What Price Saviour?

One of my whole-class speech and language programs was run in a special facility within a large primary school.  The children I was working with were mainly 5-7 year olds with various developmental delays, and some had diagnoses of Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

One of my favourite (except we don't have favourites) boys to work with was one who wasn't on my direct-therapy caseload at all.  Matthew (but of course his name wasn't really Matthew) was a charming 6 year old with Aspergers Syndrome who, despite having difficulties with routines and fitting into a regular class, was very talkative and charming, and he always kept me smiling.

One day as he walked to the bathroom (a little obsession of his), he passed me sitting at a table doing some therapy with another student.  As he walked by, he noticed that I had a pen stuck into my hair.  I often keep a pen stick through my bun or ponytail because I think it's good to have a pen close to hand.  Unfortunately, I never look for pens in my hair, I only stick them in.  There have been times when I've been frantically searching for a pen, only to be told there are three sticking out of my scalp.

Matthew was scandalised.  He addressed me in the tone you'd use for someone being deliberately dense.  "Miss Kate," he said, "did you know you have a pen in your hair." It was more of a "you've got to be kidding me" sort of statement than a question, hence the lack of question mark.

"Yes," I said, "I know. I keep it there so I've always got a pen handy!" 

The only way for me to adequately convey the punchline to you would have been to have taken a picture of the expression he gave me.  Matthew looked at me as if I was completely insane.  It was gorgeous.

But that's all by way of introduction.  I really wanted to tell you about the time I was leading my whole-class speech and language program in front of him and his classmates.  This day, the focus sounds were initial 'r' blends.  I was going through the activities with 'br', 'cr', 'dr', 'fr', 'gr', 'pr' and 'thr' words.  Some of the pictures required explanation.

One of the 'pr' words was 'price', illustrated by a t-shirt with a tag hanging off it showing the price.  I watched as the small children wrinkled their noses, wondering if the word was 'shirt'.  I told them that the tag was showing the price, and that was the target word for the next activity: price.

Suddenly Matthew shot his hand up.  He stretched and strained, desperate to catch my attention and tell me something.  "Ooo, oo, oo!" he said.  "I KNOW that!  I know that word!  We say it at our church all the time!   Jesus Price!"

Sometimes you don't want to finish a session.  You just want to scoop the children up into your arms and hug them tight!