A Safe Place for Joey

by Mary MacCracken

  Again I nodded.

  “Mom says I should be proud of my name. Benjamin Bradford – a fine heritage, she says. That’s all she knows. Some heritage. Banana Brain.”

  Phil Golden was in his fifties, tall, with salt and pepper hair and beard. He had been working with troubled children and adults for over twenty years in private practice; he had also been a school psychologist and was presently head of the learning disabilities graduate department at a nearby college. For all these reasons, I valued his opinions and considered the money and time I spent in his office good investments. We also liked and understood each other and had a friendship built on the firm base of working together for many years.

  I stood up as Phil walked into the waiting room. He wrapped his arms around me and said, “How are you, Mary? I’m glad to see you. Come in. Come in.”

  His office was full of leather couches and suede chairs and animal-skin rugs. There was no place to spread out the papers in Ben’s folder, so I simply handed him the file, keeping only a blank piece of blue paper on which to make notes. (I had found that using blue paper for my visits to Phil made it easier to pick out his comments when I wanted to locate them quickly.)

  “First, before you go through Ben’s file, tell me a little about his family,” I said.

  “An interesting lot. You’ve met the mother?”

  I nodded.

  “So you know she’s a blueblood – the Bradford name goes back to Plymouth Rock. Lots and lots of money. Her mother is still very much alive and I gather still has a good bit to say about what goes on in the family. Carol, that’s Ben’s mother’s name, is very sweet, very anxious, and very eager to please her husband and her children. I suspect that in the same way we’ve seen so often there is a tendency for her to overidentify with Ben and that her protectiveness encourages dependency in him.

  “The father, Ralph – have you met him?” Phil asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, he’s a bit harder to describe. Very intense, very bright. Built his manufacturing company up from almost nothing till now it’s one of the largest in the state and has recently made several foreign acquisitions. He was, in the beginning, punctual and outwardly cooperative, but even then there was something guarded about him. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  “I’ll tell you one interesting thing, though, that just came out. Aylesworth isn’t his real name. It was D’Amalio, and he changed it to Aylesworth before he married Carol Bradford and added ‘the second’ for good measure. I’m not sure he did that legally. My guess is that he is very shrewd and wasn’t going into the Bradford clan with what he considered a strike against him. Lately, he’s found reasons why he can’t keep the appointments. Just sends his wife and kids.”

  “What about Jessie?” I asked.

  Phil smiled. “A doll. A living doll. Cute as a button and smart besides. One of those kids who seem to be born happy and generous, and roll through life no matter where they are, getting all the breaks and giving back as much as they can.”

  “Ben likes her,” I said.

  “And she likes him,” Phil added. “Neither of them say too much when they’re here. But they sit together, over there on the couch.

  “Well, now, let’s see what you’ve come up with on Ben.”

  Phil opened Ben’s folder and looked up. “Where’s the parent form?” We had gone over so many cases together that Phil knew exactly which ten or twelve tests to expect and was immediately aware of any deviation from the usual procedure.

  “Mrs. Aylesworth hasn’t returned it yet. She’s promised several times, but when I called her a few days ago it still wasn’t ‘quite done,’ and she said she’d mail it. It doesn’t really matter. We can complete it at the parent conference, although I’d rather not spend our time together that way when there’s so much to go over and discuss.” Phil nodded. “She probably finds it threatening.”

  “Well, pretty good score on the WISC-R,” Phil commented, almost to himself. “Certainly signs of some LD stuff – interesting how often that ACID acronym turns up.”

  (Phil was referring to a study that showed that children with low scores on the WISC-R subtests of Arithmetic, Coding, Information, and Digit Span are often found to have some type of learning disability.)

  “Also, the Verbal IQ is lower than the Performance, if that means anything. How did he act while he was taking this?”

  I reported on the ups and downs of Ben’s behavior during the various subtests, as well as his interest in the chips.

