A Safe Place for Joey (13 page)

“I don’t have any instant answers, Ben, but it does sound like a mess. I’m sorry.”

“How much of a mess?”

“What? Oh. About a sixty-chip mess, I’d say.”

Ben wasn’t smiling, and neither was I. But something better was happening between us, and he was using the chips to initiate communication.

“Now,” I said, “we’re up to the WISC-R Block Design in the testing,
and we’ve still got a ways to go, so we need to begin. Here.” I dumped the blocks on the desk. “They’re all the same – red on some sides, white on others, and half-red, half-white on the other sides. Here’s the first card. The idea is to make the design on the card by using the blocks. Here. Watch me first.”

Ben was wonderful with the blocks. Where his fingers curled around a pencil had
been awkward and unsure as he copied the Bender designs, now they moved quickly and gracefully, arranging first four and then nine blocks into the required patterns.

With each successfully completed design, Ben became a little looser and a little happier. The pulse at his temple was barely visible. Obviously, it felt good to him to be doing something well.

“Pay yourself two hundred
twenty, Ben,” I said. “The next test is Vocabulary. I’ll say a word. You just tell me what it means.”

“I hate that kind of stuff. I lots of times know the word, but I d-d-don’t know how to say it. I mean I know it in my head, b-b-but when I go to say what it means … oh, I don’t know.”

“Well, just try. Remember, the words start easy and get harder, but I don’t expect you to know them
all. Hat. What is a hat?”

“Thing you wear.”

I waited, but Ben didn’t elaborate.

“What is …”

“Here,” Ben said, patting his head. “You wear it here.”

Ben’s answers were all terse, and the rhythm and content of his speech were that of a much younger child. And he was right. He did get mixed up.

“What does ‘brave’ mean?”

“It’s like when you’re scared. Well,
not like that. Like the opposite. You know?”

I nodded and leaned back to look at Ben, sensing that he had something more to say.

“Do you think those birds are brave?” he asked. “Like are they scared flying around up there or do they like it?”

“I think they like it,” I said. “The landing looks like the hard part.” What was it with Ben and birds? Why did he watch them with such
fascination? Why did he want to see their wings from underneath?

I shook my head, both to clear it and to get back to work. To stay completely with a child like Ben, who often went off track, took concentration. Ben continued to struggle to express himself. He knew a lot more than he could put into words. When asked to define “gamble,” he replied, “Bet over money.” Then he shrugged. “Oh
… I don’t know. I mean I know, but I don’t. Just forget it.”

Object Assembly, another subtest of the WISC-R, consisted of four puzzles and for Ben was as easy as or easier than Block Design. He immediately knew what the puzzle was supposed to be. He saw the gestalt, the unified whole, and efficiently put the pieces in the proper places. Ben could build from a design. He could also put isolated
pieces into a meaningful whole without copying. Both of these tasks require visual awareness. Block Design is also considered to be an excellent indicator of general intelligence. Ben’s understanding of spatial relationships far exceeded his ability to express himself verbally.

Ben did only fairly well on the Comprehension subtest, which measures practical judgment and common sense. His
judgment was adequate, but he often failed to gain extra points because his answers showed a lack of independence. When asked what he should do if a much smaller boy started to fight with him, his answer was, “Tell somebody – like tell your mother,” instead of thinking of a way to handle the problem himself.

Both Coding (in which the child is asked to match and copy symbols, testing the
ability to learn combinations of symbols and shapes and then to reproduce them with paper and pencil) and Digit Span (which consists of repeating an increasing number of digits both forward and backward) were near disasters for Ben. He copied only a few symbols during the two-minute span – his pencil moving slowly and awkwardly – and he could repeat only four digits correctly. After that he would
have the right numbers, but in the wrong sequence – or else forget them altogether. Ben’s spirits wilted as quickly as they had risen earlier; only the chips sustained him.

I put the WISC-R away and handed Ben the WRAT (Wide Range Achievement Test). “This is a short test of spelling, reading, and arithmetic,” I said. “The questions all begin easy and get harder. Try not to get down on yourself
if you don’t know some. Remember, I don’t expect you to know them all. We’ll start with spelling.”

