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Jenna & School...


mummy2girls wrote: I dont know what to do.... Ive hit a wall and maby you can give me some ideas...

Jenna at age 4 was diagnosed with severe speech delay and was sent off to a ABC headstart program. Once there she was then diagnosed with severe gross motor and fine motor delay. poor muscle tone. and was going through programs and therapy to help her overcome it. She was in the program until she hit grade 1. She overcame her delays and now only had a very mild speech delay. We mainstreamed her into a normal class fro grade 1 and did awesome! She has such a strong work ethic and jumped to teh top of her class. She then was sent to a diff school for grade 2( her request) and she was doing so good for the 1st half. The class has a teachers aide and also a speech pathologist came in 2 fridays a month to work with jenna. Her first report card was awesome! Nothing but great things and she was doing awesome! Well he second report card not so much. I chatted with her teachyer and she tells me that she is finding the pace of grade 3 to fast for her. Also....

~ She needs reassurance all the time,
~ She gets the instructions and then says what do i do? and feels she needs that help ... but we all know she doesnt...so by the time she gets the feeling of being able to do it she is half way done and everyone else is done so she is not keeping up to her assignments.
~ She doddles ALOT!!!! Whcih makes you jsuyt want to giveb her a boot in the butt to get her going...

She wont be able to go in a opportunities class because she wont qualify. As she is above alot in her math skills, reading, etc. She is just always needing the help to get her going. or keep her on track

We are meeting with her teacher beginning fo june and see what we can do to help her for grade 3... Teacher said having her repeat grade 2 may help her get that confidence she is lacking right now but she is already age wise should be in grade 3 already going to grade 4 next year. We chose to have her start kindergarten at age 6 instead of 5 to giev her that extra boost. which did help but know it seems to be not.....

any ideas....

mummy2girls replied: sad.gif

PrairieMom replied: I have no idea. Poor thing. Have you talked to her about it at all? how do you think she feels about being held back another year? I am thinking that I would do it, even if she is older than all her classmates. Age won't get her very far when she can't keep academically, and it will only get harder from here.

mckayleesmom replied: Mckaylee had some fine motor skill problems in kindergarten, did awesome in 1st grade and is doing good in second...However..she also needs lots of incentives to keep on task. Mckaylee is also a doddler....and a doodler....She is busy socializing or drawing when instructions are given or she just wants to do her own thing.....I have to use alot of incentive and sometimes threats to keep her going.. Usually she will get to do something or get something for going x amount of days with a good report from her teacher. Last quarter her grades weren't that good and I threatend not to let her play softball if her grades weren't brought back up...grades come before sports....She zipped those back up in a heartbeat. We have also done other things like buying a notebook so that Mckaylee knows that the teacher is going to tell me how she did every day....Mckaylee was testing her teacher because she knew she didn't talk to me on a daily basis. I told her teacher that she should move Mckaylee's desk away from other kids because she is too tempted to talk instead of work. Mckaylee hated that one, but in the end she moved and earned her way back. A couple weeks ago her teacher said that Mckaylee had started taking responsibility for her behavior and asked the teacher if she could move back because she knew she couldn't help but talk where she was....She didn't want to get in trouble.

I think alot of kids need constant encouragement and Mckaylee is one that constantly needs to be aknowledged when she is doing good. If she doesn't hear it..after a while she gives up. Some kids are just like that.

You just have to be creative in what works with Jenna.....Mckaylee's focus in school could be turned around with a simple bag of really cute pencils for going 10 days without a bad note home.

julesmom replied: Has she been tested for APD? Auditory processing disorder. My 3 all have it. My middle one was the worst in 1st grade. I thought he had ADHD or ADD. When I asked his teacher, she said APD. I looked into it and had him tested.
When he was in 1st grade, he'd ask the teacher to repeat directions all the time. He'd drop his pencil, have to sharpen it, etc just to delay doing the work because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing. If it wasn't for this teacher saying APD, I'd have gone on thinking he had ADHD.

