'Shema' in Sign Language - A Child's Journey into Judaism

Around the time of Atara’s tenth birthday, I began to think of her bat mitzvah celebration. I knew that I had time to think it through but I thought it best to start making notes about how it could be done. Knowing that if it were to be a memorable and a possibly eye-opening event for everyone, I would have to do most of it on my own.

Of course, I didn’t realize at the time I wrote this how much planning I’d have to do. I didn’t feel overwhelmed, just excited at the prospect that it would touch people and make a difference in their lives.

During our initial discussion with our synagogue’s rabbi, we learned that a bat/bar mitzvah must include showing some understanding and becoming part of the Jewish community.

I believe that every child deserves a proper education; one that is best suited for him/her. Within this everyday education comes values, beliefs and tradition. I hope that one day soon everybody will accept and embrace this. “I sought a service that would highlight her gifts and validate her unique essence,” I remember a mother saying when dealing with her own situation.

Given that there is no 101 book on how to plan/deal with such an event, I started my process by making exciting (for me) phone calls with the intention of telling people what was on my mind and brainstorming with them. I heard a multitude of things that were always encouraging. Initially, I brainstormed with pretty much anyone I came in contact with - people who I thought would be interested. Around the same time, I started to create a scrapbook visually documenting her journey into Judaism.

In preparation to the Pre B’nei Mitzvah group, the rabbi introduced the idea of having Atara on board to the other parents and students. The result was positive and very supportive. Atara became well accepted by the group, a group who truly helped her on her special day through communal readings and through their support and presence.

We decided on having Atara communicate important prayers in American Sign Language (ASL). This mode was chosen because Atara is a global communicator. She uses monosyllabic English, ASL, animated hands, her body and non seneschal words to communicate her feelings and needs. I figured that American Sign Language would be the easiest and the most animated way of saying the blessings.

One set of spiritual moments demonstrated her understanding of Judaism. Atara was alone in the room where we keep the children’s torah. With a tallit and kipah on, she took out the torah, paraded around proudly with it, looked through it, proceeded to care for the torah by straightening and primping it in the sunlight and then carefully put it back where she found it.

Atara’s been physically and emotionally involved at Congregation Dorshei Emet for more than half her life. Because of this, she has become an equal member of the congregation. She has also learned to embody much of who we are. No, not theoretical Reconstructionism but the practical side. Her bat mitzvah was a part of her Jewish journey. The process to date has been so full of emotions that I don't think I could tell you all the pertinent parts or keep them straight.

On the Friday night of her 11th birthday at the ‘New Members Potluck,’ Atara got to sing into the microphone with the Rabbi. The next day during Shabbat service, all of her new friends in the Pre B’nei Mitzvah group learned to sign the song Happy Birthday. At the end of their six months together, the group and their families went away to Camp B'nai Brith for a shabbaton (a learning week-end). If I had to use one word to describe this adventure, it would be ‘awesome’.

The rabbi’s wife, Carmela, helped Atara make her own tallit. Atara enjoyed the process very much and loves to put it on. What a wonderful way of personalizing her time up on the bimah.

The bimah - the place reserved for the big machers. There were many comments about her performance in the form of wide eyes and ‘wows’. She started by following the Torah around and giving lots of high fives. If the congregation wasn’t hooked by then, they certainly were after we demonstrated how they could sign the Shema along with Atara.

We all then said the prayer while simultaneously signing it. Throughout her time Atara handled the event wonderfully. What touched me the most was watching how easily people shed their anxieties for an attitude of love and acceptance. It was truly inspiring to see and experience.

Erika Tencer is Atara's mother as well as a therapeutic recreation specialist.

Love can challenge us to wondrous heights . . .

This post is dedicated to our friend Jason Goldsmith and his beautiful son Ellis . . . two incredible individuals that have shown us what true love between a father and son is all about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GphmdhLMGE

“Why does Jimmy curl up in a little ball in the corner of the class and cover his ears during play time”?

“Why is Tanya always squirming in her seat and tugging at her clothes on her body? I can’t get her to wear anything but jogging pants! Sometimes she will even pull away or hit me if I touch her unexpectedly”.

“Does Kevin have behaviors at home, because at school he is always pushing kids in line and goes up to children to hit them for no reason at all! He often squeezes adults, and can even pinch too”!

“Catherine is always squinting, but the eye doctor says her vision is fine. It happens most often in shopping malls. Sometimes she will even close her eyes or cover them with her hands. Is she ignoring us, or playing a game”?

“Why can’t Amanda sit still…she is always upside down on her chair, or getting up and twirling around dancing”!