Ben held the pencil in his right hand in the now familiar cramped, hooked grip more usually seen on lefties. He printed the words in pale, uneven letters, reversing the
b
in “boy” and the
d
in “dress,” and erasing letters over and over again, usually making the spelling worse than before.

In the reading (word recognition) section, he skipped lines, lost his place, read “sour” as “sore” and “plot” as “pilot.”

We finished the session with arithmetic. This time it was a written arithmetic test, in contrast to the oral arithmetic on the WISC-R. This was much easier for Ben because he could actually see the problems, rather than just hear them. He worked quickly and with
concentration, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing. He understood measurement and fractions, and although much of his computation was done on his fingers or by counting under his breath, he still scored well. He knew this stuff, and we both smiled when I said, “Okay, Ben. We’re done for the day. Pay yourself three hundred eighty and count up.”

I try to end each session with a test
on which I think the child will do well. It makes it easier for them to come back next time. I don’t always guess right, so I’m pleased when I do.

Ben had large piles of chips in front of him, and he counted carefully: “One hundred, two hundred …” then his voice gradually faded and his fingers rested on the chips without moving.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“I’m not a doctor, Ben. More like a teacher.”

“Well, why did they say I had to come? What do they want you to do?”

“I’m trying to find out how you learn best so I can show you how to use your strengths to help in the areas where you have trouble.”

Outside a car honked, and Ben stood up.

“That’s not true, you know,” Ben said. “You’re
lying to me just like everybody else. What you’re trying to find out is whether I’m retarded or crazy or both. Right?”

“No. I don’t lie, Ben. And I don’t expect you to lie to me either. I don’t think you’re retarded or crazy. I do think school is hard for you and getting harder, and I’m trying to find out why. I hope you’ll help me. I promise you that when the tests are finished I’ll show
you how you scored, and we’ll figure out what it means and what to do about it.”

Beep. Beep. Beep. The honk was more insistent.

“I guess you’d better go,” I said. “It sounds as though your mom is in a hurry. I’ll finish counting up and add it to the rest.”

Reluctantly, Ben came out from behind the desk. “That’s not Mom. That’s Dad’s honk.”

From downstairs a child’s voice
called. My next appointment had arrived. We’d run out of time.

“Okay. Good-bye for now, Ben. Do you mind letting yourself out? I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

I walked to the lookout window in the front room as my next child climbed the stairs. I had never met Ben’s father, and I could not restrain my curiosity. A Jaguar waited in the upper part of our driveway. A black-haired man wearing
dark glasses sat alone in the front seat, leaning intently over the wheel. As I watched, Ben opened the right rear door, climbed in and huddled against the window. As far as I could tell, neither the man nor the boy spoke.

“This will be a long, hard session, Ben. I’ve asked your mother to give us two hours for this one. Lots of academic things – more reading, writing. But at least each test
is worth a lot of points. And let’s see.” I turned to the back cover of the folder. “You had fourteen hundred thirty-five last time, plus the first nine hundred and seventy, so you’re up to two thousand four hundred and five already.”

Ben nodded, but didn’t say anything. I handed him a small book. “Would you just read these words – there, where it says Word List Two?”

I turned to the
same page in the examiner’s copy of the Spache Oral Diagnostic Reading Test so I could write down Ben’s responses. It’s of little help to know that a child made six or sixteen errors. It’s of tremendous value to know the kind of errors he made. Reading “was” as “saw” is very different from reading “was” as “were” or “house” as “home.” Each type of error has a different cause, and once you know
what causes a problem, you have a much better chance of fixing it. So I tracked errors carefully.

“I thought you said you always asked,” Ben said, interrupting my thoughts,

“Pardon?”

“Last time you said you always asked about good things that happened.”

I put the examiner’s book on the desk and leaned back, feeling the little kick of excitement that comes when the child
takes the initiative, but keeping my voice low to cover it. “You’re right, Ben. Pay yourself twenty-five. It’s a much better way to start.”

“Well, if it doesn’t have to have just happened, I figured I could tell you about the river.”

I nodded agreement.

