An Update on Testing

I had the meeting with the principal today. He had spoken to her teacher about things trying to pinpoint what the problem might be. He understands my concerns about dyslexia and the family history. He does believe that there most likely is some sort of learning disability there. The problem is testing at this age with the testing they have doesn't really yield accurate results. And if they test now and she passes, then they can't test again for another three years. We definitely do not want that.

So here is what his thinking is; since Natalie had a speech delay and they have seen a link between speech problems and reading problems they are going to test Kaitlyn's speech. He spoke to the speech therapist with me present and she's going to try and do an evaluation of her tomorrow, but if she doesn't get time then it will be after vacation (in two weeks). If she is sensing a phonemic awareness problem she will put her in a speech group that just works on the sounds and we'll evaluate again in another month.

Now the other issue that we could be experiencing with her is a memory issue. So he's going to talk to the school psychologist to see if there is some sort of memory test we could do on Kaitlyn. These are the two areas we are going to explore now.

He also is concerned that she has a visual difficulty in that she can spell words back to you, but can't put it down in writing. He's also concerned about her concentration. I explained to him how Kaitlyn seems to be listening, but how I have to make her repeat things back to me if it's really important that she does it so I know that she heard me. So in a class setting her teacher might think she's there, but really her mind is wandering. I think that might be actually something that I could talk to her pediatrician about and see if there's any testing we can do there. I have CJ's 15 month well visit in March so I will talk to her about it then Hopefully by then I will have some idea of where the unofficial testing the school is doing is going.

So I felt it was a productive meeting and the principal does share my concerns. He agrees that in a situation like Kaitlyn's keeping her back is not the answer. Because if it's a learning disability like he suspects then keeping her back won't solve the problem. He says generally they only keep children back if they truly believe it's going to help them. So for example if they have a late birthday like December or if there's a social aspect like moving from another country and learning the language. Neither of these obviously fit Kaitlyn and since I've helped to put that bit of concern in his ear I think he is leaning towards a disability. We will see how things go over the next few months with her. It's almost like we are easing her into some special education. She will continue to receive all the extra support she's getting in reading. We will continue to work with her and maybe even a little speech in there too will help and all things will start to click with her. And any concerns about her writing her letters and numbers backwards wouldn't be addressed until this time next year in school anyways because that could definitely be a developmental thing.