I have a little 6 year old student in my class named Yvonne. In all the time that I've known her she has never uttered a syllable to me. There are shy people, but Yvonne isn't one of them. Her actions are rough and some would call her a little mean or socially inapt. She can speak, but refuses to use her real voice with anyone, but her immediate family. She intrigues me. My mom was a mute 'til she was 7. She never said a word either. It made me wonder how it would be like to live in their world. How their lack of speech would affect their development and the way they were forced to interact with people. Communication is a really interesting topic to me. I wonder how it would be like if everyone lost the ability to communicate, verbally or physically. I don't think we could survive. I couldn't even begin to think of the mass chaos that would come to pass.
I didn't speak much at all early on in elementary school and was put into ESL (sheltered class). Some stupid ladies decided that the reason I had to be in there was because I couldn't speak english well enough. WRONG, they wasted a year of my schooling. I spent much of my ESL times doing other kid's english homework. It was miscommunication Miscommunicationg or lack of communication messes things up.