  Phil picked up the Peabody with surprise. “You don’t usually give this.” He let out a low whistle. “Mental age, thirteen years, eleven months; ninety-fifth percentile. This kid’s no dummy, that’s for certain, and yet when they brought in his report card yesterday – one C and the rest D’s and F’s.”

  Phil continued leafing through the folder, going over the academic tests, the Bender, the Detroit. “Terrible Bender, rotations, distortions – except for the recall, six out of nine isn’t bad. Visual memory seems to be okay, but then look at those low scores on the Detroit. Mary, he’s going to need a lot of help.”

  And then, as always, Phil spent a long time studying Ben’s pictures, particularly those of the family.

  “Well, not exactly what you’d call a close family. Everybody doing his own thing. See how the father is turned away from Ben. Mmm … I know you’ve noted the lack of hands and feet on the self figure … the shaded head … and the insecurity that shows in those sketchy lines …”

  Phil talked on, going back and reviewing certain tests, asking questions when he could not quite read my writing.

  Finally he said, “Well, from these I think we can definitely say that Ben’s poor school performance is not due to a lack of intelligence.”

  I nodded agreement as I made notes.

  Phil continued, “There are definite signs of learning disabilities and emotional overlay. Show the parents the tests, the drawings, etcetera. You know how to do that better than I do.

  “And tell them,” he went on, “that we recommend supportive educational therapy as well as continued therapy with me. Are you going to have time to work with him?”

  I nodded. There was no way I could say no now. I told Phil briefly that Ben had started to talk about some of his fears and feelings, about the river and birds and flying, and that I thought Ben needed time alone with Phil. Ben didn’t want to talk in front of either his mother or his father right now, and even though I would be seeing him twice a week, most of our time would be spent working on ways for Ben to catch up and then learn how to compensate for his academic problem areas. Also, Phil was the trained psychologist, and some of this was pretty heavy stuff.

  “He’s so scared,” I said. “He tries to cover it, but it’s costing him an enormous amount of energy, and I don’t think he’ll let down his cover in front of his parents, at least not yet. And if he’s going to start academic learning, he’ll need that energy for work.”

  Phil agreed to give Ben some time of his own and see how it went. He straightened out Ben’s papers and handed me the folder.

  “Thank you, Phil,” I said. “I’ll call you after I’ve seen the Aylesworths. Now, unless you tell me otherwise, I’m going to play it very straight with them. I’m going to show them all the tests. I’m going to explain why Ben has difficulty with reading and written expression and also how alone and scared I think he feels. And I’m going to tell his father that Ben needs him more now than he ever has in his life, and that Mr. Aylesworth has got to find some way to spend quality time with his son or he’s going to lose him.”

  A grin spread over Phil’s face. “Atta girl! I couldn’t agree more. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at that conference. I have a feeling that you and Ralph Aylesworth are going to have quite a time.”

  Ralph Aylesworth walked directly behind me as we went up the stairs to my office. There was an elusive scent of male cologne, and his finely tailored suit made me acutely and uncomfortably aware
of my faded jeans. I wished I had scheduled their conference a few minutes later so that I could have changed out of the jeans I always wore with the kids into something else. But into what? I owned nothing more authentic. These were my working clothes.

  Without speaking, Mr. Aylesworth sat down in the chair to the left. I stood for a minute waiting for Ben’s mother to be seated and then took my place behind the desk. I knew it was not the conventional grouping, that some would feel the desk was a barrier, but I still liked having a place where I could spread out all the child’s tests and papers, as well as charts explaining what they meant and examples of some of the tests themselves. Most learning consultants and psychologists do not share the raw data (the actual drawings and answers to the questions) with the parents. But I believe a child explains himself best in his own writing and drawings, and who has a better right to know him than his parents?

  “What a nice room!” Mrs. Aylesworth said. “No wonder Ben didn’t object to coming. Ralph, look at that handmade quilt. Charming.”

