Mike & The Nasty Self Fulfilling Prophecy [by Dr. Laz]

“You’re wasting your time,” a colleague advised me. “He’s just a little kid in a big body.”

“You might be right,” I responded. “But I’ve seen music work its magic before.”

“Yeah,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “But not with all the issues this one has. Even his IEP says that he’s unable to predict outcomes.”

It blared off the paper like a flashing neon light. But this was not something to be taken too lightly. After all, it was the “holy grail” in the wide world of special education: the IEP in all its splendid glory – the Individualized Education Plan.

Despite his 19 years of physical development, his intellectual growth was somewhere between a one and two year old. Ron (name changed for obvious confidentiality reasons) needed one-to-one assistance in pretty much everything he did, or didn’t do throughout the day. He required help with feeding, changing, drinking, going to the bathroom, and all the other essentials we tend to take for granted in our daily lives. Ron would perseverate like crazy and often rocked back & forth for hours at a time, verbalizing the two syllables “ooo-bah ooo-bah” over and over and over again. Ron needed this constant supervision as he often did self-injurious behaviors. For some reason, as a baby, he kept poking himself in one eye and now only had partial vision in the other one.

I wasn’t sure what, if anything, would reach him during the two 30-minute sessions I had him for my special needs experiential music class. Maybe, like my fellow teacher cautioned, nothing would get through to Ron. Still, I vowed to keep trying.

I use a variety of hands-on musical and visual gadgets in my room. Most, in fact, reinforce this cause & effect phenomenon. Push a switch, hit a button, and all sorts of cool things happen. A light comes on. A drum starts to play. A fan comes on. Sometimes it’s all three at once. The theory is that the student with profound special needs soon learns that activating this particular button or switch causes some pretty neat responses. But with Ron, this technique was going nowhere pretty fast.

He’d often refuse to engage the switch, even when I’d use a hand-over-hand technique. He simply wanted to rock back & forth. In all honesty, his “ooo-bah” vocalizations were driving us all a bit mad. I had to turn up my guitar amp to drown out these ever-persistent sounds.

One particular class I was using the microphone with his class. The microphone is often the magical ticket to ride for individuals with special needs. Once plugged in with a mike, many students are absolutely fascinated with the sounds of their own voice. Some become complete hams and will go on forever unless I use a bit of force to get the mike back.

I walked up to Ron who was seemingly quite happy rocking and making his usual sounds. I offered him the mike, which he totally ignored. I then placed the mike in front of his mouth but in order for his sounds to be heard through the sound system, my hand (holding the mike) had to follow his head rocking motions. In a few seconds I had the technique down as the “ooh-bah” sounds blasted out for much of the school campus to hear. Then something remarkable happened. Ron stopped rocking. And he stopped his vocalizations. He seemed rather perplexed. In another moment he resumed his business as usual, but my hand holding the mike followed his every movement. Once again the “ooo-bahs” were broadcast loud and clear and once again Ron stopped it all. I was amazed. He clearly did not like how he sounded at this higher decibel level! Didn’t the IEP declare that he was “unable to predict outcomes?” I mean according to his psycho-educational evaluation, this was something he just wasn’t supposed to be able to do.

I tried it a third and fourth time and each time Ron repeated this behavior. He was quite able to predict this outcome. The microphone meant that the “ooo-bah” vocalizations were not just louder but more importantly, he found them unpleasant enough to stop both the sounds and his rocking movement. As the weeks went on, he would often enter my class, find his usual seat, and begin his usual “singing” sounds. All I had to do was reach behind me, lift the microphone for him to see it and he would cease all his perseveration behaviors! The mike was his ticket, the opening of a doorway into new and higher functioning experiences.

For me – and my fellow educators, it was a remarkable lesson. Sometimes, no let me rephrase that, many times we simply under estimate what our students can do. We come to believe certain things about their supposed limitations, especially matters that are written on their IEP’s and other “holy” documents. This phenomenon is often referred to as the “self-fulfilling prophecy.” If we think they’re “unable to predict outcomes” we will teach and relate to this level. It’s as if the labels we use in special education become stamped on their foreheads in fluorescent paint.

I had a professor in my masters degree program at Buffalo State College. Dr. B.B.Yormak, affectionately known as BBY (pronounced BeeBee), was a master educator and motivator. I was fortunate to have him as my mentor and advisor. One time he wrote the word “GOK” on the board and asked us all what we thought it meant. We had no idea. He then drew a circle around this peculiar word and drew a whole bunch of arrows pointing inwards towards the circle.

“Who are the significant others in a student’s life?” he asked. Pretty soon the arrows were all covered with terms like father, mother, care-taker, doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, siblings, teacher, physical therapist, principal, bus driver, occupational therapist, speech & language therapist, etc.

“When all is said & done,” BBY continued. “When all these people have had their say as to what this student will achieve, and even what this particular student is capable of doing right now in the present… it’s still GOK.”

“Huh?” I think pretty much every student in that graduate class said out loud.

“Yes,” he answered. “GOK. God only knows!”

He then advised us to never ever forget this “little” bit of information.

When it came to Ron, we had all come dangerously close to forgetting BBY’s pearls of wisdom. And now, I must confess, I read all of my students IEP’s with a large grain of salt. Experiential music is indeed amazing magic for my students. The microphone is an incredible teaching tool and motivator. Teacher and parents of individuals with profound special needs should put these incredible tools to work. They’re easy to use, quite fun, and dirt-cheap. Try them and you won’t be sorry. This is one outcome I am very comfortable predicting.

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