Fall 2002 Issue

SUPPORT SERVICES FOR CHILDREN
Laura Ellman, LSW

Cathy and Kim Brumbaugh adopted their children Kevin and Kelly from Moscow, Russia in July of 1998. Kevin was almost 5 years old and Kelly was 20 months when they were adopted.

In this article, Cathy will discuss what programs may be helpful to families during the “catch-up” time after an adoption. Cathy’s perspective as a speech pathologist and a parent offers insight into how to understand and assist our children. While Cathy speaks about services in the greater Pittsburgh area, similar programs are legally mandated throughout the United States.

“We consulted a pediatrician who specialized in international adoption prior to adopting. She provided us with information about services in Allegheny County, where we live, for all children from birth to five years of age who may be delayed in any area of development (speech, fine motor, gross motor, developmental). These services are provided FREE through Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which will provide testing and therapy services for children with delays/disabilities due to having lived in an orphanage.

As a Speech Pathologist in the school system, I have worked with several children who were internationally adopted. Due to the lack of stimulation that some children living in an orphanage experience, they may exhibit institutional delays. Professionally, I do believe that the earlier a child receives services the more effective we can be in meeting the child’s needs. Many parents of internationally adopted children are unaware of the services that may be accessed for their children at no cost.

We waited 3 months for our children to get settled before we scheduled an evaluation for both of them. This time period gave us an opportunity to “get to know” our children and their behaviors in order to provide information for their evaluations.

We knew that both of our children were delayed in some areas of development. We decided to have a comprehensive evaluation completed to determine the areas of concern. We contacted the Allegheny Intermediate Unit to schedule these evaluations. The Early Intervention Team (physical therapist, occupational therapist, developmental therapist and speech therapist) came to our home to evaluate Kelly. She qualified to receive physical and occupational therapies to improve her fine and gross motor skills. She was also seen by a developmental therapist to monitor her developmental and cognitive skills. These services were provided in our home and were free of charge.

Our son Kevin received occupational and speech therapy through the Project DART program, which serves school age children. Kevin also participates in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. He receives these services at no charge during his school day.

My observation as a parent is that children learn like sponges. Kevin spoke English after being in our family for only 3 months. I have since learned that while he spoke appropriately for the most part, his understanding of what was being said to him was not on the same level as his expressive language. For example, it was difficult for Kevin to grasp that “before we go out to play we must clean up” as he did not understand that “before” referred to a sequence of events. We frequently needed to remind his teachers that sometimes when he was not cooperating it was because he did not understand the request. We have since learned that “social language,” meaning the ability to converse, comes more quickly to children learning a new language, whereas “academic language,” understanding concepts within a conversation, takes longer to learn.”

When attempting to access free services, parents should be aware of the following: In 1975, Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) which supports states and localities in protecting the rights and meeting the needs of infants, toddlers and children with disabilities. This law guarantees a free, appropriate public education to each child in every state and locality across the country from 3 to 21 years of age. In addition, the 1986 Amendments (PL99-457) mandates services from birth.”

Cathy reports that both Kevin and Kelly are doing well with Kevin in third grade and Kelly in kindergarten. She writes, “Kevin is very active in the local swim team and baseball team. He takes piano and violin lessons and loves music. Kelly is enrolled in gymnastics, ballet and tap dance. She is eager to start piano lessons. She will also be joining the local swim team once she turns 6 years old. Both love the winter and really picked up on ice skating, rollerblading and skiing. They are both very free spirited, independent and easy going and have many friends. Kevin really took on the big brother role from the start and I would have to say they are best friends and get along extremely well as brother and sister.”

 

From the Director’s Desk: Sonia Girel

I hope that you and your family are doing well, and on behalf of the Adopt-A-Child staff, I wish you a happy and healthy holiday season.

Our office receives many calls regarding how to prove that an internationally adopted child is a U.S. citizen and how to apply for a child’s social security number. A child who enters the U.S. on an I R 3 Visa (meaning both parents saw the child in her birth country prior to the adoption) is in fact an automatic U.S. citizen when they enter the U.S. But our government does not provide proof of this until parents either apply to INS for a Certificate of Citizenship or apply for their child’s U.S. passport. In Russia or China parents are given all documents that they need to apply for either of the above, and may immediately do so upon their return home. They may also apply for their child’s social security number using those same documents that they were given in the country of adoption. However, if a child receives a social security number without showing either a US passport or a Certificate of Citizenship when applying, the computers at the Social Security Administration may register the child as an alien rather than a citizen. So to avoid a second trip to the Social Security office to change the alien status, it may be easier to obtain proof of citizenship first and then apply for a social security number.

