We have been starting the long Pre-School Journey. The Journey to find the right pre-school for Johnny. It has been long and hard. A few weeks ago we visited the oral and total communication classes. We didn't feel like Johnny was very comfortable there. The first class we went to, the teacher kept talking to Johnny and asking him if he wanted to color a fish. Then she kept wanting him to say "fish" and Johnny just stared at her. It was like that in most of the classes. Johnny just didn't get engaged in the classes, he didn't know what was going on. There is a lot of pressure when your child has a cochlear implant to abandon all signing, and only do oral communication. Johnny is not ready for that. I don't know if he ever will be. When we done with our visits at the oral and TC classes, we were more nervous than ever about what it was going to be like when Johnny started pre-school.
Today, we went to the signing pre-school, called JMS. We walked into the classroom, and something really cool happened. The teacher was signing a story and invited Johnny to come over and sit on the floor with the rest of the class. Johnny went right over and sat on the floor. As the teacher signed the story, Johnny looked back at us with a surprised smile on his face. He thought it was pretty cool. After the story, Johnny joined the class at the tables where they colored a tree and stamped on some apples. Johnny really enjoyed it a lot. He thought the stamps were cool. After that they had a couple of apple peeler/core removers. The teacher demonstrated how it worked, then helped each of the students do it. It was all visual, all hands on. Johnny was engaged almost the whole time. We were in the class for an hour, which was way longer than Johnny wanted to stay in the other classes. In fact, when we needed to go, Johnny wanted to stay and play. We told him it was time to go, and he just signed "no!" and tried to ignore us. Then one of the teachers thought maybe he would want to go if he thought we were going to leave him there, so she told him we were leaving. He just waved bye to us, and went back to playing. That was a great sign that he felt comfortable there.
Through this whole process we have learned that the most important thing to consider in all of this choosing, is the child, and their needs. Johnny needs the signing, visual atmosphere right now. That's where we feel he needs to be. I don't know if the state will agree, but we are going to fight for it. When it comes to what's best for my kids, I won't back down.
