a new Genie -- a suggestion

Wed Dec 18 15:41:44 UTC 2013

I think Eileen's suggestion makes the most sense. I've attached just the first few pages of the beginning of chapter 4 of Robbins Burling's book The Talking Ape -- which I've retitled "How to Learn a New Language From Scratch." The title of Burling's book suggests that it's probably irrelevant but Burling provides an absolutely fascinating account of how one can communicate when neither party shares a common language. In this case, there are three parties. Since one goal is to promote a facilitative and enduring mother-child relationship, I suggest thinking about how the method Burling describes might help meet your needs. In any case, as I mentioned, it's fascinating.

Best,

Denis

- - -
Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S.
Director, EOCT Institute

Medical Director, 1983 - 2006
The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry
St. Petersburg, Florida

P.O Box 47576
St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576
Phone:	727-641-8905
DenisDonovan at EOCT-Institute.org
dmdonovan1937 at gmail.com

On Dec 18, 2013, at 9:09 AM, Eileen Brann wrote:

> One suggestion is to begin teaching basic, functional sign language, pairing it with words in the child's native language.
> Hopefully the child will receive audiological, cognitive and language evaluations, but this would be where I would begin to foster communication skills.
>  
> Eileen M. Brann, PhD, CCC-SLP
> Speech-lanuage Pathologist
> Assistant Professor
> Communication Disorders
> Governors State University
> Illinois
> 
> 
> On Dec 18, 2013, at 7:49 AM, Annick De Houwer <annickej at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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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