Once this kid was dx, I had my older son tested. He also has it, but a milder case. My dd is in 3rd and was tested this year. She has it too, but different than my boys. She is able to discriminate speech in background noise, they cannot.

She has trouble hearing the difference when you say M or N, P or B. Stuff like that.

I'd ask for testing for that. From what I've learned, alot of kids with a speech delay have that. Mine all had speech delays. And they are all dyslexic. That goes along with APD, but depends on who you talk to, some say yes, some no. Depends.

I don't agree on holding your dd back if what she has is a true disability. I did not hold mine back in K when it was suggested. Now, all her teachers say she's right where she should be. But she has a true disability. Retaining her would have just delayed how long it would be until they found out she had a problem and what that problem was.

But it all depends on the individual child and their emotional well being too. Good luck! It's a very hard decision. I've been there!

mummy2girls replied:
she is where she is academically... she is ahead of her class with everything basically its just getting her to start when she needs to, not doddle, and have that confidence thats he doesnt need that push to start because she can do it alone...

mummy2girls replied:
yes thats jenna.... ill try the incentives....Jenna get distracted by her classmates as well and feels she always needs that push and has to be told what to do many times until she feels she is confident enough to do it. and when she gets going she is awesome at it... Her grades are up there just that doddle and push she needs which we feel she needs to learn to do it on her own because there wont be someone there by her side all teh time...

smile.gif

amymom replied: good luck! hug.gif hug.gif I hope you figure out what to do. It must be a very hard decision.

mummy2girls replied:
i never thought of that.... ill look into that because what you tell me about your son is jenna...

mckayleesmom replied: If you try the incentives...make sure you remind her every day what kind of pact you had....I always tell Mckaylee "remember, you will not get xyz if you come home with a good report".....

Alot of Mckaylee's problem is her social butterfly-ism....The kid spends more time socializing them working. Not saying this about Jenna, just saying in my situation. She is talking or listening to another kid when directions are given and she feels embarrassed to ask directions again because the teacher will know it was because of her talking. Alot of it is her feeling like she will hurt her friends feelings if she doesnt respond during class....and she always gets busted when she responds. I always tell her to politely tell her friends before class to please not talk to her during...she will catch up to them at recess. It is amazing how my child can be quiet and have a good day if there is a little something in it for her....


Russell is starting to have the talking problem too....My little shy man is busting out of his shell. The other day he got in trouble for talking and I told him to be good or he would lose his game playing priveledges at home...He came home and said "mommy, I zipped it, locked it and put it in my pocket".... rolling_smile.gif

coasterqueen replied:
This is exactly what I was thinking. This is one of Megan's sensory issues. You may think Jenna can do certain things, but her mind and her body may not understand it as fast as you think. Megan is very smart, but she has a hard time of expressing it in the form and pace we want her to. It doesn't make her not smart, it just is that she can't seem to find the ways like we do or as fast as we do. Megan also has major fine motor skill problems that our therapist has us constantly working on. I strongly encourage occupational therapy. I am very surprised with the issues Jenna does have that she's not in therapy still. Megan has been in OT for several years now and would have been in sooner if it wasn't for insurance matters. We are hoping to "pass" next month so we won't have to go all the time, but we still will go back every start of school year to help her "re-adjust". It really is a lifetime of learning and helping them learn. We have to spend NUMEROUS hours helping Megan with motor skills, doing therapy ourselves at home, as well as help her with her other sensory issues. It's a full-time job, IMO wacko.gif , and they DO need reassurance all the time. I know Megan does.

mummy2girls replied:
She actually got referred back to one by her doctor... we got the referral now we are waiting on a date too see this OT. We are going to bring it up to her.... And talk to her doc about APD as well...

coasterqueen replied: Shelly, the OT should be able to do a complete evaluation that tells you whether she has APD, other issues as well. Ours even evaluated for motor skills because it can go along with sensory disorders.


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