A little help, please?

Throughout the course of this semester I have spent a lot of one-on-one time working with a particular student. He's that student who you never know whether or not he's listening to what you're saying-and when he is listening you wonder if he understands it. He's the student who goes to speech therapy once a week, but doesn't qualify for special education services according to IDEIA. He's the student who can't write the story that he can say, and can't say what you know he's capable of thinking. You know that he'd could do so much better and that he deserves to have services provided to enable him succeed. But his mother's in denial that there is anything "wrong" with her baby boy. She refuses to acknowledge the fact that he cannot read and still writes his name backwards. He doesn't know how to hold a pencil, even though you've showed in time and time again. And the other day, when he wasn't feeling well, he couldn't explain to you what was wrong. He looked like he didn't feel well, but you didn't know what was wrong.
What do we, as teachers, do with students like this? If you're a CT for MSU and lucky enough to have a student placed in your classroom you're all set for a few hours, because you can have them work with him (sarcasm). However, what are you going to do each day when it's just you, all alone with 24 other students?
For any general education teacher this is frightening. However, as a special education teacher I know this is where I want to be. I chose the field of special education for this particular student and all of the other students similar to him out there. This is my niche, my place to be. This is where I fit in best and this is where I can do my best.
When my CT set up the math centers that the students would be working at for the next 35 minutes everyone was excited. The students have the choice to go to whatever station they want and practice counting in different ways. When my CT told the students to pick a partner, this wasn't the first time that he was left all alone. Natually, I told him I would be his partner and he could pick where we were going to go. We went over to the station where you picked a pond cut out that had a number on it and grabbed that many frogs to arrange on the pond. As he was counting out his frogs another student came and asked me to help him with a deck of cards that were stuck in the bag. While I was busy helping the other student get the cards out of the bag, my partner says, "A little help, please?" in the clearest sentence I've ever heard come from his lips. I can't lie-I was shocked that something so clear came from him. Of course I helped him out, and together we counted the number of frogs he had been placing on his pond (clearly more than 5, the number on his pond).
When I asked him how many, of the 14 that he had, he would have to take away to have 5 he didn't respond. I asked again but it was clear to me that "take away" was foriegn to him. He just stared at me as if I were speaking another language.
What can I take from this experience? First, I know that if I had not been here today, he would have been working all by himself and he wouldn't have been counting. Even with me sitting right next to him, he just continued to put frogs on the his pond, because I was trying to help someone else. He requires a lot of attention, that's another thing. But how does my CT do it? Does she? I don't know what happens during the hours that I'm not there, but I do know this; he has made me feel like my time in this field placement is not about me, it's about the students I'm teaching and impacting and that is a much better outlook on teaching that I ever considered.