From Spot to Score
And the Score Is …
Nidhi paced around her drawing room swiftly, yet stealthily, like a cat on the prowl .
‘What’s up with her ?’, asked Nidhi’s father Rajnish, who knew that Nidhi pacing up and down meant she was anxious .
‘She might be getting nervous about the upcoming class quiz’, remarked her mother Pallavi, ‘well actually, the quiz is today .’
‘What quiz?’, asked Rajnish
Shalini handed Nidhi her iPad and said , ‘do you want to tell Papa about today’s quiz?’
Nidhi paused pacing and took the iPad . ‘Noun and pronoun quiz ‘, she typed .
‘That sounds interesting’, remarked Rajnish.
‘It is’, exclaimed Pallavi, ‘the teacher is going to read out a few sentences to each student and they have to list out the noun and pronoun in each of those sentences . And you know what’s the best part ? Nidhi gets to use her iPad to give her answers.’
‘That sounds promising’, remarked Rajnish, ‘you can now let the teacher know how well you know your nouns and pronouns. Come on, let’s get ready for school.’
Soon Nidhi reached school and waved Rajnish bye, as she walked into the gate with her shadow teacher . She made a quick work of her breakfast at the cafeteria and headed briskly to her class – the noisiest class on the floor , class 3B. The much awaited quiz was scheduled for the first period and Nidhi wanted to be in class well ahead of time , lest she misses out on something .
Deepa ma’am, the English teacher, walked into the class and greeted everyone . ‘So , is everyone all set for the quiz?’, she asked .
‘YES’, came the loud, resounding reply .
‘As you can see there are folded pieces of paper in this bowl’, said Deepa ma’am, ‘they contain small passages and when I come to your place, you should pick up one piece of paper from the bowl , read the passage aloud and tell me the nouns and pronouns in the passage. Are we clear on what to do ?’
‘Yes’, came the resounding reply .
Deepa ma’am began around the class listening to each child read, respond and rating each of their responses . Soon, it was Nidhi’s turn . Nidhi promptly pulled a piece of paper out of the bowl.
‘Do you want to read it by yourself or shall I read it for you?’, asked Deepa ma’am .
‘Please read’, typed Nidhi on her AAC App.
‘Rajesh is going with his family to Goa on vacation . They will be flying from Bangalore to Goa on Thursday afternoon . Rajesh loves to swim and he wants to buy a new swimming trunk for the trip’, read Deepa ma’am, even as Nidhi rocked, like she usually did while paying complete attention .
When Deepa ma’am finished reading, Nidhi picked up her iPad and typed ‘nouns – Rajesh and Goa, pronouns his and they’
‘You did a very good job Nidhi’, exclaimed Deepa ma’am, as she gave Nidhi a high five and wrote down her score.
Nidhi was as pleased as a punch and she began to giggle in sheer joy . She didn’t know if she had a perfect score, but she knew that her score truly represented how much she knew about noun and pronoun.
Presuming competence is a term that is often used, but is also perceived as something that is difficult to put to practice, especially in the context of non speaking autistics. After all, how can you determine whether the child has learnt what has been taught if the child is unable to respond verbally and struggles to write too?
Everyone can learn, including us non speaking autistics. What is needed is the delivery of learning and assessment in a manner that works for us. Inclusion is meaningful only if it facilitates the joy of learning to every single child in the classroom, and for some of us it may involve doing things a bit differently. But different is never bad, is it just that- different.
– By Aditi Sowmyanarayan
