Jimmy, A Selective Mute

Rebecca DeSantis

The author is a second grade teacher in her first year of teaching

It’s now eight o’clock; I’m getting together the last of my things and preparing my second grade classroom for the school day. I am finally ready to greet my twenty amazingly cheerful students as they enter the room. Alice, Stacey, and Leo come in first, as always, eager to start their day. Then, in comes Jimmy. He is wearing that beaming smile of his and says, “Good Morning Ms. DeSantis” as he checks in, tallies his lunch and juice for the day, and goes into the coat closet to hang his possessions. I cannot help it; a smile comes over my face. He said “good morning” to me.

Ask any teacher if she has a student in her classroom who has a special need or disability that makes him hard to teach and assess. I can guarantee that she will answer with a resounding yes. If she does not have that student currently, she has more than likely run into a student like this at some point in her career. As teachers, we have a wide range of students in our classrooms that come with different needs and challenges, whether it is a special need, disability, verbal delay, cognitive delay, processing delay or physical handicap. This inevitably leads us all to ask: how do we provide meaningful assessments and feedback to these students in order to understand where they are academically, and use that information to adjust our teaching? For me, and this year is no exception, I ask myself this question everyday.

I share two hundred plus students with ten other second grade teachers in a wonderful school. I have a newly acquired group of twenty varying in socioeconomic status. My class has an interesting dynamic, not unique from my colleagues I’m sure. I have an array of personalities, differences, and complexities. To name a few, I have one very challenging behavior, three struggling math students, another three struggling readers, and Jimmy my “selective mute”.

Jimmy has been diagnosed with the emotional disability of “selective mutism.” Upon receiving my class list, I received a brief synopsis of his experiences within our school thus far. I had been told that he did not speak to adults at all in Kindergarten and he began speaking very few words to his first grade teacher. He had the schools social worker in the classroom with him a few hours a week, with whom he began talking.

Unlike many children with this disability, who don’t talk to anyone other than immediate family and perhaps a few close friends, Jimmy’s mutism seems only evident when conversing with adults. He has no trouble communicating with his peers. The mutism seems to surface only with people who appear to take a role of authority. I spent a little time observing him in his first grade classroom and witnessed the interaction he had with the social worker. It appeared that he has a very simple relationship with her, almost that of a peer. There was not any academic discussion, simply playful banter. I had a hard time deciphering if his mutism was a learned behavior thus enabling him to be helpless or if it was a true anxiety that he lives with day to day.

Since the beginning of this school year, Jimmy has come leaps and bounds from where he was. Other teachers say I am a miracle worker because he says hello to them in the hallways. I suppose I should be happy with my accomplishments as his teacher, and getting him to open up more and speak when spoken to. Focusing so much on his social needs to get him to open up to me and other adults has not been easy. I have been forced to let go of my focus on Jimmy’s academic growth to focus solely on his social needs. I’ve been trying to build him to where he needs to be in order to focus on his academics. It has not been an easy road.

At the beginning of the year, I began by coddling this need of his and allowed him to not speak. However, I soon found myself rather annoyed; he didn’t seem motivated or have any desire to improve his skills. So I started waiting him out in different situations. I would ask him, “Jimmy, what’s your favorite color,” then wait for his response, although I inevitably found myself calling off colors until he smiled.

I also gave (and continue to give) him extra think time either away from the group or from me, then having him answer. If I would ask him what book he read during self-selected reading time, I would tell him that I am going to ask 10 other friends and them ask him what book he read. In many cases this would only draw out a simple nod or one word answer otherwise a simple yes or no.

Another example would be during our morning meeting. I do not have show and tell, but every morning I have a verbal share where my students are free to share whatever they would like. In the beginning of the year I would give a topic, for example: What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? My students all welcome this time in our day for individualized attention. Hoping Jimmy would eventually be able to share this same excitement as his peers, I started by letting him pass the ball to the next person without saying a word trying to keep it simple for him and free of anxiety. Then, I began asking him to at least say, “My name is Jimmy and I pass.” I allowed this to go on for a few weeks, and then I began asking him, when he entered the classroom in the morning once or twice a week, to tell me something he wanted to share. I’d give him the topic, for example: “Jimmy what’s your favorite color?” Once he answered me, I’d scribe his sharing on an index card that he kept in his pocket. When it was his turn to share, he could refer to the card and say, “My name is Jimmy and my favorite color is yellow.”

