Mr. and Mrs. Adkins
1027 10th Ave.
Huntington, WV 25701

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Adkins,

First off let me start be thanking the both of you for letting me work with Tyler’s teacher to ensure his progress in school. Since I don't work in the school system as a Speech-Language Pathologist it's not that often that I get to work with teachers. I’ve really enjoyed being able to work with everyone to make this as beneficial as possible for Tyler. After all it’s Tyler that we’re all concerned about. Throughout the course of this letter I will fill you in on some things that have been going on at school that we've planned to hopefully stop the name-calling and other acts.

As per my email correspondence with Mrs. Adkins I promised that I would keep you informed of Tyler’s progress in school. As well as what Tyler’s teacher, Mrs. Hughes, and I are doing to improve Tyler’s self-esteem. So far we have come up with a really good idea if I do say so myself. Our plan is to put Tyler in a comfortable situation where he might perform at his best ability. This way the children will be able to get to know Tyler better and see that even though he is different he's still just like everyone else. You see sometimes children pick on those who are different from themselves. We believe that because Tyler stutters, some of the children are viewing him as different. Hopefully after we put our plan into effect we can changes those views.

Here is an example of one of the many ideas that we have. Since Tyler is a wiz at English we’ve decided to have the children break up into groups and revise each other’s papers. This works well since Mrs. Hughes just had the children write a paper for class. We’re going to put Tyler in a group that he will be able to help by showing them correct grammar rules and such. This will not only help Tyler become more confident and feel better about himself but it will also help him improve on his communication skills in social settings.

As you can see our plan was set out very strategically. This is just one of many ideas Mrs. Hughes and myself have come up with. However, we’re going to try this one out first and see how it goes. This way we will know what areas we need to improve on. After that we plan on doing things like this quite frequently. We hope to keep Tyler involved in all of the activities, that way he becomes more comfortable with the other children and vise versa.

We feel very strongly that after the children become comfortable with Tyler that the name-calling and other acts will stop. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact Mrs. Hughes or myself at anytime. We’re also open to suggestion and welcome them. Once again thanks so much for allowing me to have this opportunity. I feel that this will turn out well for everyone.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Livingston, MA, CCC-SLP

Date: Friday, October 25, 2002 12:26am
To: Deb_Adkins@aol.com
From: Livingston@hotmail.com
Subject: Tyler’s Progress in Therapy

Hello Deb,

I just wanted to give you an update on Tyler’s progress in therapy. Tyler was coming along quite nicely in therapy however recently there has been a pause in his progress. It seems as though whenever Tyler comes into therapy with a positive attitude we get so much accomplished. However, some days he has a negative outlook on everything and it’s like pulling teeth to get him to do his exercises. Are there any changes that Tyler has been going through at school or at home that might contribute to his attitude whenever he comes to therapy? Ordinarily I wouldn’t even mention this because we all have our good days and bad days but this is becoming a major trend with Tyler. It seems the past three times we’ve had therapy we didn’t get hardly anything accomplished. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Cheryl
_________________________________

Date: Friday, October 25, 2002 7:05pm
To: Livingston@hotmail.com
From: Deb_Adkins@aol.com
Subject: Re: Tyler’s Progress in Therapy

Cheryl,

Now that you have mentioned it I have also noticed a changed in Tyler’s attitude here recently. I set him down this afternoon and had a talk with him to see what has been bothering him since there’s nothing going on at home. He informed me that he’s been having a hard time at school. It seems as though the children have been giving him a really hard time lately. I think all of the teasing and name-calling is really starting to affect his self-esteem. Kids can be so cruel at that age. I’m afraid however to have the teacher say something to the children about it because I’m afraid that it will only make things worse for Tyler. What do you think we should do about this situation? I think something definitely needs to be done. It’s not only affecting his progress in therapy but now it’s starting to affect his self-esteem and I’m sure his school work will be the next thing to suffer. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks for your concern,

Deb
__________________________________

Date: Friday, October 26, 2002 2:45pm
To: Deb_Adkins@aol.com
From: Livingston@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Tyler’s Progress in Therapy

Deb,

It’s really a shame to hear that children can be so cruel that they do affect other children’s self-esteem in a negative way. However, I’m positive that we will be able to turn this around. Especially since it’s just now starting to affect Tyler's self-esteem. I’m glad we caught onto this issue early; otherwise this could have been a lot harder to deal with. I think one way of going about this is to get his teacher involved and make her aware of the problem. If you would like, I could contact her myself and I could work with her to find a good solution for the both of us, keeping you informed of the process the whole time of course. I also think that I could do some things in therapy to help improve Tyler’s self-esteem. Let me know what you think about me contacting Tyler’s teacher. If you’d like you can call me at 304-525-3430.

Thanks for your time,

Cheryl

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