Therapy and the Kiddos

Therapy typically looks like us having group language time every morning for an hour, 9:30-10:30am. Our language group consists of Chabilo and the twins, Oscar and Owen. They are the cutest. We do language therapy, which is usually contextualize language therapy, which means we have a “big idea” that we focus on, usually presented in a book so like maybe colors or shapes or weather, and then we do little things within therapy that reinforce that idea, like games with colors or shapes or a craft with the parts of weather or songs, and then we revisit the “big idea” before we end therapy. So far in our language group we have done the weather, shapes, animals, colors, body parts, clothing, the senses, and a combination of all of those. At first it took the kids maybe the first week to warm up to all of us as we are new, white, and speaking English mostly and broken Tongan. Our group warms up the kids with singing a dancing welcome song which gets the kids moving and hopefully talking. We also sing Jesus Loves Me every day because they love it and it gets them talking as well.  They don’t say much, but after the first week I have seen them speaking more each day, which is so exciting! And since we have learned a little bit of Tongan, we implement that into our therapy as well to try and make it as cultural appropriate as possible.

L to R: Oscar, Chabilo, Owen

Working on the 5 senses

 We love to have fun in language group.

Before we left for Africa, my cohort had a short course (semester long course shoved into a week) over Multicultural Considerations. In this class, taught by the brilliant Dr. Austin (I want to be like her when I grow up), we learned how to give services to children/people that do not speak our language and the considerations that must be taken into account. For example, say we have a child referred to us for a language evaluation, but he speaks Chinese as his first language (L1) and only has some English, his second language (L2). My job would be to evaluate both languages and assess what steps, if any, needed to be taken next. I have to look at his overall contextual language in addition to the languages that he speaks, including the articulation, pragmatics, and grammar in both of the languages. If I were to base my evaluation solely on his English skills because that is where my skills are, I would miss out on so much of what the child knows and can do with language because I’m not assessing everything the way it should be and in the depth that that it should be. If I started out my evaluation, expecting him to act in the English culture, I would find so many red flags that perhaps he would not look me in the eye, never responded when I spoke to him. If I knew his culture, I would know that perhaps looking people in the eye is a form of disrespect and that perhaps males aren’t supposed to speak to women. Not knowing these things, I might diagnosis him incorrectly and he would not be getting the assistance that truly needs.

So, in class, we learned how to evaluate clients like that, that are a mystery to use both culturally and linguistically. Additionally, if I did not take into account language loss in a bilingual speaker, I might diagnosis him as having a language disorder, which can give a false positive because it looks exactly like a language disorder. Coming to Africa, it has been so eye opening to get to see how had I not known those things in class, I would have given many of the children at the Haven a diagnosis of a developmental language disorder or had concerns of them being autistic, but I hadn’t taken into account any of their culture or their background. Having that class in addition to coming to Africa and being able to visualize what an evaluation and therapy might look like, has made the idea of me giving services to a bilingual client a lot less scary.

After group therapy, we have individual therapy with a child that we were paired with. I was paired with Flavia, but she adores Jake, the son of one of the supervisors so we all work together. A few days into our therapy I was also given Lot, or Lottie, so our group grew by one and we had so much fun. In our individual therapy we do similar things in group, but on an individual basis so we can give a lot more attention to a specific child and work on specific things they need to develop. With Flavia, we worked a lot on colors and shapes because she knew the names of the colors in English, but would use them incorrectly. Lot we just worked on a lot general language activities, trying to get his MLU (mean length of utterance, kind of like how many words he says in a “sentence”) higher. We work on similar things in group like colors, shapes, animals, clothing, senses, body parts, nature, and household items.

Flavia is about four or five, a little bit shy, loves Jake, being tickled, kind of looks like Whoope Goldberg’s grandchild when she smiles, and speaks very softly.

Lot is insane and the tinest little boy so full of energy. And I love him to pieces. He is about two or three I think. Unfortunately/fortunately, about a week after me having Lot as well, he was able to go home with his mom and his sister, Esther, which is so amazing, but was also really sad. He loved playing the “Balloonie!” game. 