After a few weeks of this Jimmy began elaborating from what he had on his cue card all by himself. When he was with me in the morning he’d say, “My name is Jimmy and my brother and I are going snowmobiling.” At sharing time the ball would come to him and he would say without checking his card, “My name is Jimmy and my brother and I are going snowmobiling on Saturday.” Then, one day, without being prompted he took the sharing ball and said, “My name is Jimmy and on June 7th I’m going to Pennsylvania, I think it’s on a Wednesday.” I was floored. The other students in my class undoubtedly saw the expression on my face as I smiled in his direction and gave him our silent sign language praise for his thoughts and participation. From that point on, Jimmy would talk to me when asked simple questions. Even without being prompted he would greet me, or say something if he needed me to look over at him. He (and I) reached a milestone!

However, in light of all this success socially, I have been faced with other challenges with Jimmy, academic ones. In trying to assess his knowledge in content areas to know what and how to teach him. I have had no idea where his comprehension is in anything I teach him. I do not know if he understands directions when I give them individually or to the class, if he understands daily math lessons, or if he understands what he reads. How am I supposed to assess him accurately when I cannot get answers from him when I ask questions that involve any higher-level thinking? Previously his DRA and other school assessments were delivered by his mother and recorded. This however did not seem to reveal truly accurate scores.

Since he has begun speaking to me, I have given Jimmy the necessary assessments mandated by our district successfully. He has successfully “whisper read” through a list of kindergarten, first and second grade sight words to me, he continues to attempt his “no excuse” spelling words on our weekly assessments and he attempts just the Part A section of our Everyday Math assessment which grasps the child’s understanding of concepts we would expect them to master (I have differentiated this for him. I expect the rest of my class to do both Part A and Part B along with an open response). He has even gone through the DIBELS assessment on phonics and phonological awareness with another adult in our school. I have not however administered the DRA yet due to its subjectivity and lack of validity when given too many times throughout the year. This assessment involves story retelling, and I simply feel that he is not ready to take this on based on his performance on similar “quick checks” that I give to my students through a wonderful leveled book website. I feel he is not ready for the DRA because he does not answer the questions on these “quick checks” unless I prompt him with yes or no questions.

My struggle with teaching Jimmy continues to be with providing him meaningful assessments where I can assess him and provide meaningful feedback for his growth. He is unlike the other students in my class who engage regularly in peer writing conferences, teacher driven writing conferences, math self-assessments, Everyday Math unit assessments, reading conferences and surveys which lead me to adjust my teaching based on their understanding presented in these assessments. I have tried so hard to incorporate valid, meaningful, and reliable assessments in my classroom. I feel, most often, that my classroom assessment strategies are just that. But Jimmy does not fit the mold of a “normal” second grader and he certainly doesn’t resemble the other students in my classroom.

For example, my writing conferences are times where the students can meet with me after they have been working on a piece of writing and are about to publish it. We go through their pieces and make necessary changes, and I give mini-lessons to those students when I notice things in their writing they need to work on. It is a wonderful opportunity to informally assess them and provide verbal feedback. Jimmy however, does not engage in the writing process as his peers do. I have modified my requirements for him to be published. It is a struggle to get him to write. A few sentences are about all I can get from him. Well, that’s fine; I’ll publish his piece anyway! He deserves the same credit for his work. However, he does not verbally engage with me during his writing conference. I end up giving him praise and suggestions, hoping he understands me. When I administer the Everyday Math assessment, as I mentioned before, I do not even give him the Part B section or the Open Response that I give to my other kids. During this time the students are allowed to ask me questions, however I do not provide the answers, only mild guidance. However, I find that Jimmy never asks me for help. I am stuck guessing whether or not he knows the material for the few problems he has in front of him. I will read him a question and ask him if he understands. I always receive a blank stare or a simple nod signifying that he understands. However, his work proves otherwise.

