A Finer Culture

Now there are times where my mannerisms and my language make me feel less civilized and slightly more barbaric than my fellow American. A few weeks ago at one of my Mandatory Costco runs I realized that no matter what I do, I am pretty much more cultured and slightly more civilized than my average fellow American counterparts. I am capable of enjoying the finer things in life like a great aged bottle of wine, shots of fine Tequila, musical theater, or walking through nature and enjoying the sunshine... I thought though that everyone, to some degree, enjoyed these things as well....

While working (at Costco) on community outings my main objectives are to work with the kiddo on their communication and community safety. Also, I really try to incorporate the mother of the child in these tasks by getting her to ask the questions to the kid, or her giving the instructions to the kid regarding safety, (like stop, come here, look both ways, etc.) The best way to work on communication in costco with a non verbal child is typically through sign language and basic signs to answer questions, such as:

Do you like this?
Do you want more play?
Are you hungry?

She can answer these types of questions with a simple yes or no. We work on "no thank you" and "all done" as alternative communications for just shoving the object back at me, or trying to put it back herself. This really requires me to get creative to seek out objects in costco that would be of interest to a six year old Autistic kid. I came across a set of "bath time music toys" The kiddo really enjoyed this, looking in awe at the different toys. Her mother quickly picked up the prompt to engage the kid in the toy.

"Look honey, do you like this?" She said. The mother began to point to the different musical instruments and reading off the names of those instruments on the box of the toy set to the girl. "It has a drum, a guitar, a tambourine, and an xylophone." This wouldn't be funny if the mother would have pronounced xylophone correctly. She pronounced it "ex-la-phone". I didn't know that there were people out there (who know how to read) who didn't know that the letter "X" makes a "Z" like sound... nor did I realize that a mother of four could go her entire life without ever hearing the word xylophone, or its musical sounds.

I remember when I was a kid and went to music class once a week the xylophone was the cool instrument that the cool kids got to play at the Christmas program! I always got stuck playing the triangle. It made me feel inferior, like I was some old maid standing on a front porch somewhere calling everyone in from the field for dinner time. I coveted the Xylophone, its sweet, sweet chimes still echoing in my ears today...

Maybe that's why I felt like everyone should know how to pronounce "xylophone", or maybe its the fact that there aren't many words that start with the letter "X". My niece used to have an alphabetical toy, you push "A" and the machine says "apple" the picture icon under the letter. Well, "X" on every version of this toy I have seen has Xylophone as its picture icon. I can distinctly recall my niece proudly stating to me a few years ago that she knows how to spell "xylophone". And I felt like that was about at Par for a four year old to know. Now I hate to sound pessimistic about the future intelligence of my own family, but Anna isn't a prodigy child, in fact, she's managed to go through kindergarten without ever speaking a word to her teacher, that is below par.

So am I left to assume that this mother has about the average intelligence of a five year old?