Story about Danny

              Recently  Thematic PhotoBooks idea was  introduced with a young and enthusiastic teacher at a special needs preschool  She immediately took to the idea, told all her coworkers about it. Ms. Treena, while she was enthusiastic, she was also openly skeptical, she asked a lot of questions and said that she would think about using them in her classroom. The rest of the staff all nodded politely but demurred. “We’ll wait and see how Ms. Treena does with this PhotoBook idea, then we’ll think about using it in our classrooms.”

As a preschool teacher at a specialized preschool for special needs kids.  Ms. Treena works in a classroom that is a considered to be higher functioning. She works with one other teacher and has aids throughout the day as they are available.  There are three things about Ms. Treena that made her successful: 1) dedication, 2) willingness, and 3) true understanding of her kids.  Ms. Treena made a concerted effort to know her kids, then she focused on behaviors she wanted to change. Each child had a different diagnosis, history, and background. Some were complicated by a history of severe abuse, others because they didn’t speak English. It didn’t matter. Ms. Treena established a goal for each child and she worked toward that goal.

After Ms. Treena had been introduced to  PhotoBook methods, she was asked to report, in her own words, of her experiences. She was asked to give you a description of her typical day, how it used to be and what it is like now that she’s incorporated the use of PhotoBooks in her classroom.

Ms Treena report    

  Let me tell you, when I was first introduced to Dina’s PhotoBook idea, part of me was really, really excited.  The other part of me was pretty darned skeptical.  I know that kids like pictures to be taken of them, but I’d never actually done much more in the past than to take pictures of kids and put them on an ornament of some kind, like popsicle sticks so they could take it home and hang it in their room.  It just never occurred to me to do anything like this.

Danny

      I have one little boy who was especially troubled, Danny. His background is really sad, he has a diagnosis of “shaken baby syndrome” and he’s already been diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder among other things. I believe he was abused by his parents from the time he was born and was taken away from his parents and is now living with his grandmother along with his other siblings. Because his grandma has to work, she brings Danny to school here. 

       I never forget his first day here.  He was a holy terror!  Everyone thought so, and quite honestly, they were ready to tell Danny’s grandmother that we couldn’t take him.  He was horrible! But, he wasn’t in my room yet, I hadn’t even met him, I’d only heard about Danny.  I happened to go into his room for something, and I saw him.  I knew right away who he was because he was causing all kinds of trouble, but when he looked at me, I could just see something in his eyes.  I didn’t want to give up on him.  I volunteered to take him into my classroom, and he’s been with me since that day. We actually made some kind of connection that day, maybe because I chose him to come into my room.  I really don’t know.  What I do know is that he was not much better behaved in my classroom.   Quite frankly, I thought I’d made a mistake.  The first two days, he was actually pretty good, but by the third day, he was feeling his oats again and he began to act out. I didn’t know too much about his history at that point, but I knew he had to have some basis for his violent behavior. He would hit his classmates with his foot, his fist, with a toy.  He’d throw chairs, bins of toys across the room.  And when his rage got the better of him, he would just start shrieking uncontrollably.   The very first thing I noticed about Danny was that he didn’t talk. His grandmother said he’d never said a word to her, and she was worried that perhaps he was deaf.  We had him tested, and he wasn’t deaf by any means.  He simply didn’t talk. He didn’t talk to me. He didn’t talk to any of the other students, and according to his grandmother, he didn’t talk to his siblings when he was at home with her. Once I realized that he didn’t talk, I began to think more and more about that PhotoBook idea, and I started thinking that maybe using photographs could help Danny to learn to communicate.  I understand that they have been used for other nonvocal children, so I wanted to do the best I could for Danny.