“We’ve been going there ever since I was little, before I was even a year old, I think. And Mom and Dad went before that. Mom’s
been going since she was born. It’s really Granny’s place. We stay there all summer, and it’s really cool.”

“That’s where you sail?”

“Yeah. We’ve got a Lightning. That’s a kind of sailboat, but you need two people to sail it. And then …” Ben stopped. “Well, we’ve got a lot of boats – the Sun-fish, a big old Garwood, and then a fiberglass speedboat and a little alinum … alminium, however
you say it, boat, and a couple of canoes.”

“Sounds like there’s more boats than people,” I replied, thinking to myself that he had stumbled over “aluminum,” but he hadn’t stuttered once so far this session.

Ben almost smiled, and the whiny quality was completely gone from his voice. “No. See, there’s Granny’s big house, and then Uncle Joe uses the boathouse cottage, and we have the
little house over on the other side.”

“Does Uncle Joe have kids?”

“Danny and Melissa. Danny’s almost as old as I am. He has a Lab, too – MacArthur’s brother. They get along real good.”

Ben was having no trouble talking now. We could have spent an hour just on the river, but I was supposed to be doing a diagnostic educational evaluation. I had to get on to the educational part.

“It sounds wonderful, Ben. Do you have any pictures of the river? Or maybe you could draw one and bring it next time? Anyway, pay yourself one hundred. And now, please just read the words on this page.”

Ben reluctantly picked up the book and read through the forty words. He read rapidly, stuttering toward the end, but thirty out of the forty words were correct. The errors were mainly
substitutions – “far” for “fair,” “itch” for “inch,” “ether” for “either.” When he got to “guard,” he said, “I know what it is – like someone who watches prisoners – but I can’t pronounce it.” Ben had missed the last five words, which meant that he did not continue on to Word List III.

Reading the thirty words on Word List II correctly entitled him to try a fourth-grade reading selection.
He substituted, omitted, and lost his place time after time, stuttering on almost every other word. But even so, he was able to answer eight out of eight comprehension questions correctly.

Just for my own interest, I had him read the fifth- and sixth-grade selections. He was way over the error limit for substitutions and omissions on both, but he still could answer six or seven of the eight
comprehension questions correctly. I suspected that if I read out loud to him his understanding would far surpass his grade level.

On the Phonetic Analysis section of the reading test, Ben was unsure of vowel sounds and could not decode isolated syllables. In order to read the nonsense syllable “ock,” he said “clock” and then separated out “ock.”

He struggled through the five-minute
section of the Speed and Accuracy part of the Gates MacGinitie Silent Reading Test, completing only thirteen short passages – about the amount expected of beginning fourth graders. But he did answer twelve of the thirteen comprehension questions correctly. Conversely, on the longer, more difficult Vocabulary and Comprehension sections, he raced along, obviously not reading, just guessing at answers.
It was as if he felt he wasn’t going to be able to do it no matter how hard he tried, so why bother.

Written expression was painfully difficult. On the first section – dictation of a fourth-grade paragraph (I didn’t expect him to be able to write at a higher level than he could read) – his trouble with spelling and transcoding words that he heard into written symbols was even more apparent
than it had been on the WRAT spelling section. He spelled circus as “cirs.” He left out many words and phrases, even though I had told him that he could have a sentence repeated as often as he wanted. But at least he wasn’t complaining, and he wasn’t giving up. Ben was struggling, but struggling gallantly, and I paid out chips generously. I wondered if anyone had any idea what it must cost Ben
to go to school each day – aware, intelligent, but nowhere near the academic level of his class, “Banana Brain,” “Banana Brain” echoing in the corridors. I wondered that he went to school at all.

Halfway through the session, Ben had earned over a thousand chips. I went over to a sack in the file cabinet and brought back ten more fifty-cent pieces. Ben was pleased. “Did anybody ever get all
ten silvers before?”

“A few. A few others that worked as hard as you’re working. I’ve had these fifty-cent pieces a long time. My dad collected coins, and he let me play with them when I was sick and had to stay in bed. I loved the way they looked and felt, and I decided the kids who come here might like them, too. So I mixed some in with the chips. Now, please just write a paragraph about
anything you want – just a few sentences.”