Drug-Affected Children Find Special Care : The experts at the Speech and Language Development Center understand how the kids experience the world.

It would be easy for an untrained observer to conclude that Michelle Nutt doesn’t have control over her classroom.

Often, her preschool-age pupils fail to follow directions. They move around the room when they’re supposed to be in their seats, hit and bite children who invade their space and throw temper tantrums.

But the teacher seldom responds with harsh words or disciplinary measures. On the contrary, she is much more likely to try to calm children who “act up” by speaking to them gently while holding and rocking them.

But Nutt is no softy. She just understands that these children--the offspring of drug addicts--aren’t misbehaving when they get out of control. They’ve suffered brain damage that shows up in ways easily mistaken for willful disobedience. But Nutt knows they’re doing the best they can to adjust to a world in which they often feel overwhelmed and frustrated.

She and her colleagues at the Speech and Language Development Center worry that their students won’t get this kind of understanding when they move on to public elementary schools--and may end up being labeled as incorrigible or emotionally disturbed.

No one is more concerned about that than Katherine Kutschka-Lindquist, director of the primary program at the center.

She says public schools are ill-equipped to address the special needs of drug-affected children who are just beginning to enter the school system in large numbers. (Many of these children are “crack kids” whose mothers began using the cheap, smokable form of cocaine in the mid-’80s.)

“The school districts are scared to death,” Kutschka-Lindquist says. “They know these kids are coming, and they don’t know how to deal with them.”

Through her program at the center, she is trying to give these children a shot at success in the public school system.

She fears that, without special attention as early as infancy, children capable of functioning in a regular classroom with the right kind of support may end up being permanently placed in special education programs--or getting lost in the system and eventually dropping out.

Those who grow up with a “problem kid” label may even end up becoming juvenile delinquents, cautions Kutschka-Lindquist, a school psychologist.

“By starting early, helping them feel like they’re really OK kids, hopefully we can keep them in school and off the streets,” she says.

Kutschka-Lindquist, who last week received one of five Women of Achievement Awards presented annually by Rancho Santiago College, heads a program that serves 80 children under age 6, 75% of whom were born with alcohol- or drug-related disabilities.

There is a six-month waiting list to get into the program, which, in most cases, requires no tuition because costs are covered by state funds and donations to the Speech and Language Development Center, a private, nonprofit school for children and young adults--age 1 1/2 to 21--who have language, learning and behavior problems.

Kutschka-Lindquist’s primary program is divided into three sections--infant-toddler, preschool and kindergarten-first grade--and each class is limited to 15 pupils, with one teacher or aide for every three children.

Among the children now in the program are:

* Mike, a 9-month-old who just began sitting up but isn’t crawling yet. Two months ago, he did ‘t want to be touched. He still arches his back and becomes very rigid when he’s held, but is beginning to relax when he’s rocked.

* Mike’s brother, Jeff, who is almost 3 but functions at a 10-month-old level. He still doesn’t walk and shows no sign of recognition when he comes face-to-face with his brother.

* Robbie, who didn’t start talking until age 4. Now 5 1/2, he refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and some days doesn’t speak at all. He doesn’t like to be touched.

* Jessica, who cried constantly and kept banging her head against her crib when she came to the center a year ago. Now, at 3, she has calmed down enough to sleep during nap time.

Although some children are severely disabled, Kutschka-Lindquist says most of those in the program are about one year behind developmentally and have “low normal to normal intelligence.” Some are even intellectually gifted.

However, the children--most of whom are victims of poly-drug use--suffer from neurological problems that affect their sensory responses, judgment, emotions, motivation and memory. They have to be taught things that come automatically for other children--how to keep their balance so they won’t fall out of a chair, for example.

Jerry Lindquist, a neuropsychologist and occupational therapist at the center, explains: “Their brains don’t give them good information about their bodies and the world. Therapy is designed to help their brains become more organized.”

Because drug babies have been studied only since the mid-80s, no one knows what their prospects are for the future.

“These children have overcome tremendous odds as newborns, and most will face significant challenges throughout their lives,” Kutschka-Lindquist says.

However, she adds, early education and therapy can improve brain function and help children find ways to compensate for their disabilities.

Still, she acknowledges, they have a lot to overcome. Although each case is different, common symptoms of prenatal drug exposure include hypersensitivity, hyperactivity, aggressiveness, language and comprehension problems, short attention spans, impulsive behavior and difficulties with visual perception and fine motor skills.

Most drug-affected children also have difficulty forming close bonds because they come from unstable families and, by age 1, are likely to already have been in at least three foster homes, according to Kutschka-Lindquist.

Through her program, she tries to create an environment in which children can become emotionally attached to their teachers and increasingly comfortable interacting with their peers and their surroundings. She points out that she uses “reverse mainstreaming,” integrating a small number of non-disabled children--mostly offspring of staff members--into each classroom to provide positive role models.

The Speech and Language Development Center is a kind of haven for drug-affected children because the experts who work with them daily--including speech and occupational therapists and adaptive physical education teachers--understand how they experience the world.

Kutschka-Lindquist, for example, knows that the children’s sensory systems are easily overloaded, so she always asks before giving them hugs, and then embraces them from behind so they don’t have to deal with eye contact and touch at the same time.

She’s also careful to avoid light touch, which these children find abrasive because their brain isn’t processing sensory signals properly. (When a group of children walks, in a single-file line, from one part of the school to another, they each hang onto a knot on a rope so they won’t bump into each other.)

While light touch can set off an aggressive, self-protective reaction, deep pressure--a firm hug, a massage or rocking--has a calming effect. Teachers sometimes even wrap children in a blanket to provide this soothing pressure when too much noise or visual stimulation causes them to lose control.

In an effort to help others understand the ways in which drug-affected children react to their environment, Kutschka-Lindquist gives talks in the community about three times a week as a spokesperson for the March of Dimes. She wants, above all, to get the message across that, although they may lose control or appear to be challenging authority, “these aren’t bad kids.”

She also serves as an advocate for children who aren’t ready for a regular classroom when they leave the Speech and Language Development Center. Many are too “high functioning” to qualify for special education programs in public schools, she notes.

“They look good in a soundproofed room on a one-to-one basis, but drop them into a classroom and you see them break down.”

Kutschka-Lindquist urges special education teachers from public schools to observe children in classroom settings at the center. Usually, she says, they end up being convinced that the children do, indeed, belong in a special education program.

It gives Kutschka-Lindquist and her staff special satisfaction to help place one of their pupils in the right public school program. Their most recent success story involves a 3-year-old named Bobby, who made dramatic progress in the year he spent at the center.

His teacher, Michelle Nutt, says Bobby was so hyperactive when he came to the center that her aide sometimes had to wrap her arms and legs around him and rock him to keep him still. Bobby, who is being raised by grandparents because his mother is a homeless drug addict, also screamed constantly.

“If he threw a temper tantrum, it was because he was frustrated, and his body reacted--not his mind,” Nutt explains. “We’d rock him with music, and it would calm him down.”

Bobby left the center in March after being placed in a special program in his school district.

“When he left, we all cried, because, in one year, we saw a boy who hadn’t been able to cope with anything become a boy who could sit and interact with his peers,” Nutt says proudly.

Bobby still has a long way to go, she acknowledges. But seeing such children move forward gives her the inspiration to keep going when progress comes slowly.

“For us,” Nutt says, “success usually comes in tiny increments. But we see it every day with these children, and that’s exciting.”