Specail Needs Child
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When I first met Maya it was in June of 2011. I was 18 and she was 4. I remember a little girl sitting on the floor by herself playing with blocks. She turned arouned and saw me and then proceed to come over and try to talk to me. Her appearance took me off gaurd; she had a care bear T-shirt on and blue shorts, a crooked smile filled with pretty white teeth, and long curly brown hair. I had just gotten hired at Jolly Tots, a daycare for children where I had recently begun working. With shcuh enthusiasm, I wondered why my boss had not seemed to notice. After all, Maya wasnt like the other girls at the daycare.
As a junior in high school, I did not have any experience working with kids with special needs. Maya was my first exposure to that. Initially it was hard not to get frustrated woth her. she was hard to understand when she would speka to me. She would get frustrated with herselfm because she kept trying to tell me something and I couldn;t understand her. She would a;so get frustrated when she tried to pick something up with her left hand.
One day, I spoke to Mayas mom. SHe confided in me saying that she was happy to see Maya talking and using her left arm a bit more. Her mom also thanked me for helping her, SHe told me that she really hadnt seen a teenager like myself help out a girl like Maya.
There were may similr moments in the three months I woirked at the daycare; times when I could only give Maya a little bit of my time; Where she would get frustrated with herself when no one could understand her when she tried to ask a simple question. However there were times when she was able to get a question out pretty well and you could see she wasnt frustrated or when she could get pick something up and have a little less of a hard time, That is an instance that stands out in my mind.
To most people, Mayas last appearance at Jolly Tots resembled her first almost exactly. A little girl could be plauying with blocks, turn arouned get excited to see me as she runs over and trieds to talk to me. But I no longer saw a girl with a disablitiy; instead, I saw a girl who was going to make something of herself no matter what. And whose life had touched mine for a brief but important moment