We went this afternoon for the concluding session of the screening for Katherine’s speech problem.
The Good:
Most of the screening went swimmingly. In Educational stuff, “there are no concerns regarding her concept development and she is performing above age expectations.” In Social/Emotional/Adaptive Behavior, she’s doing great, with strong play skills and deemed “friendly, happy and cooperative.” No Physical problems, and her vision and hearing are both fine, with age-appropriate motor skills. Cognitive-wise, she has strong memory and attending skills, and strong concept development (again).
The Bad:
On the Arizona Articulation Proficiency Scales (3rd Edition!), she scored a 76; mean score is 100, SD=15. That puts her in the 5th percentile, and classes her speech intelligibility as “difficult.”
On the understanding side of things, to be sure, we have the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test 3, which tests listening comprehension and vocabulary, she scored a 120 (average range is 85-115). So she understands what she’s hearing, in an above average way — she’s just not articulating what she says back well.
In particular, her articulation has omissions (dropping sounds out) and substitutions (replacing one sound with another).
Analysis of her fluency showed moderate stuttering, compared to other preschool children.
The Ugly:
So, we’re signing Katherine up for preschool there, starting when we get back in January. The class she’ll be in will have both general ed and some (other) special ed kids. There’s an “Integrated Educational Plan” (IEP) being put together for her, with various goals and strategies to work on her “artic and disfluency” problems. and she’ll both do some in-class work and some pulled work with a speech therapist.
“Ugly” Part 1: We have to refill out all those damnable forms and slips and profiles and records for her new preschool. Annoying. If there’s one thing that will drive us into a world bereft of privacy, where every single one of our records is in some single, massive computer bank, it will be the constant need to keep filling out repetitious forms …
“Ugly” Part 2: We’re going to try to keep Katherine in her current preschool, since she’s enjoying it so much. Which means, since she’ll be in a Monday/Wednesday afternoon class, that our weekly schedule is going to look like a checkerboard, with Katherine spending part of Monday-Thursday somewhere else, courtesy of Mom & Dad Taxi Service.
On the other hand, since she’s in it as a special ed kid, it’s Your Tax Dollars At Work paying for her preschool tuition. And it’s right near my comic book store, so I can at least pick her up on Wednesday afternoons and then swing by and pick up my comics.
She may need to bid a fond farewell to her Tuesday/Thursday morning preschool class. Which would be a shame, but might be gthe only way for us to keep our sanity and/or jobs.
I’m definitely glad we’re doing this. She’s clearly got a lot to say. She deserves a chance to say it clearly to everyone.
***Dave, my nephew (also named Dave) had similar problems to Katherine’s when he was young. (Oddly enough, it only happened when he spoke English, which is his father’s language. When he spoke French, his mother’s language, his speech was clear. Go figure.)
Anyhow, this is to tell you that catching it young really does work. Dave speaks very clearly now; there’s no sign of the slight stutter he had, the missing consonants are now firmly in place. If anything, he enunciates far better than many zygotes his age (early 20’s) because he doesn’t slur his words together.
That happened with the teaching methods they had 15 years ago. I’m sure the advances between then and now are astounding.
Besides, you get to induct Katherine into the joys of the comic shop! Bonus!
Well, Katherine has visited the comic shop before. But I think she’ll enjoy it as a regular treat with Daddy.
I will have to stop my previous practice of buying her an action figure every time we visit, though … 🙂
I’m glad to hear about the other Dave’s success. I’m sure Katherine will work through this, and we have some alternate contacts in the speech therapy biz if we don’t feel the school district is doing a good job. It’s going to be an interesting class for her, since it’s about 40/60 special vs general ed, so she’ll also get exposed to a wider variety of kids.
That all being said, it’s rather odd to think of Katherine as a “special ed” studen. :-O