Time and Effort

When my sister and I were still in school, my mom went back to school to get her teaching degree accredited. For one of her assignments, she had to write and illustrate a children's story--she chose to base hers on my sister and me and called it, As Different as Night and Day. It was about a momma bear who loved each of her two cubs, even though they were each very unique and different. Sounds like a sweet story, doesn't it? I still think she should dig it up and get it published.
I've been reminded of that story with my own boys and the differences I've seen in them. I realize that no two typically developing siblings are alike but  there are more pronounced differences between a typically developing child and one with special needs. And the differences I've noticed between Buddy and Cubby can be summed with two words: time and effort. The time it takes to learn something and the amount of effort it takes to master a skill.

Those things that Cubby has learned to do, almost overnight, took Buddy much longer to learn:

Cubby was walking by nine months -- Buddy walked at 15 months
Cubby started "talking" when he was about 10 months -- Buddy said his first word at 27 months
Cubby started climbing stairs almost as soon as he started walking -- Buddy is still working on climbing up stairs without help
Cubby can throw a ball at at 11 months -- Buddy didn't really start throwing things until late into his twos
Cubby started using his pointer finger at about 8 months -- Buddy didn't learn to use his index finger to point until he was 13 months

 

Cubby is able to pick up new skills much more quickly than Buddy has. And he does it with much less effort. Cubby is, almost, self-taught in a lot of areas -- not because I'm not interested in helping him, but more because he decides he wants to learn something and doesn't wait for me to teach him. I came out into the kitchen one day and saw him standing on the top step of the small step stool we have for Buddy to climb on to watch us cook. He'd climbed those steps without my ever having shown him how.

When Buddy learned to climb, it was a much slower process of showing him, repeatedly, how to place his feet and where to put his hands. It was the same with walking. We continually stood him up on his feet, holding his hands, and encouraged him to walk between us. It was a months-long process that we worked on with his OT and in our time with him. We put a lot of effort into teaching him to walk and he put a lot of effort into learning the process himself.

When Cubby decided he wanted something, he pointed at it. He didn't have any trouble isolating his index finger. He just did it. With Buddy, we continually showed him how to close his hand and point with his finger. That, too, was a months-long process. He finally learned how to do it when he got a toy that played music by pushing a small button -- small enough that only one finger could work it. He wanted to hear the music badly enough that he eventually learned to push the button on his own, after we'd shown him over and over how to do it.

Cubby picks up two things -- one in each hand -- and bangs them together. We spent quite awhile showing Buddy how to clap two items together. How to transfer one item from one hand to another. How to stack blocks. Basic things that you wouldn't think would require much effort to do.

It was the same with talking. Cubby started babbling when typically developing babies do--without our help. He repeats most of the sounds we say to him without effort. When we were outside yesterday, he pointed to the neighbor's basketball, said "ba," and walked over to it, wanting to play with it.

Buddy never really babbled and coaxing any type of sound out of him was like pulling a cedar tree through the eye of a needle. With his speech therapist, each week, we'd talk about the sounds he'd made -- He said an s sound this week! I heard an F last Tuesday! He made an X sound yesterday! We checked off the letters in the alphabet one by one, except that he also wasn't putting them together into words. We put a lot of effort into teaching Buddy how to talk -- and, in fact, we're still doing it. He has speech therapy once a week throughout the school year, and we're still working with him on forming sentences, articulating what he wants and needs, and talking about life in general.

Having Cubby around has highlighted for me how much effort Buddy has needed -- and will continue to need throughout his life -- to learn and master new things. It has helped me see that I really do need to be much more purposeful in teaching Buddy things -- I can't expect him to just "get it" like Cubby does. Although, and here's the important point, I can (and should) expect him to "get it" eventually -- with much time and effort -- as he's already demonstrated by all the things he's already accomplished. (And this serves as an encouragement to me as we're in the middle of working with him on learning to write and draw.)

And, here's the other important point, even though there are vast differences between the amount of time and effort each takes to learn, we love both Buddy and Cubby very much and are so very glad the Lord has given both of them to us.