[blindkid] recess and social interaction

Joy Orton ortonsmom at gmail.com
Mon May 31 19:51:12 UTC 2010


Dear Friends, (sorry, this is pretty long)

Please help us with your ideas and experiences. Our daughter Ahbee is in
third grade (for one more week), and is having trouble with recess. She
often does not have anyone to play with or spend her recess with. She just
walks around by herself for most of the time. Sometimes one  or more
children will come to her and invite her to join them in what they are
doing, but not always. She has sometimes asked her classmates in advance of
recess to play with her. One girl said yes, but then did not play with her
and said, "I couldn't find you."

During recent conversations she has said this has been going on for two
years, or specifically, "Since Jacey moved."
Jacey is a girl from China who was adopted at age 5 by a family who lived
near us. Ahbee (who was adopted at age 4 from China)  and Jacey spent
kindergarten (half of one year and all of the repeated year) and first grade
together, but then Jacey's family moved to another school district. They had
in common that they had been adopted from China as young children, not
infants, and that they repeated that kindergarten class. They were very good
friends.

Last year, in second grade, Ahbee was "not playing with anyone" at recess,
and I learned about it from another mom whose child was apparently having
some similar issues. We got the two together for one or two play dates. I
also spoke with the classroom teacher and TVI about it, and I thought they
were watching for problems.

This year, I asked early in the school year, and I thought things were going
better. We had some problems with gym class as well, and those have been
addressed by assigning children to be Ahbee's helpers during gym. The
helpers rotate or take turns. But apparently there is still a big issue with
recess, and it is starting to cause enough pain that Ahbee is bringing it
up.

So, I have a couple of concerns or questions.
First, how can Ahbee find people to play with at recess, and how can we
facilitate that?
Second, how can I make sure that the teachers are observing and letting me
know how she is doing? I don't want this problem to continue for another
year!

Looking forward to your responses.
Joy Orton



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