Danny’s First PhotoBook

        I decided right then and there to create a PhotoBook just for Danny.  I started by bringing my digital camera to school, and first I asked his grandmother for permission to take pictures of Danny.  She didn’t care as long as I tried to reach Danny.  I could see her heart was just breaking. I took pictures for two straight days.  I took a lot of the other kids, but I most took pictures of Danny.  For the most part, I tried to take pictures of him when he wasn’t looking at me, because if he saw the camera he became a different person.  He’d either ham it up, or hide his face, or just seem to be embarrassed by all the attention. When I had enough photos, I put them together into a little PhotoBook. 

          I cut out words that I had printed on the computer and made a title for the cover of the book called “Danny’s Day”. The first picture was one of Danny’s grandmother holding his hand, bringing him into my classroom. Then one by one, I showed Danny what he did all day.  I had pictures of him painting or coloring and I called him an artist on those pages.  Then I had pictures of him during music time and I called him my musician on those pages. I put in pictures of him during storytime, during recess, at naptime, during lunch and snack time.  I made sure I only put in pictures of Danny behaving properly. I wrote captions that were complimentary and encouraging for Danny.  I know he can’t read yet, but when I read his book to him, I want him to think of himself as a good boy.

Ms Treena saw a Miracle

         I have to tell you, the day I gave Danny his book, I cried.  I called him over to me and I told him that I had a very special present that was just for him.  I wanted him to keep it here at school, but he would be the only one who could use it.  I could see his eyes, him thinking, “Yeah, right.” Then I handed him the box so he could open up his present. It occurred to me that Danny didn’t really have much experience receiving presents. His little hands trembled just a little as he ripped open the paper.  When Danny opened the book and saw his own face staring back at him his eyes widened.  I don’t know if he was in shock or what, but just as I was afraid he would throw the book down in disgust, he rushed over to the mirror where he looked at his face in the mirror and then he looked back down at the picture of him on the cover of the book. He did this for a couple of minutes, and then as if he finally realized that the picture really was of him, he hugged the book to him chest and refused to let anyone near it or him.  He wouldn’t even let me open the book to show him the other pictures in there. At that moment, it was just enough for him to see his picture on the cover. When it was time for Danny to go home, I tried to take his book away from him because I really wanted it to stay at school so we could use it.  Danny had other ideas. He started screaming so much that I just decided to back off.  I did ask his grandmother to please try to bring the book back the next day because I really wanted to try to start using it to see if we could change some of his behaviors.  His grandmother agreed to try to bring it back, but she made no promises.  It was pretty obvious even then who was in charge in that home.

            I don’t know if I was surprised or not the next morning, but Danny marched into the classroom with his PhotoBook hugged to his chest, his other hand dragging his grandmother behind him.  It was as if he couldn’t wait to get to school. As soon as he caught sight of me, he tugged his hand out of his grandmother’s hand and ran over to me. He held out the book to me and smiled a real smile.  For the first time since I’d met him, he was giving me a real smile.  Then he ran over to his grandmother and tugged her hand to bring her over to where I stood. Still holding his grandmother’s hand, Danny opened the book to the first page where I could see the picture I took of Danny holding his grandmother’s hand as he came into the classroom that day.  I looked at his grandmother, and she smiled at me a little tentatively.  I think we were both hoping that we could actually communicate with Danny after all.

             For the next several days, I just watched Danny with his PhotoBook.  He identified very closely with it.  From time to time he would open it and look at a picture and then look around the room as if to reassure himself that he was in the right place.  Every now and then he would bring the PhotoBook over to me and make guttural sounds, showing me a picture of lunchtime when we were doing story time, or something else.  It was pretty obvious he was asking to do something other than what we were doing.  It was pretty amazing to realize that he was trying to communicate, but I still would insist that he go back to doing what the rest of the classroom was doing.

