It was the first day of the summer theater camp, and many of my regulars of the third and sixth grades had already arrived and spent the last few minutes before our day began to laugh and joke and catch up with each other in what had happened to us since the last the show closed this spring. There were also a few children I met before, but were new to the program, and some of them I never met at all. They looked at them curiously and wandered around the studio. I pretty much identified everyone and gave out name tags and waited for another new student.
I saw him go in with mom. He was small, small for his age, and he looked as if this was the last place in the world he wanted to be. But his mother brought him to the edge of the playing space, and he sat down among the cacophony of children, and just looked uncomfortable. I smoked with him and his mom and came over to shake his hand. “This is Stephen,” Mom told me. "In new situations, he is a little uncomfortable, and it helps him if you can connect him with a friend who can show him the ropes."
It made sense to me, and I took a note to make sure that I introduced him to Michael, one of my regular customers, who is such a child who can be considered a friend to everyone. Stephen's mother looked around the room at the other children, and then looked again at her son, who was still calm and looked unhappy. She only told me that he sometimes had problems with large groups, and he loved to watch other children see what was expected of him. Then she said goodbye to her boy and left for the day.
Well, I had a feeling that there was something rather interesting about this guy. On the one hand, he still looked as if he would have preferred to be everywhere in the world than in my classroom, and this was unusual. The overwhelming majority of children who entered the room saw comfortable sofas and large colored pillows, as well as a large platform scene, lights, props and costumes everywhere and felt that they had arrived. For a child interested in acting, it was the perfect place to settle down and become comfortable.
After a day I discovered that Stephen really was a very interesting guy. When I asked a question about the group, he will raise his hand to answer, and if I call him, he will look at me stupidly. He even had no idea what the question was, and even more so how to answer it. He laughed when the other children laughed, but seemed to have no idea that everything on earth was so funny. Before I could work with him with Michael, Stephen made the choice on his own and probably the worst choice he could make. He chose for his mentor the class of the most beautiful and contemptuous girl in the group, who, when he agreed with everything she said, and announced that she was his girlfriend, look at him as if it were a mucous membrane.
The only place Steven could shine was in the morning on the playground, where he turned out to be the most amazing kickball the company had ever seen. Honestly, it did not say much, because our company was not known for its athletic prowess, but it was surprising to see that this awkward and obviously very tangled child becomes an elegant athlete, catching balls and pitching beautiful and making home runs with ease. Several times he was distracted by a plane flying overhead, but he also amused me at these moments, since he knew exactly what plane he was looking at and could tell me all the details about the plane, right down to the model number.
And this boy could sing. The project we were working on was a summer musical, and although the child could not answer the question to save his life, he always knew on what page we were in the libretto, and could sing like an angel.
I couldn't wait to talk to his mom at the end of the day.
When she arrived, I met her at the door, asking my assistant to monitor the remaining children. I asked her if she had a minute and if I could talk to her privately. We walked out the studio door, and I said, “Could you tell me a little about Stephen?”
Her eyes filled with tears. She explained to me that she was sorry, and that she had hired that in this world her little son would have the chance to be "just a child." What she hoped was that she found a place for him, finally adapted, and find a measure of independent success. She then explained to me that her Stephen had non-verbal teaching disability.
The name of a non-verbal learning disorder is misleading, since people with this disability are usually very verbal and that their areas of defecation are in non-verbal domains. This means that, although the child’s language skills will appear to be advanced and his vocabulary may even be exceptional, the areas of concept formation and abstract reasoning are completely weakened. A child can have many problems summarizing and accepting verbal interactions literally. In general, social interactions have not been crowned with success, and the child may show a complete lack of “street clever” and be completely recklessly innocent about the dubious motives of people who want to use them.
Stephen's mother, for obvious reasons, was sad to tell me about it. I could well understand her desire for her child to find a place where he could fit in with the rest of the children, without needing special services or paying special attention to his problems. I had other parents of other interesting students who had this desire, and allowed me to try to figure out my child on my own, and sometimes it was possible, and I could find out what made the child tick without even telling the parents “Please tell me about your child? "
But in the case of Stephen, I needed an entrance. And his mother, after she was able to restore her composition, agreed to help me with information about the strengths and weaknesses of her child. That evening, she wrote a story about Stephen and bought it for me the next day, when she let him go. It helped me understand him and helped me smooth the path to him with other children who found him rather confusing.
The next two weeks of the camp with Stephen were at least eventful. I threw him on several supporting roles in the show, and he was always on the right page in the script, but I was never sure that he clearly understood what was going on in the story. He recognized his lines and where to stand, but was challenged by such things as remembering to get out of the way so that other children could continue behind the scenes. Several times he sat on the newly painted scenery. For some time he was a constant irritant from several more organized girls in the group.
However, his singing voice was a huge asset, and everyone wanted him on his kickball team. When he finally found out what was expected of him on stage, he remembered it perfectly, and the only problem was that someone had forgotten something or wasn’t where they were supposed to turn it off completely.
And I will tell you something else. It was a child that everyday life was constantly confusing, and the easy communication between people, which most of us took for granted, was a daily nightmare. But he was as hard-working and assertive actor as I had ever seen. He never brave, trying to understand, and never allowed himself to sag over his work on stage. And when the day came for a speech, he was there. He was an important part of the actors, and he knew it, and other children, even those who were super organized little girls, knew it. His mother shone from the audience, and when he took his last bow, you could see on his face and in your post your honor in what he did.
So what did I mean to tell you the story of Stephen, a boy with a non-verbal learning disorder? Look at it this way: the child is almost impossible for any everyday communication of people, who struggle with the understanding of the motives of the majority of people with whom he interacts in his life, and for the one who makes friends, is a painful, almost insurmountable task. But put it in the experience of theatrical art, and what you have is an incredible opportunity for success. He becomes an important part of a joint project, spends time with peers and gains trust and admires his strengths. And with the success of the show he earns the right to be proud of the work he did to contribute to what he gave to this success.
It is almost unmistakable. Steven and others with similar and different differences in training can benefit in almost all areas from the experience of the theater arts. Success and pride and camaraderie, often very illusive for children with differences in learning, are one of the many advantages available in the adventures available in the theater. The dream came true for a single child who hurts to understand and be part of something beautiful, and a dream comes true and a mother who longs to see her child happy, prosperous and, perhaps, the most important, is just another child.
