Jane's review

Jane's three year review is coming up at school. They have to decide what tests to run on her. I was trying to describe Jane's learning problems to the twins speech teacher. This speech teacher knows our family pretty well, she was also Ean's speech teacher before Ean started Early Intervention with the school district. The speech teacher suggested that I have Jane tested for auditory/processing issues. I'm grateful for the advice, the testing will help us get the services Jane needs.

Right now she's in the resource room two hours a day. Her curriculum is adjusted in the resource room. She has a separate spelling list from her class, separate assignments. Often she'll be given less by her teacher in class. She excels in what she's given. She made honor roll fall semester. I'm so proud of her. She tries, she works hard, it's just learning isn't easy for her.

I have a hard time describing what makes learning so hard for Jane. She's had a hard time learning new vocabulary, understanding abstract concepts and is easily overwhelmed when she can't see the end of assignments.

A neighbor tried to classify her as ADD but I don't think that's it. She can sit down for an hour and concentrate on work, it's just when she sees it's to long, as in she won't finish it in time, she struggles and just shuts down. She uses tenses inappropriately. She's socially immature but she's doing much better this year then last year. Third grade was emotionally devastating. She was obsessed with people hating her, she felt like she had no friends. It's hard as a parent to see your child struggle and know there's very little you can do.

Right after Christmas she asked me why she was stupid, since she has to go to the resource room. As my heart was aching for her, I told her that she wasn't stupid, she just learns differently then some of the other kids. We all have challenges in this life, things that could hold us back if we let them. I pointed out to her that my eyesight is rotten, and always will be. It's something I'll forever struggle with during this mortal existence. Her struggle is how she learns. That doesn't make her defective, that makes her human. I reminded her about making honor roll, pointing out that she was doing her best and that's all I can ask. I reminded her that she made honor roll because she worked and tried, that's all she has to do, keep working and keep trying.

I hope I did alright. I hope she can embrace her strengths and take hold of all the positive qualities she has. I suspect her growing pains will be extra painful in a few years. She's so tender hearted. She cares so much for others. Really she's a treasure. I have to help her see that.

These tests hopefully will open doors to help her succeed even more.

I put her in Tae Kwon Do to hopefully help her self esteem. The instructors are wonderful, setting up the students for success. They don't test unless the kids are ready. Every pupil goes at their own pace. And Jane has loved it. She says she wants to be a black belt.

Jane was born to term (thirty-seven weeks, induced because I was pre-eclampsic). She was a healthy kid, she actually never had antibiotics until she was almost four. Her development was pretty normal, she didn't walk until 17 months because she flat out didn't want to. The child would stand up, rotate and then drop and crawl. *eye roll* It was downright silly. She was a light little thing, blond hair with curls, big blue eyes. Everyone that saw her was enchanted.

Her speech was funky from the start. She started trying to communicate but her pronunciation was always off. At the point where she should have been putting words into sentences, she didn't. At three, I knew she was speech delayed but I was entertaining the idea of homeschooling so I decided I'd keep her with me until four and if she didn't improve, then I'd take her in to get her evaluated. Oh yeah, I was so in over my head!!

During her evaluation I blew the Early Intervention speech teacher away when I informed her that Jane grouped words together without following or understanding basic grammar and syntax. That she inserted jargon in between words, sometimes at great length. Random words were grouped together with no understanding of sentence structure. She couldn't do a glodalstop (K's and G's, the back of the tongue popping up against the roof of your mouth makes those sounds)

Hey, I didn't flunk out of the speech pathology classes for nothing.

Needless to say, she got in. When she reached the point where we started understanding her, we started to see some of these other learning problems. We've been super lucky to have a dynamite speech teacher go to bat for her from Kindergarten on. Even though she might not qualify for "speech" she's kept her enrolled because of her language, which really is comprehension problems and she's been getting resource room under that umbrella. I absolutely shudder to think what would have happened if she'd gone into a system without someone personally in the system looking out for her interest.

So we'll see where we stand after the testing. I'll certainly update at that time.