Advice - a new Genie

[Annick De Houwer]

Dear Eva,

This is indeed heartbreaking. I hope the child is not too scared to be 
touched, so can benefit from loving hugs. 
As far as language is concerned I would plead most urgently to work with 
the language/dialect the child has so far heard (however infrequently) - 
the child may understand something in that language. Here the child's 
mother may be helpful (or people in Sweden she knows from her homeland who 
use the same language). Building up mother-child interaction would be an 
important emotional aspect of the healing process, too, I would think, if 
the mother still has any sort of interest in the child. But in any event I 
would not try to introduce Swedish yet. I recommend trying to build on what 
little the child may know of the first language. 
There may be a little bit of hope here.

A sad story indeed.

Best Christmas wishes to everyone--

Annick

Annick De Houwer
On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 7:49:48 AM UTC+1, Eva.be... at gmail.com wrote:
>
> Dear info-childes community,
>
> In my spare-time I am politically involved in "social-welfare" , where we 
> have to decide about support to children and families in need, and the 
> following is a case that we learned of yesterday on our monthly meeting.
>
> Last week arrived to Sweden a mother, who has been living herer for the 
> last 8-10 years, with her child that she has fetched from her previous 
> homeland. They went straigth to the social-welfare office and the mother 
> declared that she is unable to take care of her child.
>
> The child was therefore transferred to an institution dedicated to 
> children in different kinds of need.
>
> However, when the situation became a bit more clear they found out that 
> the child's needs were not of the usual kind in any way. 
>
> The child was born about 10 years ago, and the mother said that she more 
> or less immediately found out that there was something wrong with the 
> child, and that she could not take care of him. Thus, the child was left to 
> a relative, who kept the child in a room and fed the child through a hole 
> under the door.
>
> Thus, the child can hardly any words, eventually a few words in his native 
> language (which is completely unrelated to Swedish). The child is reluctant 
> to new food and eats mainly porridge and milk, and they say that they 
> suspect that the child has some sort of autism or maybe hearing loss. 
> Furthermore, there are scars on the child's head and body, so he seems to 
> have been physically abused also.
>
> So, suddenly we have a child here who resembles the famous Genie case, and 
> we are urgently in need for advice about how to help this child in the best 
> way.
>
> I am so grateful for any advice or links to references that you can 
> provide tho help in this heart-breaking case.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Eva Berglund
>
> Department of Special Education
>
> Stockholm University
>
>

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