Field Work
During my time at Project HOPE, I learned resilience and patience from a six year old girl who started out being nonverbal but in the span of 9 months, learned how to have full conversations with others. I worked with her four days a week with the fifth being spent doing administrative work in the office. When I first became her therapist in September, she talked only when asked something and kept to herself for most of the time. Her shyness did not dim her light as there was a fire in her eyes when she looked at her peers wanting to play with them but incapable of understanding the rules of their games. Slowly we worked on what rules mean and why we must follow them. But with that came the questions of why socially constructed rules exist, like “can I not be a boy so I can go into the boys bathroom and see if the light is working?” Her curiosity left me fascinated because I was observing what it is like for personality to form and morph depending on what is being learned about gender and societal acceptance. Next, she was able to express how she was feeling and what she would rather do. These were milestones I never thought I would help a human reach. It brought me so much joy to know how much of an impact I was making on her life whether it was by her telling how her day went or painting me a picture to hang on my wall.
Being located at Project HOPE was fulfilling, rewarding and challenging because through Applied Behavior Analysis, I was able to prompt and reinforce certain behaviors for my child which will help her gain independence in the future. These techniques have already gotten her far in the treatment despite the couple of hours we spend together per day. Her ability to fight through the barriers she was born with is inspiring and her resilience to adversity shows when she, now, verbalizes frustration if she is not able to understand something. The relationship I formed with my client is one that I will cherish forever, because if it weren’t for her, I would not understand how easy it is to take everything given to us for granted.