Help Speaking to an Older Child Adopted From Ethiopia

Hi Bethany, This book may help with some basic communication: [url=http://www.adoptlanguage.com/thebooks.htm]Welcome To Simple Language for Adoptive Families![/url] - it's a book and CD designed especially for adoptive parents. You can find it on Amazon as well. Also - here is a website for Ethiopia-American kids, many of whom were adopted: [url=http://www.amharickids.com/]Amharic Kids - Home[/url]. There are tips on pronouncing Amharic words, and other resources. Our son came home at 3.5 and spoke a bit of English, but his first language is Zulu. We did alphabet flashcards, played simple board games, watched tv shows and/or movies with words at the bottom, and for your student - maybe having him watch shows such as Sesame Street or other shows for young kids might really help. Good luck, I'm sure others will have some great ideas. Poor little guy, must be so confusing and frustrating for him!

I think that sign language (not official) should help a lot too. Also learn a few words that might be helpful. Is his first language Amharic? Or something else? Sorry about the spelling...Selam = helloamaysayganallo = thank youishi = it's okayI adopted my daughter at 21 months so not nearly as old as the boy you are talking about. My daughter took about 4 months before she basically understood everything that I was saying. When it finally clicked with her that I was speaking a language she ran around the house pointing at things and saying "eh?"I would expect that his behavior has a lot to do with his frustration in not being able to communicate with anybody. I can only imagine. Good luck.Samantha

My kids came home from Guatemala and Brazil at the age of 10.5 and 7. My 10.5 year olds were put in 3rd grade and my 7 year old in 2nd (then repeated 2nd). They went to school about a month after they got home. Some of the things we did: 1) Pair them up with one "buddy" each day. That buddy helped them with getting to lunch, bathroom, etc. They also worked on the school work together. My kids really did not have any school work the first 3 months, they were just learning english. 2) Tutors (high school kids, parents) came in during the day and worked on learning english. Mostly with flash cards...a word or 2 each week. 3) Their teachers labeled everything in the classroom. Chairs, desks, books, lights, light switch etc was labeled. It really was amazing because my kids became the "celebrity" in the classroom and all the other kids wanted to help. The kids helped with teaching them english more than I did! The other thing that had to be done was to set "rules" early on. None of my kids had been to school much so they needed to learn how to function in the classroom. I also had gone in to talk with the teacher AND the kids in the classroom before my kids came to school so they knew what to expect. The hardest thing for all of them was making/keeping friends and following rules. My kids are now ages 17, 13 and 10. They all function well in the classroom and are generally well behaved. They all speak english fluently (the 2 youngest are still learning). My oldest is working at grade level as a sophomore and the other 2 receive Title 1 services and have IEP's. They are all still very immature for their age and fit in great at the grade level they are attending. They would never have survived if they would have been with their peers. I hope this little boy does well in your classroom. Maybe he just needs a little less pressure. It will be great that he can learn from the 1st grade. My kids missed a lot by skipping the first 3 grades. Lisa, mom to 5 awesome kids... [url=http://www.lisa-lisasfamily.blogspot.com]lisa's family[/url]

Ethiopians are very nurturing and loving toward their children. My advice. Be nurturing, motherly, very patient, use gestures and pictures and drawings to describe what you would like him to do. Ask him to write his name in Amharic and make a big deal out of how special that is and how talented he is. Use lots of praise, he will know these words: "good" "good job!" "great", the thumbs up sign, hugs as rewards. Really exaggerate how happy you are that he is in your class, and how great a job he is doing. Show him how to ask for what he needs - show him how to ask to go to the bathroom (raise his hand and say "bathroom" for example), show him where it is, how to ask for a drink of water for example, that he doesn't feel good or needs to see the nurse, etc. Ask him how to say bathroom, or other words in Amharic. Try not to single him out to the other kids that he is from Africa unless he wants to be singled out, he probably is trying to fit in and wants to be like everyone else. Once he feels more comfortable you could ask him if he wants to show kids on the map where he is from or something. Or maybe that would be the time for him to teach some words in Amharic. You could present it to the class as if you are going to have a secret language just for that class that the other classes wouldn't understand, and then have the student teach them bathroom, good job, recess, a friendship handshake, I don't know, stuff like that. Does your school have learning tools designed for autistic children, or children with learning disabilities? You might talk to the professionals in your school that would know what learning and communication tools you could sign out to use for someone who has a hard time communicating using words. I know these things exist. Hopefully your school has them. Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Thanks for sharing all of these wonderful ideas! I am going to print this thread out and bring it with me to school today. He does speak Amharic. Those web sites are fabulous. Thank you. His behavior has been pretty tough so I'm a little nervous. He has only been in the US for like six weeks and I'm sure he is very scared and frustrated. Wish me luck!

First I think you should ask for help in your class. An aide that can work by his side a certain amount of the day reading the ques and providing corrective feedback. I know that this can be done for certain special needs. An idea - give him some things to do that you know he will be succesful at. In his head, he has just been "demoted" to a class of 6 year olds. He is probably confused, upset, humiliated, and on top of it has a hard time expressing these feelings - except to act out. Are you able to include the parents more in this process. IE can the parents come in with the child before or after school or during lunch to walk through the orientation of the class and the creation of the signals mentioned in the earlier posts. This ensures the parents can use the same signals at home reinforcing the meaning. They may also give you good insight into his "signals" for when things may start to go awry and how to handle them. (For instance our daughter can't be hugged right away if she is in "panic mode". It is people's first instinct. If they do this she may hurt that person thinking they are going to hurt her vs help her. Instead we have a process we go through so that she knows the hug at the end is a safe hug.) He needs to know he can be succesful in your class before he will be comfortable and learn anything new. Our little girl just shuts down when she is presented with too many things she doesn't understand. If there is anyway to give him easy work (for him) for the first few weeks and then slowly increase the work level so that he can start to get used to being frustrated in small amounts of time. (Yes, we have had to teach how to be appropriately frustrated and how to ask for help before getting frustrated.) The other thing I have learned is that at times the holes that the kids have are pretty deep. So you don't understand why the child can't remember the - name of colors say. In reality, it isn't developmentally appropriate to start with naming of colors. A young child starts experiencing colors, then moves to sorting or matching colors, then on to naming colors. If your lesson continually remains on matching a name to the color they won't get it, will get frustrated, and act out. So if you see the frustration point, potentially you don't need to reteach, but go back and figure out what the building blocks are to that particular piece of knowledge and start there. Good luck - the parents should feel relieved to have such a dedicated teacher.