Yesterday was Caleb's parent/teacher conference at Line Creek Elementary. He is doing wonderfully! It's always interesting to hear how your child acts away from you. Once again, our child acts differently. He is the quiet, obedient child in the class. One of the few boys who does as he is told and is always respectful. He is also very social, which is a huge praise since we were worried about kids making fun of his speech. He is starting to read and has gone through all his single and 2-letter phonograms. His handwriting is slowly improving, which Mr. Richards says is right on track for his grade level, and the one area I miss at FCA's kindergarten.
After his kindergarten conference we were able to meet with his speech teacher for an hour. That was even more exciting! Mrs. Michelle evaluated him with an official speech evaluation last week and we went over his results. His last evaluation was done by Mrs. Catherine when he was almost 4. He is still in the 1 percentile of children his age for expressive language and still has a severe speech articulation disorder. Other good news, she also believes he is not Apraxic. We have had a couple pathologist think he is and a few others who didn't. This would be a much more severe diagnosis and require many more years of therapy for Caleb. We are glad once again to think he is eventually going to sound normal with repetition and therapy. After discussing his results, she agreed to have in therapy one more day a week than he was getting before the test. This was a huge answer to prayer. So he will now get therapy 3 times a week for 30 minutes each session! We are also putting him on the wait list for Children's Mercy, which might work our perfectly for late spring and through the summer when school is out. She also said he has made alot of progress with his /f/ sound since the start of the year. Her IEP goals for Caleb for this year (along with some ideas for next year) are very hopeful. We will keep you posted on how he continues to progress...
After meeting with both teachers, we are up in the air about what we will do next year for Caleb. Our original thought was to have him transfer into FCA in kindergarten or 1st grade next year depending on his progress in speech/reading. Now we are leaning toward waiting another year to enter FCA. The thought of not having any (free) speech next year (during school time) and not our evening time as a family or homeschooling time on Tues/Thurs is not appealing. Mrs. Michelle 2 year-therapy-plan seems wonderful on paper too. We are going to be praying about this decision through May. We have also really seen the structure of full day kindergarten benefit Caleb greatly. Please join us and we'll keep you posted as we know....
After his kindergarten conference we were able to meet with his speech teacher for an hour. That was even more exciting! Mrs. Michelle evaluated him with an official speech evaluation last week and we went over his results. His last evaluation was done by Mrs. Catherine when he was almost 4. He is still in the 1 percentile of children his age for expressive language and still has a severe speech articulation disorder. Other good news, she also believes he is not Apraxic. We have had a couple pathologist think he is and a few others who didn't. This would be a much more severe diagnosis and require many more years of therapy for Caleb. We are glad once again to think he is eventually going to sound normal with repetition and therapy. After discussing his results, she agreed to have in therapy one more day a week than he was getting before the test. This was a huge answer to prayer. So he will now get therapy 3 times a week for 30 minutes each session! We are also putting him on the wait list for Children's Mercy, which might work our perfectly for late spring and through the summer when school is out. She also said he has made alot of progress with his /f/ sound since the start of the year. Her IEP goals for Caleb for this year (along with some ideas for next year) are very hopeful. We will keep you posted on how he continues to progress...
After meeting with both teachers, we are up in the air about what we will do next year for Caleb. Our original thought was to have him transfer into FCA in kindergarten or 1st grade next year depending on his progress in speech/reading. Now we are leaning toward waiting another year to enter FCA. The thought of not having any (free) speech next year (during school time) and not our evening time as a family or homeschooling time on Tues/Thurs is not appealing. Mrs. Michelle 2 year-therapy-plan seems wonderful on paper too. We are going to be praying about this decision through May. We have also really seen the structure of full day kindergarten benefit Caleb greatly. Please join us and we'll keep you posted as we know....
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Deanna