 

HOW I EXPLAINED ADOPTION TO THE FIRST GRADE
TIPS FOR LEARNING LANGUAGE AT HOME

By Amy Klatzkin

(The following is excerpted with permission from Adoptive Families March/April 2001 Issue.)

“Early in first grade at my daughter’s school, each child is given a special day when she gets to help the teacher... Classmates interview the child of the day, and the teacher records the answers on a big poster. My daughter was the first of two adopted children in her class to have a special day... The class had just finished interviewing my daughter, and the teacher was about to move on, when a classmate asked, “Weren’t you adopted?”

I got a message from the teacher that afternoon saying that adoption had come up and that my daughter had handled the situation with confidence and pride. The teacher then read to the class a book called Families Are Different. In it a girl adopted from Korea talks about her white parents, her Korean sister and the occasional discomfort of being different from other families...

I was glad the teacher had read the book, and I was gratified to hear that my daughter had enjoyed her special day. So I was surprised, when I picked her up, to see her looking sad.

One child had asked if the two adopted girls in the story were real sisters. And the teacher had answered, “they’re kind of sisters.” It’s possible that no one except my daughter picked up on the subtext of that answer. But some kids catch all the nuances when grownups talk about adoption. Mine has her radar fine-tuned. She heard that the teacher wasn’t sure just how “real” those sisters were...

I explained that sometimes grownups not in adoptive families aren’t always good at answering questions about adoption. What’s confusing, I explained, is that before Zoe was adopted, she and Betty weren’t sisters, but from the moment of adoption on, they were sisters forever. And by the way, would she like me to come talk to the class about adoption next week?

... I was nervous about talking to the class, so I asked several parents who’d done it before for some suggestions. Then I talked with my daughter... She has a doll named Emma who was made to look like her when she was one year old. “Let’s dress Emma in my orphanage clothes,” she said, “and we can talk about Emma’s adoption.”

And that’s what we did. The class loved it, and everyone wanted to hold the “baby.” My daughter was a participant in the discussion rather than the subject of it, which really pleased her.

We talked first about different types of families, how some look alike and some don’t... Together we made two lists on the blackboard. On one side the children named things that babies need: diapers, bottles, food clothes, hugs, love and so on. On the other side they listed what parents do: change, diaper, give medicine. None of the first graders said anything about being born. At the top of the parents’ list I added a crucial part of every child’s story: babies need parents to bring them into the world.

You have to be careful how you talk about birth with first graders. At this age there’s a wide range of knowledge about procreation... One boy in the class insisted that babies come from the earth... I redirected the discussion. I wasn’t there to teach the birds and the bees.

Once we had our lists of what babies need and what parents do, I moved on to adoption.

I told them to remember that adoption happens for grownup reasons and that the need for adoption is never, ever a child’s fault. Birth parents sometimes have big problems (like being too young to be parents or in some parts of the world, being afraid to break rules about how many children they can have)... I put a circle around “bring babies into the world.” I picked up Emma, the doll, and said, “Emma’s birth parents could bring her into the world, but they didn’t think they could do all those other things,” and I pointed to the long list of things babies need and parents do.

“Emma’s forever parents,” I explained, “adopted her because they wanted to do all those other things for her. But they didn’t do the first thing: they didn’t bring her into the world. So Emma has two sets of real parents: her birth parents, who are certainly real even if we don’t know who they are, and her forever parents, who are also real and who are part of her real forever family.”

I don’t know if it was the doll or the lists, but for most of the kids something clicked. They were excited to understand something concrete about adoption, and my daughter was proud of the whole thing... When the other adopted child in the class had her special day, no one asked about adoption. They knew enough for now.

What worked here may not work for your child. It may not even work for mine next year, when new questions and concerns arise. We can’t deal with the issue once and consider it done, because understanding adoption is a lifelong process. We need to keep communication open with our children so we know (or can make educated guesses about) what issues are coming up in school and can help them, their friends, and their teachers develop greater awareness and understanding of adoption.”