A Meeting at the School

I had the appointment at the school with Nathan's teacher, the school counsellor, and the school district psychologist. It was rather enlightening.

Nathan's big skills are in non-verbal, hands on areas and his verbal areas are seriously lacking. To average out his scores, he fits into the average for his age but if you look at them separately...WOW, what a difference.

Some of what was said wasn't a surprise, I already knew that he was a hands on, impulsive type of kid and his language skills are lacking. Basing her opinion on her education and experience, the psychologist can reasonably say that Nathan has a language based learning disability.

At this point, all we can do is modify some of his stuff to make it more fun, more creative, and more visual. The earlier grades can be modified in such a way but later on there may be some trouble doing that. This is great information to be passed on to his Grade One teacher so she can "understand his unique set of skills and weaknesses".

The psychologist recommends further and repeated audiology testing. Although his last test was clear and there doesn't appear to be any more hearing loss, his history of ear infections and fluid causing mild hearing loss could repeat itself. She also recommends he be tested for a Central Auditory Processing Disorder. That can't be done until he's at least 7. The psychologist said that he can wait until later fall to do that since there will be a some big changes right after he turns 7; the baby is due that month and he'll be starting Grade One.

All in all, the meeting went well. It confirmed some of my suspicions and let me know that no one is at fault. Neither the school nor us the parents are failing Nathan. We now have some ideas on how to help Nathan succeed and that is what my goal was. I didn't want him "labeled" but I wanted an understanding of why he was struggling. Now I have some ideas and I can proceed with helping him in a more visual, creative way.

On another slightly different topic, Nicholas was getting a little restless during the meeting so he was taken down to Nathan's class room. Nathan just lit up when he saw Nic. Nicholas went in, sat next to Nathan on the mats and did whatever the big kids were doing. He even tried to play BINGO with the big kids. Nathan and another boy helped Nic with his BINGO card.

I asked Nic what he did in the class and he said, " I learned stuff!" He was so happy to be in school with Nathan. LOL Nic was so upset when I said that we had to leave to run errands and that Nathan was going to stay at the school. Nic wanted to stay at school with Nathan. I felt kind of bad for him since he was having so much fun but he's only 3 and a half and not ready for kindergarten. Although, he'd probably say that he was. LOL Poor kid.