Big Welcome for Thematic PhotoBooks

Daily Routine : From Chaos to Order

          After seeing the effect the PhotoBook had on Danny, I jumped into the PhotoBook idea with both feet.  I had my other teacher and my aides start taking photographs of the children, and a little at a time we created PhotoBooks that showed our daily routine.  I have to tell you, before we created the PhotoBooks for our daily routine, I really didn’t have one.  We did pretty much the same things every day, and we generally did them the same way and about the same time, but my classroom was pretty chaotic.  The kids are always pretty unpredictable, and I guess I just let that feed my own sense of chaos.   Our first daily routine PhotoBook was called “Mealtimes”.  This we created pretty quickly and posted because our mealtimes were about the worst part of the day for me.  Frankly, the kids were sort of monsters.  I always wondered how they behaved at home, because they did not behave very well for me.

          We created many PhotoBook about Daily Routine as “ Mealtime”, “ Go Anywhere”, “Playground”, “Rest Time”, “ Free Play” and  some general PhotoBooks  on ”Good  Manners” “Friends”. We tried to make sure we took those rare pictures when certain kids who don’t usually do something good, doing that something good!  That way, they see a picture of them doing something they don’t usually do.  I don’t know, it might be kind of a reverse psychology, but I think it’s making a difference.

 PhotoBooks for Other Kids

        For those who know children as well as I do, you have probably guessed by now that all the other children in my room became very jealous of Danny’s PhotoBook of himself.  They all wanted one of their very own.  I started this process just by taking pictures of each of the kids, and then putting them on their locker where we keep their personal things.  This was one way to keep the children from taking something out of another child’s locker.

         You’re right, while this step was helpful to me, this was not good enough for the kids. They all started asking for a book about them. So, we got to work.   The hardest part at first was deciding what kinds of pictures to include in each of their books, but once we sat down and talked about each of the kids, and what our particular problems were with them we were able to focus on getting shots of when they were demonstrating good behavior, and created captions under each of those pictures that would further impress upon the child that they really capable of good behavior.

Here are the kids’ PhotoBook summaries.  The first part under each name shows some of the behavior we wanted to change.  The second part shows you how the child changed as a result of getting a PhotoBook that focused on them performing well. I was amazed.

Pryor

Before: At the start of the year, Pryor was completely nonvocal, but would whine all the time.  He would lie on the floor, wriggling around on his belly like a brand-new baby sucking on his pacifier.  Our goal was to eliminate the pacifier, try to see if we can get him to talk and not whine quite so much.

 After: Now Pryor only uses his pacifier at naptime.  He will say “tissue, please” when he needs a tissue.  He is capable of short sentence structure. His whining has diminished, and sometimes he will even laugh.

 Ellie

Before: Ellie has been at our establishment from the time she was an infant, so she should be very comfortable here, but at the beginning of the year, she was always sad, whining, and constantly had her blanket with her.

 After: Now Ellie loves to run, play, laugh, play with bubbles.  She loves to help clean up.  She interacts with the other kids, especially playing house.  Best of all, she smiles all the time now.

 Adam

Before: Adam was pretty aggressive.  He would run at another student from across the room and hit them, push them, step on them if they were lying down on the floor.  If he were to be poked himself, he would burst into tears and quickly go out of control.

 After: There is almost no hitting now from Adam, less pushing, and no out of control temper tantrums. He listens better to direction most of the time.  Overall, his behavior really has improved.

Christina

Before: Christina would cry at everything and she had absolutely no concept of sharing.  Anything she put her hand on she believed belonged to her and if another child just looked at it, she would burst into tears and start screaming. She always said no.  She refused to potty.  It didn’t matter how well the other kids modeled this behavior, it had no impression on her.

After: Now she is much more cheerful and actually initiates playing with the other children. She potties most of the time without a problem.  She offers to help anyone without being asked to by me.

 Kaden

Before: Kaden was too cute for his own good.  He loved to be the boss, and because he’s so cute, adults would let him get away with anything.  This made my job really hard.  Every time I would ask him to do anything he would throw a fit, cry, scream, gnash his teeth, kick, punch.  Pretty violent.

 After: Now he understands that most of the time Ms. Treena is the teacher and he must listen to me.  I will let him be the “teacher” from time to time if his behavior is really good by letting him choose our next activity.  We’ve developed more of a “partnership” rather than one of us being the boss.

