"Stay Positive" Playlist
Social Imagination Response Journal and Notes
Look out for:
*Family Dynamics- How are the family members lives affected by the character's exceptionalities?
*Social Life- Does the character have friends? If so, are their lives impacted?
*Academic Life- As character's counselor, how would you want to support this character?
Told from Joey's perspective. Hyperactivity
Unable to point out what disorder he has. Potential ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
**He knows that his actions are sometimes wrong, but he feels unable to control himself.
Throughout his schooling, teachers have just pushed him along, in a way that feels like they are "getting Joey off their hands".**
- Impulses get him in trouble, even though he and his family know he's not a bad kid.
- Inattentive and "lost" in class [MS. MAXY: Do you know the answer, Joey? Joey: "Let me get back to you on that."]
- Has trouble sitting still in class.
- Occasionally bullies other students in class without knowing.
- Often strays off task in the classroom.
- Tries to be the Tasmanian Devil, by spinning and making loud noises.
- His medicine only lasts in the morning and wears off in the afternoon.
- GOOD behavior
- Killing classroom spiders, rolling the windows up when it's raining, help unloading supplies, wants to perform something good everyday after listening the Ms. Cole, the gifted teacher, at the presentation with the gifted children.
- Ms. Maxy's ways to handle Joey
- Taping the rules to his desk (no fidgeting, no touching others, no making noise)
- Sending him to the hallway or principal's office to cool down.
- Sending him home
- Calling his mother or grandmother to get him.
- Swallowing the key and trying to entertain his classmates by swallowing it again. Sent to the nurses office and back to special education
- Blowing Harold's , a special education student, candles for his birthday (thinking he would help Harold make a wish since he can't himself.
- Accidently cutting Maria's nose tip off while slipping in the classroom with scissors in his hand. While apologizing to Maria, her very angry father calls him "MESSED UP". He shouldn't be in a classroom with normal students. He threatens Joey and his mother if Joey comes around Maria again. Joey stands up for his mother and wants to be normal through all and every type of medication. Fran takes Joey for a walk and tells him he is going to have to act better if he wants to leave his new school. Bribes him with a new puppy as a prize down the road.
- Suspended and sent to Special Ed. Facility
Family life
- Father left him when in kindergarten.
- Mother (FRAN) is an alcoholic and left him in the care of his grandma.
- Grandma abusive and neglectful.
Ending
- Special Education and a case worker (ED VANNESS) help him control his behavior by teaching him how to cope with his past and home life. Making better decisions.
- Ed points out his abandonment issues as a child are the reason why he acts up in class now (his mothers drinking problems are another reason, his grandmother's abuse and distance from him adds to the issues)
- Lifetime of inadequate support and abuse, still bright and loving through it all.
- Receives the puppy (Chihuahua) and hes as hyper as Joey is. Named Joey Pigza Dog.
Non-Fiction: Elephant in the Playroom “Roller Coaster” [Ordinary Parents Write Intimately and Honestly About Raising Kids with Special Needs] By Denise Brodey
Parents writing their perspective of the highs and lows of raising children who are “not quite normal".
Dark Times Can be Followed by Deep Joy
Melrose Sylvester: mother of Julianna (3 year old with HEARING LOSS)
Husband is named Michael.
- Julianna is diagnosed with hearing loss and given hearing aids at 1 year old.
- Now has severe to profound hearing loss
- Parents mourn momentarily, then they turn to mission mode.
- Cochlear implant
- Team of implant surgeon, audiologist, auditory verbal speech therapist, program coordinator
- Many mapping sessions and verbal & visual cues.
- Gabriella born Jan 2004 only 7 weeks after Julianna's surgery.
- *TURN ON process was memorable when she could hear for first time.
- Parent "couldn’t be more proud".
The Meaning of Family
Barbara Nelson: adoptive mother of James (17 year old with ADHD, OCD, and reactive attachment)
- Husband is John
- Manda, 6, Bobby 8, LeAnn 9 (adopted and bullied), James 10.
- Leann went to therapy because she was called names like LaAnimal.
- James had emotional behavioral issues/disorders.
- Loveable, happy. Went to the park. Played with siblings. Private school- became extremely aggressive
- He couldn’t even sit in a class of five or six children for more than 2 hours without becoming aggressive.
- Beat his head into the asphalt
- Kept his family hostage with a bat on their porch.
- What kind of example would leaving James send to the rest of his family? Would they leave LeAnn too?
- Green, yellow, red light on the floor for 45 minutes and 15 minutes of activity.
Barbara says, "Home must be a safe place; he cant function at home. We love him and are committed to him 100%. But he must stay where he can receive help. We do what's best for one another."*
**Having patience and hope is sometimes the only thing a person can do for someone seeking help to this degree. Moreover, full familial support is something that can really help out in the long run.**
Good Grief
Felicia, mother of Sophia (11 year old with BIPOLAR) and Collin (10 year old with OCD and TOURETTES)
- Opens her story apologizing for the sad write-up she has prepared for the book. She says she has endurred a life of continual pain and grief.
- She looks for closure.
- Thought Sophia's tantrums at 3 yrs. old was the effect of bad parenting. Later found out she was bipolar and began treating her with 3 different drugs. (5 years of age)
- They believe they have "fixed" her.
- She changes for the worse = baseball bat and knife chase around the house with her mother and younger brother.
- Enters deep depression
- Jumps out of cars
- Runs across highways
- Seriously affects Collin
- Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome
- Felicia and Collin become depressed.
Placed in an out-of-state Residential Treatment Center for 23 months. Every 6 weeks, the family visits.
