being beneficial, that's not enough for a child with this kind of problem.

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It's essential that he begin to receive some language therapy immediately.

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As soon as possible.

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We are suggesting that we have the evaluation by pediatric neurologist Juan.

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As Dr. Will said, I think it's imperative that when we do the interpretive conference,

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it be with the parents, not with just the mother.

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I think the father must be involved in this.

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I think what we found is that he has a great deal of ability that is not being shown in his performance.

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But unless he gets some help, it will never come out.

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Because he's as young as he is, he will still have another year in Head Start, won't he?

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Right. The next step will be that we'll have the interpretive conference with the parents.

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If you have any other questions, call me.

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Following discussion with the parents,

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Rene was referred to a neighborhood rehabilitation institute for speech and language therapy.

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His mother was referred to a family service agency for counseling.

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Also available are the special education resources of the Chicago Public Schools,

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the facilities of the Chicago Department of Health, hospitals and clinics, and other community services.

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There are many links from Head Start that connect with this vast urban community.

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A great wealth of specialized services for our preschoolers with special needs.

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Health and physical, hearing and visual,

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speech and language, mental retardation, emotional disturbance.

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For many parents of these children, there's a double burden.

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Not only coping with the child's particular problems, but at the same time dealing with their own feelings.

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Guilt, shame, anger, depression, all of which are easier to describe when play acted.

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There is nothing wrong with my child. It's a mistake.

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What do you think? Your love grew it.

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I know. Listen to those doctors. They just do it for God's will.

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Are you sure?

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That damn doctor doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

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She won't believe what anybody's saying.

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She can't take it.

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Damn!

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What didn't I do right when I was pregnant?

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My Dios, Mio, what did I do?

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Probably some hereditary thing.

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We are being punished.

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I really feel bad.

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I...

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I just want to cry.

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Cry my heart out.

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I'm so ashamed.

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There's no point crying. You gotta take things as they come.

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No guarantees, I don't think.

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Maybe something can be done. Those people over there seem to know what it's all about.

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They say help is possible. Especially since he's so young.

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Hell, a hell of a lot more is known today.

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Sure, they do some research all the time.

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You gotta try something. Maybe it'll work.

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Better for both of us to try.

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Sure it is.

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It kind of makes me proud of them, you know.

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I didn't feel this way about two years ago.

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Or five when I born him.

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That's when the cord got wrapped around his neck and damaged the nerve in the shoulder.

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In school he's doing just good.

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And when he comes home from Head Start with a new word,

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I'll say, oh my God, I got a professor here.

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And he'll probably say, mmm, and run around the house or something, you know.

240
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When you go somewhere, you seem to feel your way around the place.

241
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You can tell whether you're in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time.

242
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And I found out this was the right place.

243
00:23:17.940 --> 00:23:20.480
It brought out the hidden points in him and everything.

244
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:29.140
Of course at the beginning he was full of these, I can't, I can't do this, I can't do that.

245
00:23:29.760 --> 00:23:31.340
My hair won't work.

246
00:23:31.660 --> 00:23:33.900
It's really hurting. It's gonna bleed. Come on.

247
00:23:34.280 --> 00:23:37.580
It's gonna bleed all over, all over.

248
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:41.200
Where? Where's it gonna bleed? Come on, show me. Show me where.

249
00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:48.660
And he had a very wonderful teacher at Head Start by the name of Miss Morgan.

250
00:23:50.300 --> 00:23:53.100
And she worked very good with him, you know.

251
00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:56.560
We decided to work together like a team.

252
00:23:57.340 --> 00:24:03.420
Like she would be away from home mother and I would be the home mother.

253
00:24:04.320 --> 00:24:06.040
And I told him, yes you can.

254
00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:14.680
Sometimes we would be out in the backyard or wherever and I'll call them and tell them, come on let's rake some leaves, you know.

255
00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:17.840
And he'll say, I don't know how, I can't.

256
00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:22.300
So I just started gradually showing him, let me hold your hand, give me your hand.

257
00:24:22.800 --> 00:24:26.100
Let me show you how to work with that other hand. Put both hands up here, you know.

258
00:24:26.220 --> 00:24:28.840
Look at the lady's yard over there. She don't have no leaves over there.

259
00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:31.080
He said one day, she don't have a tree either.

260
00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:37.500
No, you gotta do it yourself.

261
00:24:39.420 --> 00:24:41.080
You can't let them get off without trying.

262
00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:53.080
Well, at one time they wanted to send Aminou to a school for the retarded, which I think is ridiculous.

263
00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:56.880
Simply because they had physical therapy equipment.

264
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:06.460
Mrs. Williams had been through it herself simply because she had had polio as a child and she knows how bad she felt.

265
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:12.220
And she wanted him to be involved with other children in a mixed environment rather than just in a retarded school.

266
00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:20.840
I really believe that we can make it, you know, on the outside of the street, you know, instead of behind the window, you know.

267
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:27.360
And so is Aminou. That boy is really moving.

268
00:26:11.180 --> 00:26:20.820
With his diploma and graduation gift in hand, he actually takes off and heads out into the world.

269
00:26:20.820 --> 00:26:23.240
Beautiful singing voices today.

270
00:27:07.820 --> 00:27:14.740
She was really excited about being at school, but the thing that I was concerned about was that I could never understand her.

271
00:27:15.860 --> 00:27:21.380
Every time she would speak, it would all be clustered together, you know, her language.

272
00:27:21.780 --> 00:27:24.260
In other words, it was real fast and it was just mumble-jumble.

273
00:27:24.700 --> 00:27:30.640
Her speech was characterized by echolalia, perseveration, and disfluency.

274
00:27:31.340 --> 00:27:36.160
And this tended to interfere with the intelligibility about 50% of the time.

275
00:27:36.840 --> 00:27:41.040
Joan, go into detail on that a bit. Explain to us what you mean.

276
00:27:41.040 --> 00:27:45.740
Echolalia. She would repeat what I said. If I asked her...

277
00:27:45.740 --> 00:27:51.200
I don't think we're dealing with a mentally retarded youngster is what I'm getting at.

278
00:27:51.340 --> 00:27:59.400
I think we can't rule it out because we don't know what neurological deficits, if any, are there.

279
00:28:00.360 --> 00:28:07.400
We all have some hunch that in spite of the low IQ figure, she really is not retarded.

280
00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:15.180
She's probably... She could be very bright and maybe that's why she looks as good as she does.

281
00:28:15.360 --> 00:28:23.400
I think that she is also latching onto people with very good survival techniques.

282
00:28:24.780 --> 00:28:33.760
What would benefit best in a therapeutic day school program at a very early stage, rather than waiting, she's already four.

283
00:28:33.760 --> 00:28:39.140
My question would be whether we should start that process right away, without waiting.

284
00:28:39.840 --> 00:28:43.740
Try to get her into some intensive speech therapy.