We had a wonderful group come in and talk to teachers about sensory overload. To demonstrate what sensory overload might feel like, they took each teacher individually into a small room, put a desk in the center, put a "teacher" in the front of the room, and then a dozen other people started talking, singing, and clanging things in very close proximity. Then the teacher had to try and focus on the "lesson" and answer questions. NONE of them could manage.
Wow! That must have been a memorable event in the lives of those teachers. I wish I had some training like that when my children were small.
When my son was in second grade he was being pulled out of his mainstream classroom to get help with one subject in the 'resource room' but was not making any progress.
I happened to walk past that classroom while volunteering for the PTA and noticed that there were five small groups going on in the room, and my son sat frozen at his desk staring at a worksheet like a zombie.
I had thought he was having trouble with transitions from his classroom to the resource room and back - also true - but at that moment it could not have been more obvious if a cartoon balloon reading 'sensory overload' had floated above his head.
In his mainstream classroom, there were three groups working during that 'group time' - quietly, and he did focus and participate again. The IEP team had suggested he had reached a 'plateau' but when he was taken out of the distracting room, he had a 'learning spurt.'
His teacher was delighted, and so was he. I did not mention that I had been thinking he had reached a 'plateau', too. (((blush)))
Pam W
SE of Seattle
Is Diversity Like A New Box of Crayons?
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art5144.asp
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