The Dropsies
I just wanted to share a funny story about a student I proctored during some testing we do. This student basically has the dropsies. The first time we worked together they must have dropped their pencil over 20 times. And every time they dropped their pencil they stopped what they were doing and dove under the table for it. As far as I know there is no accommodation for this this type of problem.
After observing the student the first 15 or so times, I realized they only dropped their pencil when they were concentrating and organizing their response. Diving under the table broke that concentration.
With that unstandardized data under my belt I began to brainstorm….”What could I do about this?” Since I am a bright gal with lots of experience and three boys of my own I was able to come up with an extremely sophisticated solution. Keep in mind I did this without a meeting, consultation with the school psychologist, no chart and not one tally mark.
The next time we worked together I sharpened 10 pencils and kept them within my reach. Every time a their pencil hit the floor, I quickly handed them another one. Of course I trained the student on this procedure before hand. We actually made a joke about it and practiced the pencil hand off.
Again using unstandardized data, no chart and no tally marks, I concluded that it worked like a charm. They were able to keep their focus and concentration a little better, if they didn’t have to dive under the table every other minute.
I can’t even imagine how often this student must drop their pencil in the course of the day.
This time of year we all need a little humor…..this is my lame attempt. Speech therapy humor is usually only funny to speech therapists who actually have a sense of humor:)
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