Suzanne Taylor, alumna (class of ’11), Huancayo, Peru
I have loved reading what my classmates are doing, so I wanted to share a brief post of my own. I spent a lot of my fall working as a leadership facilitator for middle and high school students in the Northwoods of Wisconsin (basically a lot of low ropes, high ropes, team building and problem solving stuff) and after a few weeks of traveling arrived in Peru where I am halfway through seven weeks working as a volunteer here – so this is the psychology part!
One of my jobs: working as an assistant to the psychologist/homework tutor at an orphanage for kids who are HIV positive. This one is the most challenging. I am working on trying to get the kids more interested in reading and being read to, which so far is going pretty well and definitely helping me improve my Spanish! They see homework and reading as a punishment so I am trying to get them more excited about it. I am also working with the three youngest kids who are 2, 3, and 4 trying to teach them empathy and verbal expression. the 2-year-old does not talk at all and the 4-year-old has very minimal language (and what I originally thought were signs of autism, but probably attachment problems), so it´s veeeeery interesting. I am currently working on a behavior modification system for the kids, like a token economy type thing with charts, so if anyone has any experience in this I would love any advice!!
Another of my jobs: Working with a six year old girl through home visits on basic early learning stuff. She was born with hydroencephalus and has had surgery for it, but doesn´t have the use of her legs and has some other delays. Mostly the issue is that the special education school is almost an hour a way and her parents work all day – she lives in a pretty rural area – so like most kids in the area with any kind of special needs, she doesn´t go to school and gets home visits from various organizations instead. Luckily her two older sisters are good about teaching her as much as they can, but it´s still hard coming from a country where kids get special ed services daily from age 3 to 21. So we are just doing basic coordination work like coloring and making stuff with play-doh, and learning right hand vs. left hand, numbers, colors, etc.
So if anyone has similar experience and you can share anything, ideas, tips, fun activities, advice, that would be soooo great! The last month has really made me miss being in practicum class and being able to discuss things with a group of like minded students.