During the afternoon, after lunch, we come back and have about two hours with the babies in Haven 1. Haven 1 hosts infants-two years old, Haven 2 hosts three year olds – four/five year olds, and Haven 3 hosts the medically disadvantaged like those with TB, CP, or HIV (for the first time in a long while there are no kids at the Havens with HIV; this is due partly to the amazing work Meagan has been doing there over the past ten years, but also due to the government’s aggressive attempts at eradicating and dimensioning AIDS). Currently many of the children in Haven 3 are awaiting TB test results and there is one child, Suzie (who is freaking ADORABLE and stole my heart as well. She loves to be tickled by your fingers walking up her legs and then attacking her stomach, oh man she laughs hard), with CP.

For the first hour with Haven 1, we sing songs with the kids, giving them individual attention and loving on. I have sang every single children’s singalong song over ten times every day, even the one my grandpa used to do with me. It is so fun though and the kids love having someone just hold them, dance with them, and play with them. Here at the Havens, the caretakers are called aunties because these kids that stay at the Havens truly become theirs, it’s not a regular orphanage. These kids are brought here by social services or by families that cannot take care of their children at the time or because the child’s home is not safe for them at the time being. The Haven is a transitional orphanage where the kids stay until their home and caretakers are stable enough to take care of them in a safe, stable environment. But, with so many kids, and even though they are truly being loved as if they were the aunties’ own children, it is difficult for them to have one on one time with each kid every day. So that’s where we come in, getting to play, do language, and work on developmental milestones in addition to helping with the pre-mies babies, doing things like oral stimulation, feedings, and holding babies (believe it or not, but that’s a real thing that babies need, just touch, how perfect is that?!). The second hour of our time with Haven 1, the Harding group takes their assigned kid and works on developmental milestones and play therapy as they have to track the progress of one child while on this trip. Us ACU peeps do that as well, but the kids roam around so much it is difficult to keep our eyes on just one kid, so usually I have a rotating clientele that just depends on who has decided they want to play with Mallory that day. These are some of the kids I have had so far and have come to love so much:

Nora – this girl is a BIG BABY. I mean that in the literal sense. She has a heart of gold, but boy is she a big girl. She is almost two and looks like she could be three. She was walking before we got to the Haven, but now she is taking some initiative individual steps and babbling a little bit more. Adorable chunk.

Luyando – this is also a BIG BABY, again in the literal sense. We like to say he’s a Gramps because Nando always has his shorts up to his chest and has a serious look on his face until you finally crack it by letting him fall back and catch him with your legs. His smile is one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. He’s my little (big) buddy and he loves to cuddle.

Manu – this little bugger is everywhere. He’s not walking yet, but loves to stand and bounce up and down, dance, and scoot around the veranda getting into everything and getting on everyone. He loves putting a little bowl on his head and saying, “AH!” ‘Like, where is it?!’ And then he tilts his head down and acts so surprised and ecstatic when he finds the bowl in his lap. He’s my little buddy a lot of the time as well.

Catchra and Cha-Cha – these two are twins as well. Catchra is adorable and loves to play airplane and also adores Chloe. Whenever she sees her she just does her odd little scoot straight to her and lights up. Catchra also LOVES to cuddle. She’ll just plant her head right on your chest and hug and love on you all afternoon. Cha-Cha was my main man for a little while, but then he latched onto Stefan, Mrs. Taylor’s son who came with us. He loves being thrown into the air and caught and loves putting everything into his mouth.

Vernon – he’s one of the premies and I got to feed him on Friday. He doesn’t take the bottle right away so I had to do some oral stem with my gloved finger to get him sucking and then was able to feed him his bottle. *Fun fact, babies are not burped here and kids get picked up by their armpits/shoulders to move them around* 

Fresca - he is the most serious little boy until you get him laughing. He loves throwing things and loves to bring things back to me. He has the cutest little smile you will ever see and also loves being thrown in the air. 

Suzie - This little girl adores being tickled and squeezed and loved on. She has CP and lives in Haven 3. She hardly ever stops smiling and is a little stinker. She loved me walking my fingers up her leg and ticketing her. I think she loved the anticipation of it all hahaha

Throughout the day, each kid gets time with Meagan in class. She has a beautiful classroom she has made so culturally appropriate and makes the class and everything at the Haven truly bilingual, both in Tongan and in English. 

The work that she has done over the past ten years is truly phenomenal. She has changed the Havens for the better and in doing so, has saved the lives of so many children.

That’s pretty much our regular day, therapy wise. It is so interesting to see how even kids in Africa, so far from what I am used to, are exactly like any other kid you could anywhere else. The kids are so much fun to be around and even more so the more the warm up to us.

That’s all for now!

Mallory, or in Afrikkan, “Mallory”