  Ralph did not even glance in the direction she motioned.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “And thank you both for coming. Can you stay an hour? As I said on the phone, I think we’ll need at least that much time to go over everything thoroughly.”

  Both parents nodded in agreement.

  “I would like to say two things before we start. First, when you receive your written report all scores and scaled subtest scores and percentiles will be included. This is primarily because it’s the way I would like it myself. If I took my child to a pediatrician, I wouldn’t want to hear that he’s of average height and weight. I would want to know exactly how many pounds and inches as well as the range for his age.

  “You’ll receive the original typed report; I’ll keep a copy. If anyone wishes to have another copy, and I do urge you to share information with others who work with Ben, I will ask that they contact you and that you provide them with a copy from your original. I do this because it cuts down the possibility of professionals exchanging information about a child without including the parents.

  “Which brings me to my second point – which is that you, as Ben’s parents, have known him intimately for twelve years and four months. I saw him at most for seven or eight hours. I can and will tell you how he did on standardized tests compared to other children his age, and I can give you my opinions and recommendations based on tests and observations.

  “But …” – and here I looked directly at Mr. Aylesworth and then at Mrs. Aylesworth – “you have the truest, most intimate knowledge of Ben, and it is your responsibility to stop me or any other professional, if something doesn’t ring true to you, and say, ‘That may have been the way Ben acted on that particular day in your office, but that’s not the usual Ben.”

  Mrs. Aylesworth shifted slightly in her seat; Mr. Aylesworth kept his eyes directly on my face.

  “Now, these are the tests that I gave Ben.” I slid a copy of the evaluation sheet across the desk to Ralph Aylesworth, but he barely glanced at it, as I read the names of the tests out loud.

  “I know that these names probably are not familiar to you, but I plan to go through each test and explain it and also show you how Ben did on it.”

  Mr. Aylesworth turned slightly toward his wife, but kept his eyes on me. “Now, as I understand this,” he said, “the reason we’re here, the reason Ben came here, is to find out if he’s got some kind of learning disability that made him climb out on the roof in the middle of winter in his bare feet. Is that correct?”

  “Partially,” I answered. “I’ve explained to your wife and I’m glad you reminded me to explain again the purpose of a diagnostic educational evaluation.

  “What I’m looking for when I do an evaluation is, what is the child’s intellectual potential? How much do we have a right to expect from him or her? What are his academic achievement levels, and is there a match or mismatch between these two? Are there any signs of learning disabilities such as perceptual distortions or receptive or expressive language processing problems? What are his strengths and weaknesses? Can he use these strengths to compensate for areas of weakness? Is the problem in the receptive, associative, or expressive mode? And how does this child feel about himself and his world?”

  Mr. Aylesworth nodded curtly. “All right. Sounds thorough.”

  I turned toward Mrs. Aylesworth, making sure that she knew I felt her understanding and opinion were of equal importance.

  “Thank you for filling out the form. It came in yesterday’s mail,” I said, addressing her. “There are a few things on which I need a little more information, but we can come back to those after we go over the tests.”

  I laid the WISC-R out in front of them and pointed out Ben’s various scores. I also showed them a chart explaining the scaled scores, IQ’s, and various meanings. I explained that I felt the subtest scores were much more important and gave more information than the full-scale IQ score. I drew a vertical line and said that if they thought of 0 as the bottom and 100 as the top, they could visualize how Ben had done on each test. For example, on Block Design, a nonverbal task that is considered one of the best tests of overall intelligence, Ben scored in the 99th percentile (meaning that he did better than 99 percent of the children his age); however, on Vocabulary, also considered to be an excellent test of intelligence, he scored in only the 37th percentile. I also showed them the Picture Completion subtest, where Ben had called a hinge “the swinging part.” In simpler terms, Ben could see “the answer,” but he couldn’t always put it into the right words. After going over each of the subtests, I pointed out that his full-scale IQ was in the 85th percentile. I explained that I felt Ben was even brighter than this and because of that I had administered the Peabody, and that here Ben had scored in the 95th percentile.

