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DISABILITY NEWS The LIGHT Center, T-90, College of the Redwoods (476-4290) - April 2, 2001 |
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I
SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN BED… Okay,
I am feeling rather overwhelmed as I write this.
There are those days when it seems as though every problem around has
fallen directly on my desk. We just got through telling a student with a
cognitive deficit that he is not to come back on campus for the remainder of
the semester. For me, the problem lies in the fact that I was unable to make
this student understand that his behavior was inappropriate and offensive to
other students and staff. Its
days like this when one has to be able to take a step or two or three back
and gain perspective. The
student that was told to leave was devastated.
He wept a bit in my office and said, “where'll I go?”
Yup, I really do feel like the bad guy, even though there was no
option left for this student. This
got me thinking about what life must be like for a student or anyone who has
a developmental disability, autism, or some other condition that affects
social development. I have found over the years working with special
students that often the over-riding emotion for these people is loneliness.
They know that they don’t “fit in” like everyone else, and have at
least to some degree the ability to contemplate that fact.
In many cases, part of the problem lies in the fact that the
individual has the body and physical needs and urges of an adult, but the
cognitive and emotional maturity of a child.
It is this dissonant combination that is often at the root of the
social problems experienced by the individual with a developmental
disability in particular. Let’s
say we are not talking about a student with a cognitive deficit, rather some
other sort of problem. Again,
loneliness coupled with a lack of suitably developed social skills is at the
root of many subsequent problems. Think
about it for a moment. Being
afraid of asking someone to dinner or a movie because you’re scared of
being laughed at…or scared of rejection.
While non-disabled persons face that same insecurity, it must be
enormous for the person with a disability. Sometimes the rejection is due to the delivery of the
message. There are a number of
disabilities that impinge on the ability to develop effective social skills.
Developmental delay, psychological problems, learning disability and hearing
impairment are conditions that are commonly associated with difficulty with
social skill development. So,
while the person with the disability may simply be lonely and reaching out
for companionship, the delivery of the verbal or physical message can be
interpreted negatively. It
is a difficult task to discriminate between the student who may be
"dangerous", and the student who has poor social skill knowledge.
With the violence on campuses around the country, this is becoming
more and more of an issue. It is important to always be alert and conscious
of the environment in which we work. It is also important to consider that a
student who is just wanting to belong, have friends, a place to hang out AND
who has poor social development may be calling out for help rather than
being a source of danger. Comments? mailto:trish-blair@eureka.redwoods.edu Quotation of the Week
To
my mind the life of the lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
I should be unwilling to take the life of the lamb for the sake of the human
body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it
is to protection by man from the cruelty of man. Mohandas
K. Gandhi |
THOSE
SOCIAL GRACES Social skills are something that is crucial to our lives, both personally and professionally. When they are inadequately developed, it can result in difficulty for the person in question. While anyone can have poorly developed social skills, there are specific disabilities in which social skill development is particular difficult. Hearing
Impairment Learning
Disability Psychological
Disability |