RDA Second Rotation: first Session

As of this week, we have started a new rotation at RDA with new partners and kids. My new partner is someone from outside of school named Geroge, he is currently volunteering during time off from work and will be my partner for the next 9 weeks. The kid that we will be working with is named Spencer and has cerebral palsy, autism, speech impediment and is mostly blind.

This will be the first time that I have worked with a physically impaired kid at RDA, both in terms of visual impairment and the cerebral palsy. I believe it will be quite a difficult rotation as my partner and I will have to support Spencer physically, much more so than my previous partner, as well as describe and help navigate the area around him to ensure he feels safe at all times.

Despite this, today was actually much more relaxed than I had first anticipated. Although Spencer is quite autistic he is very aware of himself and is very nice, interesting and compliant, willing to take part in most of the activities. Additionally, though it is still a little odd trying to convey messages or speak without the reference to the surroundings and general things related to sight, conversing with Spencer was easy.

Learning to speak with Spencer in a way that doesn’t rely too much on pointing out different things in the arena or using, as mentioned previously, sight-related words like ‘white’ or ‘look over there’, is more difficult than it may seem. Speaking to someone who doesn’t understand the concept of what white or blue is something that seems very alien to me and I believe it will be a challenge to reconfigure my conversations with Spencer to accommodate for the blindness.

Although Spencer is very kind and, so far, relatively easy to work with, he does seem a little stubborn and unable to accept change. Constantly referring to me as one of his old riding instructors named Cate, and calling the horse (named Connie), Jack (name of his old horse).

I believe it will be an excellent learning experience working with Spencer and my partner, George for the next few months as I will have to change my perspective a little to accommodate for the differences that Spencer and myself have.

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Categories: CAS

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