“Is it normal that a 7 year old still sucks on his thumb and puts toys in his mouth”?

These are common questions asked by many teachers and parents working with children with special needs, and yes there is an answer!

All these children have a nervous system that is having trouble interpreting and responding to sensory information. The senses send our brain information about the environment and our own bodies. Once this information is integrated, we respond with a behavior or emotion. When our senses do not register this information properly, or when our brain does not interpret this information properly, our response is greatly impacted! We might over-respond to the incoming sensory input, or under-respond.

Here is a description of the 7 Sensory Systems. Two of which are referred to as the “hidden senses”, as they are complex systems that people are less aware about. They are called the proprioceptive and vestibular systems.

• The Auditory System is our sense of hearing. In loud/noisy environments (i.e. the playground, a shopping mall), we must rely on our auditory system’s ability to filter out non-relevant auditory information. A child with auditory processing difficulties may not be able to do this, and may shut themselves off from the environment altogether.
• The Visual System is our sense of sight. Our visual system allows us to identify/recognize and locate objects and people, and it provides us with information regarding light and motion.
• The Tactile System is our sense of touch. It provides us with information about light touch, pressure, vibration, temperature, and pain.
• The Oral/Gustatory System is our sense of taste and food textures.
• The Olfactory System is our sense of smell.
• The Vestibular System provides us with information about movement, gravity, and changing head positions. It makes us aware of when our bodies and objects are moving or remaining still. It also lets us know where we are moving, and how fast we are going, if we are spinning, or moving back and forth. It gives us a sense of where our body is in space (i.e. whether or not we are standing or lying down). The receptors which send our brain information about the vestibular system are in the inner ear.
• The Proprioceptive System is our sense of how our body works. It allows us to be unconsciously aware of our body. Our brain receives proprioceptive information from receptors located in muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, and connective tissues. It provides us with information regarding the position of our body parts, in relation to each other, objects, and people (body concept). It also helps inform us about how much force our muscles need to exert in different situations. Like the vestibular system, the proprioceptive system also gives us information about movement and gravity.

Now let’s review the children above:

Jimmy is an example of a child with auditory sensitivities. He over-responds to auditory information, therefore he tries to block it out as much as he can. The classroom environment becomes very loud during free play time; which causes him to shut down and tune out from his environment.

Tanya is very sensitive to touch, even the feeling of her clothes on her body irritates her. Imagine how difficult it must be for her to attend in class, when she is distracted by the feeling of her own clothing, and is always on guard of someone who might brush up against her.

Kevin’s proprioceptive system is not giving his body enough information about where it is in space, and how much force he requires to complete tasks. He is not deliberately bumping into other children, he just doesn’t know where his body is in relation to others. He also seeks out proprioceptive information (i.e. squeezes and pinches) to help his brain have a better understanding about its own body.

Catherine is sensitive to visual information. People moving around her, worksheets with a lot of information on them, classrooms filled with pictures and drawings can be very overwhelming. In order to block out this information, she squints or covers her eyes.

Amanda’s vestibular system is not registering information about movement and gravity properly. She therefore seeks it out. Spinning and upside down activities provides us with lots of vestibular input!

Mouthing objects and sucking the thumb can be a result of developmental immaturity, but also a result of a sensory need. Children who lack awareness in their mouth may seek out a lot of oral-motor input. Sucking can always be very calming to the nervous system. Think of a baby, this is how they calm themselves. The reason this works is because sucking provides proprioceptive input. Proprioceptive input is calming to the nervous system.

Most of us are able to filter out unnecessary sensory information, and we will provide ourselves with appropriate sensory input that will allow us to function optimally on a daily basis (a.k.a ‘Sensory Modulation’). Many children with special needs have difficulty doing this.

Children with special needs don’t always have a clear ‘sensory profile’. Just because they are over-responsive to one type of sensory information, does not always mean that they will respond the same to another type of sensory information (i.e. they may be over-responsive to auditory input, but under-responsive to vestibular input). Depending on the surrounding environment, a child may also respond differently to sensory input from one moment to the next. This is what makes it difficult for teachers and parents to understand exactly why a child reacts the way they do, and what it is that their brain and body needs.

The above examples were provided to help you start thinking about your own child’s sensory needs, and to help you look beyond “behavior”.

As each child’s sensory needs are different, please contact an Occupational Therapist to provide you with strategies to help your child integrate sensory information better.



Tara Sloan is an Occupational Therapist at Summit School where she works with students from the ages of 4 to 21 with mild to severe intellectual disabilities, and a variety of syndromes (Autism and Down Syndrome), severe learning disabilities, ADHD, behavioral and emotional disturbances. Tara wanted to be an OT since she was 15 years old because she would have the opportunity to learn about medicine and psychology, work at a school, help children therapeutically and be an advocate for the children and their families!

