The meeting itself was positive. The twins have had a great year and we are very pleased with the school. The principal hadn't confirmed who would be teaching Hannah next year so we will have a follow up meeting later in the term. I will take photoes etc of the Year 1 classroom to prepare a social story for her and we'll try and get the spec ed teacher to take ehr into the Year 1 room for an occassional visit (her resource room is nexxt to it) so that Hannah gets abetter idea of just what we mean by Year 1.
She knows something about it because after the last school holidays when I was talking with her about going back to school - she said "Yes, Hannah Year 1" and i had to break it to her that she didn't go into Year 1 untl after the long holidays of Christmas.
She loves the ipod touch she got for her brithday but I haven't loaded any communication software yet - am hoping we will be successful in our funding application for an ipad and the proloquo2go - then we can start including it in her IEP goals.
The twins had a fantastic birthday - the gymnastics party went really well. Hannah has started referring to one little girl as 'my best friend' which is of course just fantastic. She is also getting more tired at school in the afternoons because she is more actively engaged in play with the other children at recess and lunch.
Shelley:
ReplyDeleteGreat to see that Hannah is more engaged with play at recess and lunch.
Best wishes for the follow-up meeting.
The reflection on the "gap" is an interesting one. Jean Mercer (infant developmentalist) showed up a study about what a lot of difference there can be between people who are the same age. Schools are required to take a large range of people.
The thing which happens is "regression to the mean" which means gaps are not so important.
Mercer wrote about a study. Teachers were more likely to say that younger children had attention problems than older children, but parents were less likely to do this. So it is important to be developmentally sensitive and aware in best educational and therapeutic practice. It seems that comparison to other children in a group is a problem, so don't do it!
What an interesting article - and yes that is one of the benefits I see in having specific goals set for Hannah each semester - that way her 'success' (and that of the school/home!) is being measured - against Hannah herself...
ReplyDeleteThere is a lovely and wellmeaning mum who sometimes asks how Hannah is going. She sees the 'struggle' rather than the triumph - always looking to the 'norm' to assess. It does make me wonder - cos her girls are no great shakes to that norm either - they just don't have a 'dsability' - so she seems blind to the fact that her kindy child has a poorer attention span than Hannah quite often!!
Comparing children like that - it isn't particularly helpful is it? Still human nature..