Parent Teacher Conference 3rd Term

I met with Dylan's teacher the other day and she is pretty excited about how well his understanding of words is coming along.  She said in the past couple of months it seems to have clicked and he is really taking off!  She had 35 words documented that they lay out 3 items and ask him for a specific one, that he was able to identify.  She said probably with our family names and other things he knows that can't necessarily be tested, he probably has about 100 words in him!  So maybe this is a start to the talking, who knows but I will take it!  I do however have a little different opinion and think he has always had the understanding, but it's a matter of "if" he wants to do it.  So we differ here, but she is with him almost everyday, so she is obviously seeing changes.  Let's be honest, I do not work with him like she does either, so she probably knows my child better than I think I do in the learning setting!  Other than that things have remained pretty much the same.  Except for his social awareness!  She said last year he could care less they were there but now he is coming to them for things and wants to be around them.  I agree and have noticed more and more him coming around us and if we leave the room, he follows shortly after.

I love going to these meetings because she doesn't rush you out and I am usually there for an hour or so.  I get to hear a lot from her and see what they see.  I also love when she is talking about him and she pauses a bit and you can just tell she is picturing him in her mind and laughs!  A few funny stories shared with me this time are:

- Dylan is starting to love certain songs they do and has a couple different ones he picks out.  One of them being "5 little Monkeys"(not jumping on the bed but I forgot which one).  He picked it out one day and a little boy that was sitting next to him is verbal but has a very low raspy(she said imagine a rapper in the making) voice.  That little boy was singing along in his own little way and Dylan broke down with alligator tears and was so heart broken.  They said you can tell no one raises their voice in our family.  I told her the funny thing is anytime Brandon raises his voice(usually towards the other kids) we get this same reaction out of Dyl and have to really help him understand that it wasn't him!  They decided to try and keep these two separated so this didn't happen again.  Well the other day, the same scenario played out, except this time Dylan turned a stared down this little boy almost as if saying, "You are ruining MY song! STOP IT NOW!"

- They are working on verbal action commands such as, "Walk with me" and "Stop."  To do this they go out in the hall.  Dylan being Dylan is up and down the hall, getting into the fire extinguisher, grabbing at papers, you name it he is doing it!  She said hopefully once this sets in, it will make it easier for us to go places!  She said as busy as Dylan is they have one other kid that is a climber and in the windows, on chairs, would be in the rafters if they had them, so Dylan isn't so bad!


They are also focusing on the eye contact again, because once he started shaking his head and answering, "Yeah" the eye contact started going away.  So now they are really focusing on all three.  One day at school he really wanted some chips and they got "Ch" out of him a few times.  They said to try and hold out as long as possible and try and get any sounds out of him!  She also told me she spoke with the head Speech Therapist and shared her concern that she wonders if he has a processing disorder such as apraxia and the Speech Therapist told her to really focus on vowels because for some reason they tend to pick up on those first.  So when Sherry pushes him on the swing for example, she says "Weeeeeeee" and really emphasizes the "EEEE".  She said she doesn't know if it will do anything but she is willing to give it a go.  This concern leads me to the head injury, because he WAS TALKING and it stopped after the head bonk.  I asked her about testing and she said she doesn't really think there is much that can be done at the stage he is at.  She said she is going to be in contact with the main speech lady some more and will see how he progresses over the next year and see what can be done then.

He has also qualified for Summer School, no surprise there, and I couldn't be more excited!  I make sure to let Sherry know how much I appreciate her because I know with out them and this program we would not be seeing the progress we are seeing!  Brandon must have made his mark at our very first meeting because she asked how he is doing and handling this.  I told her it depends on the day, obviously, but for the most part doing good.  She remembered him asking about the communication and if they felt it would come and we aren't seeing it so she knows that has to be hard.  I told her about the ATEC test we have done and seemed interested in it.  She had never heard about it, so she was going to look into it.  I told her that we had had a rough couple weeks and I decided to take it and had him lower then previously so I had Brandon take it too.  I told her once he saw that he also had him ranked lower that helped him to see he was making progress and lifted his spirits a bit.  I really do love these teachers and am so glad that he is where he is!