Jack and Ivy realixed now that they hard started something that no one was going to stop. Night after nightJack would get on the floor with Ann and the bricks. he started by arranging them in alphabetical order and tried to teach Ann the ABC by guiding her hand to each brick. He hammered away at the system, night after night, week after week, but although her proficiency in countying them astounded them, they were sure she did not understand the alphabet. It was a problem that didn't take too much solving eventually. The answere was beautifully simple. Jack bought a second set of alphabet bricks!
He split the two sets up, one on one side of the floor and the other opposite. He then took Ann's hand and made her pick up the letter "A" and guided her until she had placed it on top of the "A" from the other set. He then repeated the performance with each block until the two sets were complete, each with the corresponding letter on top. Then he scattered them all over the floor and started again. And again. And again. It went on night after semmingly endless night. Mixing the bricks up but always making sure that they ended up with the matched pairs.
As with so much they had accomplished the breakthrough came just when they were sure the could not stand any more. One evening when Jack scattered the bricks on the floor Ann simply picked up one and matched it to its neighbour, and so on until she had completed the whole sequence. The unfaltering way she did it left them astounded. It was as though she had been able to do it for years.
Now they went flat out in an attempt to identify each letter of the alphabet for her. The did it by holding the brick in front of her eyes and said the letter over and over before the let her put it on its neighbor. They encouraged the boys to speak to her in very simple sentences, identifying things as they did so. "Ann's coat" Ann's mommy, Anns's daddy and so on day after day until she responded in the only way she could...by blowing down her nose. They bought simple jig-saw puzzles and spent hours making them up in front of ther and them breaking them up again into pieces. Gradually they guided her hands and let her fit the pieces together until she was doing the whole thing herself.
The rocking was almost a thing of the past. She only reverted to it when she had nothing to occupy her. so every waking hour they took turns in trying to hold her interest. Their ideas didn't always work, of course, there were days when she appeared to have switched off and gone back into that shell.
Soon, it was time again for their half-yearly visit to the hospital doctor. It was a pouring wet day, but they knew Ann would not go on the bus. They decided on a taxi and although she raised a fair amount of objection, it was not nearly as bas as before and they kept up her interst all the way to the hospital by pointing out cars, shops and people on the pavement.
When they arrived at the hospital waiting room Ann immediately ran to the little chair she had sat in all those months before, and after carefully examining its legs, she sat down. The leg examination was something she had developed over the past few weeks. Before she sat on any chair she felt the legs. They were amazed that she had remembered the chair, and then jsut as she had done on the last visit she started to rock. But as soon as Ivy shouted to her she stopped.
When Ivy said: "Come here," Ann looked at her then slowly walked over to her mother - and climbe on her knee! It was the first time in her life that Ann had sat on anyone's knee of her own free will. by the time they had to go in and see the doctor Ivy had great difficulty in getting her eyes in focus because of the tears that just would not go away.
That wasn't to be their only surprise that day. As soon as the doctor opened the door she walked through to the little ante-room and straight into the sandpit. The doctor couldn't beleive his eyes and said so. They told him of all the things they had tried to teach her and how she had responded. Jack was sure that as he spoke he was talking to a man who did not beleive a word of it. When they had finished he looked at them for a few mihnutes and then asked them if he could test her with blocks and beads. They were delighted but apprehensive. What Ann had done for members of the family she might not repeat for a comparative stranger. But their fears were groundless. she could not be faulted. She mixed up the bricks and the beads and counted them, as she had did at home, by blowing down her nose.
The doctor was beaming by the time the little excercise was complete. He told them that the blowing was obviously a prelude to speach. It was the only way she could communicate because she just simply did not know how to use her tongue, teeth and throat to make sounds. He implored them to carry on and never give up. He asked them how they had managed it and Jack and Ivy told him of the long nights of going over the same things again and again.
but they did NOT tell him that they started by slapping her. They knew it had worked. They knew it had been the key to finding their daughter, but somehow they were afraid of his reaction. They were unable to shake off that niggling feeling of doubt and guilt. So they kept their counsel.
Elated by the doctor's enthusiasm Jack asked him if he thought it was possible for Ann to be educated at a school. The answer was simple and direct. "Where?" there was nothing he would like better, but they had to face the facts. Her progress was little short of a miracle, but she could not communicate. Until she could talk there was no education authority in the country that would take her on.
"If she could speak even a few word, then there might be a chance," he told them.
With those words still very much in their minds they left the hospital. Their resolve was now greater than ever. If Ann had to speak before anyone would give her a place at aschool, then somehow they would find a way to teach her. They knew, as they had known for a long time, that in her present state she qualified for a place at an occupation centre for the mentally handicapped. But it was not education in the way they understood. It was just a place where those poor deranged children weere kept happy and content. They were not taught to read and write.
They had come such a long way with Ann. They were not going to be beatien. Ann would be educated...at a school.
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