GB started a new semester of gymnastics this evening. Hope started, too. I had reservations about putting them in the same class. I told myself separate classes would allow Hope some practice making independent decisions. I told myself that it wasn't fair to GB to allow Hope into something that had always been hers. I even convinced myself that it wasn't fair to Hope because GB's skills were so good that Hope was bound to be overwhelmed.
News flash! The only one I was kidding was myself. Hope went into the class and came out of the class with a smile. She couldn't do any of the gymnastics, but she didn't care. She was always where she was suppose to be and always trying to do what she was suppose to do. She had a blast.
GB had a blast, too. She did great back bends and cartwheels and repeated her bar routine from last semester flawlessly. She worked on back handsprings and did well. She just didn't do anything when she was suppose to. While the class was doing floor work, GB was collecting the round, colorful, plastic circles the gym sometimes uses as path markers. She stacked them, she pretended she was a waitress taking orders on them, she tried to use them to make a fort. When the class moved to the bars, GB worked on the balance beam- with such confidence. When the class was running the obstacle course, GB was doing cartwheel after cartwheel. She even threw in some back handsprings, unspotted, which made it over the top dangerous.
It was so obvious that GB was not NT. Hope fitting in so easily just made it stand out more. And that is where my reservations came from- I did not want to be forced to see how much further GB falls behind- each week, each month, each semester. What was best for the girls never really came under consideration.
2 comments:
Not really related, but have you seen the movie Temple Grandin? I just watched last night, and was in awe of her. If you haven't, you definately should. They protrayed "her world" so well. It is so hard to see where are children are, compared to others. On the other hand, wow, I am so impressed by her gymnastic skills!!! I have never even been able to turn a cartwheel!!
I have had that pain. Too big to even go there.
But with AS comes sensory issues, and I'm not sure you'd been thinking in that direction with GB's other diagnoses. There can be a lot about groups that overwehlm over-stimmed senses; clearly GB is capable of learning there (Mr P would NOT participate because of the noise in the gym; we had to quit.) Is it the noise, the visual movements of the other girls, or even a smell one girl has that makes GB feel safer on her own? I understand that sensory isn't the whole story ... but is it that GB is too quick to find her own things to do, or that she has adapted in a very positive way by not feeling excluded?
GB probably can't tell you why she won't join the group; she hasn't got the awareness or language for it yet. I would guess that visual is part of the problem based on your story about being at the craft store. If she is visually distracted she cannot peform well. So she goes to where the distractions are minimal and she can do a better job.
If you haven't already been reading books about sensory processing difficulties, get one. Read. Sometimes there are work-arounds, sometimes not, but almost always greater understanding.
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