Simulation helps relate to kids with disabilities

Holly Wagoner, a disability services counselor at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, wears thick socks on her hands and tries to tie a shoe as part of an exercise showing the difficulties faced by children with cerebral palsy. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

Suzanne Storch tries to complete a simple drawing exercise while squeezed into a desk and under the glare of intense lighting. Loud music and noise also are playing. The exercise simulates what it feels like for an autistic child in the everyday classroom. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

By Mark Wineka

mwineka@salisburypost.com

It was a Walmart meltdown. With her 3-year-old son, Kevin, in tow, Kim Roe went to the big-box store one day to have a prescription filled.

In her shopping buggy, Kevin began rocking — an outward sign that things as simple as the store’s bank of bright, fluorescent lights were starting to overstimulate him.

In the years to come, it would become one of the things Kim immediately assessed when walking into a new environment: how bright and even how loud were the lights?

The store’s new smells and all the people also assaulted the little boy’s senses. The final straw came when a store clerk, stacking a shelf, dropped something on the floor.

Kevin became so upset he flipped over the shopping cart.

A “sweet little old lady,” Kim said, walked up after Kevin had his noisy episode and told her, “How dare you have children.”

Unfortunately, it’s the typical reaction of people — I’m sure I’ve thought the same — who have scarce knowledge of the challenges kids with special needs and their parents face every minute.

In Kevin’s case, it’s autism. But it could be cerebral palsy, hearing or vision impairments, cystic fibrosis and other disorders making it difficult for children and parents to fit in with what most of us consider normal.

They have other normals.

“So many people will tell you, control your child,” Kim Roe said of being in public when an autistic child acts up. “Inside of you, it will rip you apart.”

The Partners in Learning Child Development & Family Resource Center offered a “Disabilities Sensitivity Simulation” all day Thursday at its home behind Catawba College.

The exercise took about an hour and required participants to go through three stations.

One station placed you into an environment simulating what it’s like for a child on the autism spectrum.

The second station put you into the shoes of a child with a hearing impairment. The third station had you complete three exercises as a child with cerebral palsy. You were quite restricted in performing simple tasks most of us take for granted.

The stations also were similar to what a young child would confront in the classroom or social setting of a preschool.

I went through each station, and it was tough.

Community Inclusion Specialist Katherine Generaux started me at the autism station. My classroom chore was to draw things with wheels, since we were talking about circles as shapes.

Katherine squeezed me into a tight desk space between two imaginary friends. On one side was Buddy, a touchy-feely kid typical of the age group, and Lilly, just an excitable, talkative child.

Before she left me alone in the room, Katherine also turned on some loud sing-song music behind me and, in front of me, scratchy noise that seemed to be the equivalent of standing next to a busy Interstate 85.

The glare of lights above me was intense; the music, annoying, with those monotonous songs such as “nick nack, patty wack, give a dog a bone.”

It was hard to concentrate on my elementary drawings of a tractor, car and bicycle. After I became too frustrated or had accomplished my task, I was supposed to retreat to a “cozy area,” a place where an autistic child could go to calm down.

A high, portable partition closed me off from the louder, brighter part of the classroom. Here, it was all about breathing deep, relaxation, what feelings I was experiencing and hearing stories such as “Tucker Turtle Takes Time to Tuck and Think.”

I especially liked holding the “ocean in a bottle.”

Cindy Webb, inclusion specialist for the center itself, introduced me to the two other stations.

Through computer presentations, I learned what it sounds like to a child with normal hearing, compared to mild and profound losses.

An “auditory neuropathy” exercise placed me in a classroom where a teacher was reading a story, but what I could hear was severely limited — mostly drowned out by the simple movements of restless kids.

A worksheet after this video asked me the name of the book and what it was about. I hadn’t heard the book’s title, and I’m only 30 percent sure it was about Eskimo children.

Another exercise gave me an idea of what a child with a cochlear implant hears — there’s considerable static, but I could make out the man saying, “Her husband bought some flowers.”

I was then placed into another classroom environment (via computer), but I had to mute the sounds. The worksheet later asked me, “What was the teacher saying about animals?” and “What song were they singing.”

I think my written answers, in order, were “Don’t know” and “Impossible to tell.”

As a little one with cerebral palsy, I was asked to move to three different areas in a wheelchair. My first activity told me to tape the fingers of my weak hand together, leaving only the thumb not taped.

Then I was supposed to pick up and eat raisins out of a plastic butter dish. This simulated the lack of muscle control the kids deal with. I dropped a couple of raisins.

The next activity tested my fine motor coordination — also a challenge for the CP kids. I had to put a thick sock on each of my hands, then try to tie a shoe, string some blocks and button a shirt.

I accomplished these tasks, but it took me a long time. My fine motor coordination was not great.

I wheeled over to the third activity, where I was supposed to get out of the wheelchair and put my feet into a potato sack (pillowcase). From there I had to use a walker and make my way to the exit across the room.

If I hadn’t hopped, I would still be shuffling in baby steps toward the door.

I realized what strength kids with cerebral palsy must call on, just to walk.

Of all the kids on site at the Partners in Learning Child Development Center, about 30 percent have special needs.

Partners in Learning also has 15 therapists on staff to visit 150 children in their home environments.

Three years ago, one in 150 kids in the United States were judged to have special needs. Now it’s one in 98.

Norma Honeycutt, executive director of Partners in Learning, said the important part for anyone is “seeing the child first.”

She and her staff organized their first simulation stations Thursday to help educators and people like me to get a grasp on what a special needs child is dealing with.

“It’s to teach compassion and understanding and empathy — like walking in their shoes,” Honeycutt said. “A lot of people think, ‘He could do it if he would just try harder,’ and that’s not the case.”

The simulation stations are a way to change attitudes — “and that’s what it’s all about,” Honeycutt said.

After many years of being a family advocate for children with autism and doing it for free, Kim Roe now works for Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare as a family advocate for development disabilities in a five-county area.

Her son, Kevin, is 11 years old, in the fifth grade and part of a “Learning Connections” program that allows him to be mainstreamed for portions of the day with his peers.

Soon after Kevin was diagnosed with autism, Kim said, she did what many parents do: Stayed at home and tried to isolate him and her family.

“In the beginning, it’s horrible,” she said. But she realized isolation was the worst thing for everyone. What was more important was establishing a routine and learning to recognize what Kevin might be experiencing.

Kim said Kevin lived off a strict schedule for four years.

“Routine is very important,” she said. “There’s no way to explain how important it is.”

Roe said it’s also important to educate the community at large about the challenges special needs kids face, because too many families are isolating themselves, feeling they can’t fit in.

She carries a card that she often hands out to people who may not understand. It says, “My child has autism, and he’s doing the best he can.”

Honeycutt and Roe agreed Thursday that maybe an extra line should be added to that message for every special needs child.

“Extra grace required.”

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@ salisburypost.com.