What My Kid Did
After much ado about getting the right supports, FM system, motivated education team and a SpEd teacher worth double her weight in gold...my son earned the President's Award for Academic Excellence. And this is a kid with quite a few letters in his alphabet soup.
How It Happened
How it happened was we didn't stop advocating. We finally got a new diagnosis, the right person to work with him for speech, and the right supports in place. We were blessed with a team that finally was willing to listen and earnestly work with each other and my son. Last school year, this team met with us (my son, my husband and me) the LAST day of school BEFORE he transitioned over to the middle school. It kept evolving and finally my son realized he could do the work with a lot of effort and the right support from his teachers. (Again, I would like to mention the wonderful SpEd teacher who found a way to reach him and build trust.) It took a geat deal of work (read nagging) at home to continuously study, prepare, practice and stay on top of work. It also took the recommendations of an Audiology specialist to get the school to realize he could do the work if they took some extra time to follow the suggestions. It wasn't easy for anyone--especially my son. However, his teachers can honestly share in the accomplishment since they had a hand in shaping this outcome.
Advice
- NEVER stop advocating for your child. We KNEW something else was going on but didn't know how to get anyone to really LISTEN! FINALLY a specialist sent him for the right type of testing (for Auditory Processing issues). TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!!! It took longer than we would have liked; but the results were so dramatic that our last CSE meeting was completely different due to these great results. We stuck to our convictions and now have dramatic results and improvements in his academic achievements. Too often when a child has ASD, people don't look beyond that for other ideas. Don't let them!!