 Sarah

Before: Sarah was adorable and she knew it.  I think she’s going to be a comedienne later in life.  She had a problem listening and following directions.  She was very easily distracted and it was hard to keep her focused.

After: She’s still adorable, and still knows it.  But, she is much better at keeping on task, knowing when to be serious and when it is OK to be silly.  We have a way to go with her, but she’s made great progress. She loves her PhotoBook as much as Danny does.

 Damian

Before: Damian’s parents are from India and he came not speaking any English. He would throw a fit anytime things didn’t go his way, but I think his biggest problem was his inability to communicate. He also had a problem when his sense of order was compromised; for example if we put out juice, cheese and crackers, but forgot the grapes, he would throw a fit. He hates any kind of change, and would throw a fit any time we would change activity, leave the room, come back to the room.  He was quite a challenge.

 After: We worked most with Damian on the concept of change.  He has made the most use of the pictures we’ve posted around the room. It also helped him to see that not every lunch and snack time has exactly the same food.  We worked hard to help him to anticipate what would be coming next so he knew what to expect. He speaks some English now, and uses sign language a lot. The PhotoBook seemed to be the best communication tool for Damian.

 In Closing:

      I’ve talked a lot, but I just had to share some of the really amazing things that have happened in my classroom in the last couple of months and it is a direct result of using Dina’s PhotoBook methods.  One of the best things I like about this idea is that it could be turned into a real book by sending it off to Kodak or lulu.com and have it printed and bound.  I’m doing this for Danny and his grandmother, and I plan to give it to them as a gift. This way they will have a permanent record of this time of huge change for their family.

      The rest of my PhotoBooks are three ring binders in page protectors.  I do this because I find myself taking pages out as a teaching reinforcement tool for the children.  We also keep all our completed PhotoBooks on the shelf so that if someone new comes into the classroom I can have one of my older students “teach” the newer student how we do things in my classroom.

I hope that my experiences will inspire you to try some of Dina’s PhotoBook methods.  They have made a huge difference in my classroom. I’d say the most important thing is to not take yourself too seriously. Have fun with the project, and when you’re having the kids help you with the project, make sure you’re only working on it while they’re having fun too.  Once they are tired or done with it, stop.  You can always come back to it tomorrow.  If you do that, they’ll be eager to continue working on their own personal development.

Good luck. 

Danny  - a Director of “Publishing Company”

 

Before: I’ve already shared a lot about Danny. When he came to us he was a mess.  He would bite, hit, throw chairs, turn over bookcases, throw baskets of toys. He figured out how to climb the pony wall and go into the next classroom. He would take markers and draw on the other children. When he’d throw a tantrum he would scratch himself, drawing blood, sometimes would hit his head with his fists or a toy.  He was completely nonvocal.  He would refuse to sleep at naptime, and when he did sleep he had horrible nightmares.

 After: Danny is a different boy now.  His first word was “stay”.  He said this to me because I would sit with him at naptime and sing to him while he looked at his PhotoBook.  I allowed this because he seemed so disturbed and agitated.  One day, just as I was about to leave him because I thought he was asleep, he opened his eyes and said that one word to me.  Then I knew he could talk, so we started adding a LOT more to his PhotoBook.  Now Danny talks with medium sentence structure.  He smiles all the time, and we haven’t had one instance of aggression.  Anytime a child or adult leaves or enters our room he greets them or says goodbye to them.  He signs songs. He has no more nightmares, though it is hard to get him to sleep still.  When he sleeps, he wakes up singing.  He does a lot of sign language and his favorite is to sign “I love you” to me.  My goal now is to create a PhotoBook of Danny to give to his grandmother.  She almost weeps now with relief and gratitude that her grandson has made such a turnaround.

 In fact, Danny became a Director when we started working on PhotoBooks for the other students.  At first, it was because he was the only one with a completed PhotoBook, but after that the other children just followed his lead and they allowed him to keep that role.