Recognizing the importance of self-assessments, I provide my second graders with many opportunities to show me their understanding through writing checklists and the self-assessments provided by the Everyday Math curriculum. My students do well on these and show me everyday how well they understand the material. But even after simplifying these assessments for Jimmy, he still does not show me what he knows. After unsuccessfully giving him the EM self-assessment, I have decided not to present it to him anymore. In writing, I have modified a class checklist for him so that it now reads: I wrote my name on the paper; I used periods at the ends of my sentences; and my writing is neat. Still, it is almost impossible, even if I walk him through it, for him to assess himself.

The students also have many opportunities to assess their peers. However, I have noticed that when Jimmy is engaging with the other students in my class it is always based around simple conversations and not focused discussions. My students have stopped asking him to peer-conference with them on their writing presumably because he is not a help to them. They seek someone who will give them the necessary feedback to add more details to their pieces.

I am beginning to notice speech delays, comprehension problems, and lack of basic concept understanding with Jimmy. He has difficulty following more than one step directions. I often find him gazing around the room or staring with a blank stare at his papers (no matter how easy or challenging they may be for him). If I ask him any comprehension questions he simply does not answer unless the questions are in yes/no format. This leads to me assisting him towards the answer and defeats the purpose of assessing his higher-level thinking. I simply feel there is none. However, I cannot find a way to tell. Is it his mutism getting in the way of his comprehension? Or does he simply not have the skills or know how to use them?

To see how he would do when asked questions by a peer in a private situation, which I considered a low anxiety situation, I asked one of my responsible little girls Samantha to take Jimmy into the hallway for a conversation once he read his book, “Miss Nelson is Missing.” Knowing that he normally talks with his peers with no problem at all, I presented this book to Jimmy, thinking it was at his level based on the little knowledge I had. I told him that he was going to talk about his book to Samantha when he was finished because she has not read the book before and was curious what it was about. Samantha went into the hallway with Jimmy after I explained to her that I wanted her to have a conversation with him and let me know if he could say what happened in the story. Of course I found myself eavesdropping from the classroom door where I couldn’t be seen. He remained consistent with his yes or no answers and did fairly well with this modification. Samantha began asking him open ended questions, but soon realized she had to ask him only yes or no questions to which he answered correctly. If she asked him to tell her more, he wouldn’t say anything until she prompted him again.

I have also subscribed to a computer based literacy program from Reading A-Z called RAZ Reading. It offers teacher selected leveled books for students to listen to, read, and then take a quiz. My students love this and have made such wonderful growth by exceeding on certain levels and allowing me to challenge them by continuously giving them more difficult material. I figured Jimmy might be able to show me more of what he knows through this computerized screening, thinking he could be successful with multiple choice questions. However, my hopes were soon diminished when I noticed his scores were not what I had anticipated and were also not improving. However, he does get excited and read the stories out loud which at least lets me see that he does in fact know how to read the words.

I wonder about equity. Is it fair that I adapt my assessments and those the school requires so much more for him and not the other kids? Is it fair that I read the NWEA questions to him, hoping this will help? Yet my low-average students across the room have to take these tests on their own and answer the questions whether they read it correctly or not, thus leading them to a potentially different understanding of the question. How is this fair to the other kids?

It is frustrating for me as a teacher to notice no improvement in Jimmy’s literacy and just let it go. I want him to succeed and worry that I am not doing my job to ensure his success. He has been successful socially, and I am so pleased at how far he has come. However, I feel that this is not good enough. I’m going to be passing him on to third grade with requests for testing when his triennial IEP meeting comes around. Maybe this will help to address a lack of truly knowing where he is, giving his new teacher something better to go on than I have had. What more can I do? I still have a lot of unanswered questions.

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