|
Things have been so busy I have not had the time to keep up on blogging.
Briefly, for those of you who were keeping track of booboo's testing, she was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and NOT Dyslexia. She has some memory issues and some motor planning defecits. However, her IQ was average. In fact, as far as verbal IQ goes, she scored very high. The visual issues and memory brought the score down to the average level.
New visual issues were detected and she is about half way through her 2nd go at vision therapy. She had developed a focusing problems with her eye muscles and her visual perception abilities had not progressed at all since she was last tested in March (?) and so while she was age appropriate back then, she is now almost a year behind in these skills.
Rather than two weeks, it took over 2 MONTHS to get the final report on the testing done in August. I am not completely satisfied with the report, but there is a lot of good information I can use to help Hayley here at home.
I have not yet called for a meeting with the school because we haven't decided whether to leave her in or pull her out. I did talk things over with booboo's teacher and she is wonderful, but there is only so much she can (or will) do without an IEP or 504 plan. Neither she nor the school psychologist had even heard of dyspraxia, which I found discouraging.
I am seeing some improvement from booboo this school year. Her grades are a little worse than last year, but she loves her teacher and is really working hard. I know each year it will grow harder for her.
We had all but decided to pull her from school over Christmas break, but some other issues have come up and since her teacher really does seem to motiviate Booboo, we have yet again put homeschooling on the back burner.
We will try again over the summer and we are still considering homeschooling next fall.
The big problem with homeschooling is this: I am in school part time myself. We were really counting on my income to start coming in soon. These kids are getting more expensive every year, not to mention everything else as well!
The plan was that since the kids were older and in school I would go back to school and slowly finish my degree so that when Booboo (the youngest of three) hit junior high school I would be working full time and putting my salary away to pay for college, cars, and three weddings! Yes, I know plans change. Try telling my husband that!
So, as usual around here, things are still up in the air. At least now with the diagnosis, I know of Booboo's strengths and weaknesses.
It has also opened my eyes. So many things would aggrevate me about the way she does things. After researching dyspraxia, I have found that so many of the odd things she does and ways she acts are typical of a dyspraxic child. I am learning patience, (she really is trying) and sympathy (she gets upset because she too is frustrated with herself) Of course if you don't know what dyspraxia is, none of this will probably make much sense.
There are all kinds of characteristics that have to do with speech and gross motor, but Booboo's is focused on fine motor, memory, and executive planning in her brain. It wasn't diagnosed, but I think she has some sensory dysfunction as well. Rather than being overly sensitive to stimuli, she is under. Everything must be extreme...Loud music, deathgrip on her pencil, heavy handed, invading other people's personal space, running in overdrive, bouncing off the walls, yelling, singing louder than everyone else, and the oddest is that she likes to chew on things. Straws, rubberbands, latex gloves...C'mon the kid is almost 10!
In spite of it all, she is still a truly awesome kid! Very smart, very pretty, very funny. Just like her mommy! ;-p
Anyway, its late, I'm sleepy and its time to wrap this up.
|
Comments
|
|
|
|
|
Posted by
|
|
|
|
|
Posted by
|
|
|
|
|