*Felicia now accepts reality. She focuses on what her family can and will do together as a unit.
**Emotional Disturbances can be handled best in situations and environments that are calm and peaceful. As a teacher, being very routine and consistent with the teaching style is key and giving much encouragement and praise helps as well. Avoid putting bipolar students in the hot seat is highly suggested.**
A Truly Unique Ride
Lisa Lori (AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE/ ASTHENIA GRAVIS), mother of Zachary 5, Luke 3, and Griffin 2.
- Effects: droopy eyelids, sagging mouth, weak muscles
- How has this affected her children?
- Zack: couldn’t swallow, low muscle tone, poor sucking ability
- Many precautions when home (feeding tube) --> Plasma transfer
- Luke and Griffin are born with many plasma changes in Lisa
- Both can close mouth and caused ear loss with fluid buildup.
Zach is patient and optimistic. Luke is self-conscious,
"I don’t want my children to be normal anymore. I already believe they are extraordinary. I am reminded of it in ways big and small every single day."
**As we can see, this disability for a long time seriously affected the dynamics of the family. Other strangers would stare at the children because they were different. But the GREATEST DISABILITY IN LIFE IS A BAD ATTITUDE and a close mind.**
Non-Fiction: Far From the Tree [Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity] “VI Schizophrenia” By Andrew Solomon
VI Schizophrenia
- Manifests in late adolescence or early adulthood, and parents must accept that the child they have known and loved for more than a decade may be irrevocably lost, even as that child looks much the same as ever.
- To some degree eliminates that person.
- Can take away the ability to connect to or love or trust another person, the full use of rational intelligence, the capacity to function in any professional context, the basic faculty of physical self-care, and large areas of self-awareness and analytic clarity.
- Alternative world of voices that he erroneously perceives to be external.
- These become far more real and important than any interaction with the authentically outside world.
- Cruel, bizarre, inappropriately-behaved voices
- Causes person to be terrified, paranoid, terrorized.
- Become curiously attached to their delusions, putting them in lonely world where they cant escape and no visitors can enter.
- Between 5-13% of people commit suicide.
- Psychosis: gross disturbance in an individual's ability to distinguish self from reality.
- Having an idea and experience are not different.
- Early symptoms: depression, suicide, seem vacant, emotionless, horrified, sad, delirious.
- 38
- Good looking
- Half-sister, Pamela
- Intelligent mother, Kitty
- Two other half sisters with father, Bill.
- Youngest of 4 and born in Cali in 1969.
- Father always said, you don't show weakness. Harry hid his concerns.
- No one knew how bad his symptoms were and he never received the proper treatment. First shrink was not trustable.
- Believed that everyone thought he was gay at age 18.
- Studied psychology and philosophy at Rollins College, trying to figure out who he was.
- Four years after graduation was placed in mental hospital. Became very rude and distant and fat. Sent to Napa and drank full bottles of tequila to the point of blacking out. Sent to McLean hospital and raised money with Kitty to build a fitness center. Runs every day and lives in apt. in Cambridge. Once suicidal.
- STORY TOLD FROM Pamela's perspective. **Helpful hearing the story from someone who wasn’t in his presence all the time, but still was able to notice the symptoms.** "Finding the balance between encouragement and pressure remains almost impossible." "brought out the warrior in my mother" She knows Harry feels guilty about the effect he's had on her life, so she tries to minimize it.
- Positive symptoms --> presence of psychotic hallucinations
- Negative symptoms --> psychic disorganization, absence of motivation, blunted affect, loss of language, withdrawal, compromised memory, and general decrease in functionality.
- Takes away the wanting of enjoyment.
- Three primary possibilities to what maturational event triggers psychosis:
- Teenage rush of hormones changes gene expression in the brain
- Myelination, the adolescent process in which the brain wrap neuronal cables in a sheath so that they become maximally functional, goes wrong.
- Synaptic elimination, or pruning, malfunctions.
- Course of the disease unfolds in 5 stages:
- Premorbid phase- asymptomatic until puberty (delays in walking and talking, more isolated play, poor school performance, social anxiety, and poor verbal short-term memory)
- Prodromal phase- 4 years, then positive symptoms begin to appear. Adolescent or young adult experiences change in cognition, perception, volition, and motor function, strange thoughts flash by, struggles to understand illogical beliefs are true.
- Psychotic phase- when the subject is suddenly triggered into a transformation beyond recognition. Hallucinations, bizarre delusions, thought broadcasting and thought withdrawal.
- Progressive phase- clinical deterioration except when effectively controlled with medicine.
- Chronic and residual phase- condition worsens and finds its level after five years or so. Irrecoverable loss of grey matter in the brain. Negative effects become more pronounced.
- Born in 1953
- Connie, mother, preeclampsia (potentially fatal rise in maternal blood pressure)
- Disengaged as a baby and thought to be autistic (peds said she was mentally retarded)
- Gifted in math (thought autistic again).
- 1st psychotic break at 22. Senior in college.
- Father, Steve.
- Came home and threw everything she loved out the window because a voice told her to. Was prescribed Mellaril the next day after calling a doctor on her own.
- Researched schiz. But not much info. NARSAD- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. Raised money for research and not is given more than 3,000 grants totaling to over $300 million to scientists in 31 countries.
- 2007 opened the Lieber Clinic in Columbia, rehab services.
- People now know more about schizophrenia than they know about autism.
- Causes:
- Phenotype (behavior) or genotype (biology). Some with the gene don’t express symptoms, while others without the gene may be schizophrenia.
- The most reliable predictor is having a first-degree relative who has it. (rare)
- Tested on mice in labs through replication of the gene.