  “Are you saying Ben is smarter than ninety-five percent of the kids his age?” Ben’s father peered at me intently.

  “On this particular test, yes. He has an exceptionally high receptive language, that is, the understanding of the meaning of words; but he has great difficulty with expressive language, that is, expressing his thoughts in verbal or written words.”

  I turned next to the WRAT and said, “This is a brief test of word recognition, and spelling, and arithmetic. The grade scores on this test are somewhat inflated; that is, they come out four or five months too high, but the percentiles are fairly accurate. As you can see, Ben scored in the thirty-fourth percentile in reading, sixteenth percentile in spelling, and eighty-sixth percentile in arithmetic. Both reading and spelling are far below the potential he showed on the WISC-R.”

  “Ben’s always been good in math,” Carol Aylesworth said.

  “Shush. Let her finish.”

  “Well,” I continued, “obviously Ben does do better with math – which is primarily a visual, nonverbal task – than he does with reading and spelling. It is unusual to have a child’s reading and spelling abilities so much lower than his overall intelligence. We need to look closely at the kind of spelling and reading errors he made, both here and on the other tests of reading.”

  Thirty minutes later I had finished going through the rest of the tests, pointing out his slow rate of reading, his good creative thinking, his difficulty in remembering the things he heard, his comparative ease in recalling what he saw, although there was still perceptual confusion. By “perception” I meant the way Ben organized and interpreted the raw data he received through his senses. I had shown them the Bender, the drawings, the Raven, and the Detroit and Harris. I explained that Ben was left-eyed and right-handed and that while there was dispute in the field over the importance of this mixed dominance, it was present in many of the children whom I tutored. The Aylesworths were paying for all this information, and they were entitled to it. But more than that, I wanted all of us to understand Ben as thoroughly as we could.

  “Overall,” I continued, “we see a picture of a bright boy – brighter than he (and probably his teachers) suspect. In school h
e feels his classmates consider him stupid, and rightly or wrongly he feels that at home he is not pleasing you.

  “Both Dr. Golden and I feel that Ben does have specific learning disabilities – some prefer the term ‘dyslexia’ – that account for a large proportion of his academic problems, and that Ben also feels anxious and insecure.”

  “Anxious? What are you talking about? The boy is only twelve years old. That’s a little young to be anxious.” There was an angry edge to Mr. Aylesworth’s voice.

  “Anxious is just another word for scared,” I said. “Nobody’s too young to be scared.”

  “All right. All right. But it seems to me that this just confirms what I’ve been saying all along. He’s lazy. You’ve just proved to me that he’s smart. If he’s smart, he can learn. Correct? If, and I underline if, he works – and doesn’t diddle around up on the roof.” Ralph Aylesworth took out a pack of cigarettes, then, seeing no ashtray, laid them on the desk.

  “Would you like an ashtray?”

  “Do you object to my smoking?”

  “No. Excuse me a minute. I’ll bring an ashtray up from downstairs.”

  As I went down the stairs, I could hear Ralph Aylesworth saying, “I told you to stop babying him. I knew he was smart.”

  I set the ashtray in front of Mr. Aylesworth, watched while he shook a cigarette from the pack into his mouth. He held a silver lighter in his left hand and touched it to the end of the cigarette. He inhaled deeply and then let the smoke out in slow short puffs. The acrid smell immediately filled the room, but it was worth it. Ralph Aylesworth was left-handed. Nothing conclusive about that, but another piece to add to the puzzle.

  I turned to the parent form that Mrs. Aylesworth had finally returned, still only partially completed. “You’ve filled in Ben’s birth weight and the fact that he was a full-term baby. But you’ve left out the age when he first walked.”

  “Yes … well. I know.” Carol Aylesworth smiled appealingly. “It’s just that I couldn’t remember. You know you think you’ll never forget, but somehow I just don’t know exactly …” Her voice trailed off.