Sariah's ELD

So not liking the new "blog layout"; but alas the times are a changing and it seems every web-site from time to time changes as well . . . facebook seems to like to change the most and most often too, which is why it is probably losing the interest of the young and old alike. Most humans dislike a lot of change.

Any ways, I only hope this change improves some of bloggers faults, like the issues with loading pictures and ending up with huge gaps between images and wordings. UGH

As for changes around here . . . apparently the upstairs bathroom has been leaking from somewhere and now we have moldy plaster coming down from the ceiling in the kitchen. yay - not! So we have to get that fixed.

Rachel is severely grounded which means she can't go to the home schooling conference "ARGH" next month, but Sariah is going and we think this will be an excellent opportunity for her to hopefully spread her wings a bit without Rachel getting int he way and talking for her. Sariah's ELD (Expressive Language Disorder) really has been holding Sariah back from socializing; well that and the fact that Rachel tries to "help" by cutting Sariah off in conversations and talking for her. We're working on all of this now, which is why we are all looking forward to Sariah being on her own for a week with friends without social butterfly sister tagging along "taking" over and butting in for her.

Poor Sariah's ELD kind of reminds me of the character Stevie in the show 'Malcolm in the Middle'. Stevie basically was a super slow talker that had to breath deeply in between words. While Sariah doesn't breath in between words, she does still struggle trying to come up with words to use, and will usually get flustered in conversations and completely blank on what to say or even talk about. She's really smart and when it comes to eye hand coordination stuff, she's brilliant! She loves to skateboard and play video games, to which Joe dislikes because she is usually better at video games than him and will often beat him.

We were afraid this would happen as time passed and she grew up, and we've all noticed it a bit more as she's aged, that she really doesn't talk much and she gives one word answers, or won't really participate in a conversation. Some of you may notice this and wonder what is up, and really it is her ELD as well as her teenaged lack of confidence kicking in.

We're working with her now in making up conversation cards and practicing with her conversation techniques. We try to get her to think outside the box a bit to come up with possible questions to ask people as well.

Basically, if you ever get her on the phone, try and be patient with her. It's not that she isn't interested in you, because she could sit there and listen to you talk all day, it's just that she  really has NO CLUE what to say to you or ask you. Her mind literally goes blank or the words get so jumbled in her brain that she can't form sentences.

I know it's been about 3 years since we've probably talked about her disorder, and many probably believed she'd grow out of it as she got older, but it really is something she has to work HARD on. What comes easy to all of us takes her 50 times longer to do, and taking 50 times longer to come up with words and put them in the proper order to speak . .  . is beyond frustrating to a teenaged girl who only wants to have friends who will be patient and listen to her. Unfortunately, kids aren't too patient so she gets frustrated and she feels invisible as well as ignored.

I wish I could just reach into her brain and just FIX the problem, but even I know it's not a quick fix. We have to work on this daily.

Thankfully she does have some friends who love her and are patient with her. In fact she's at a friends house now at a sleepover, without Rachel.

I just feel like I need to reprise this conversation about Sariah and her ELD, as it is a 'special need' of hers. It does make her a "Special Needs" child. They often say it's the special needs that you can't visually see that most people pass off and ignore. If they see a perfectly healthy/fine individual, they don't even bother to THINK that the person might be blind, have autism, or like Sariah have ELD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_language_disorder
*I was shocked to learn that this Wiki link has a link to Sariah's ELD YouTube video! I never put it there because I have NO CLUE on how to edit those things, or add to them. In 3 years her video has gotten over 50,000 hits now!!