Good references:
1. Stock Kranowitz, Carol (1998). The Out of Sync Child. The Berkley Publishing Group, New York.
2. Yack, E., Sutton, S., Aquilla, P. (1998). Building Bridges through Sensory Integration.

'The Brain That Changes Itself', but can it change you?

'The Brain that Changes Itself' is a rare breed of nonfiction that straddles the sometimes fine line between reality and sci-fi. Like any book that chronicles medical discoveries, it's full to the brim with true accounts from the leading scientists in their fields. However, the notion that these stories are actually true, that the people in this book really accomplished what the author says they accomplished places Norman Doidge's book on the cusp of science fiction fact.

The whole premise Doidge puts on the table is nothing short of a revolution in the way we understand how our brains function: we are born with brains that can change the way they work. They can rewire themselves so that one area can take over when there is damage in another. If a portion of our brains are underdeveloped, by birth or by under use, we can rebuild it like a muscle. Furthermore, this changing brain can morph itself "from the cradle to the grave" so that a man in his eighties can regain the cognitive functions he once had in his fifties and a massive stroke victim might fully recover the abilities she was so swiftly robed of.

Paul Bach-y-Rita, a pioneering neuroplastician, had discovered that the brain is able to replace one sense with another. He explains that we sense the world around us with our brains and not with our senses. For example, light is detected in the back of the eye through photo sensitive tissue. Electrical signals only become vision when they are interpreted by the brain. Bach-y-Rita made the brilliant discovery that it did not matter where the stimulation was coming from, the brain could interpret stimulation from any part of the body as vision.

Bach-y-Rita used a machine to 'scan' a scene, pixilate this information and send it to four hundred 'vibrating stimulators, arranged in rows on a metal plate". This metal plate was inserted into the back of a chair. A person sitting in this seat would interpret vibrating stimulators as the white area of a scene and the still stimulators as the dark areas. This bizarre machine allowed people who were blind from birth to 'read, make out faces and shadows, and distinguish which objects were closer and which were farther away". It even allowed them to perceive perspective. Eventually, this machine was reduced to a small plastic strip with hundreds of tiny electrodes that would tingle when placed on the tongue. Amazingly, now the tongue had become the seeing organ.

Bach-y-Rita explains that this is possible because our senses are "plastic'. By plastic, he means that our brains are made to be rewired. Plasticity is the rule and not the exception. The 'vision' example demonstrates just how plastic our brains can be.

However, our senses are not the only plastic facet of our brains. Barbara Arrowsmith Young was born with an incredible visual and auditory memory. On the other hand, Barbra had plenty of physical and cognitive obstacles.

Her body was strangely "asymmetrical', her field of vision was so narrow that she could only see what was directly in front of her and she had difficulty pronouncing words.

Yet some of Barbara's greatest challenges were her difficulty with grammar, math concepts, logic and cause and effect. Her brain could not handle symbolic reasoning.

Traditional interventions used 'compensation' to deal with disabilities. If you were a slow learner, you would be given more time to complete tasks. If you had trouble hearing, you would be given an audio tape. Barbara however decided to exercise her weaknesses instead of work around them. Barbara understood that her brain had the capacity for change so she isolated herself and worked one cognitive weakness at a time. She found that if she focused, for example, on relating number symbols to each other, she became better than the average person. In addition, by improving one function of thinking, others showed improvement as well.

I have experienced similar success with my own son. He is autistic and has underdeveloped cognitive functions as well. The more I focus on his core deficits, the less pronounced his deficits become. Ellis is doing more than learning, he is also making physical changes to the structure of his brain. That is why he can sometimes take months to learn something it takes another child only moments to learn: that child already has the neural network established in his brain. Ellis on the other hand may be building it from the very bottom up. It helps to know that the brain acts like a muscle. It gives me patience to keep trying and it offers me hope that consistent efforts will pay off in the long run.

I have no doubt that this book can change the way people think about what is and is not possible in their lives. 'The Brain That Changes Itself' is for anybody who wants to marvel at the potential that is in all of us.

Jason Goldsmith is the founder of Big Blue Hug which raises awareness with its story telling art.
Visit http://www.thebigbluehug.com/ to learn more about Big Blue Hug art and about PictureTalking intervention and workshops.

Find the book HERE:
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search?keywords=the+brain+that+changes+itself&pageSize=10

The author's website is HERE:
http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge/MAIN.html