Liam’s Learning Update

I know it’s been awhile since I blogged, but the Boyd household has been busy.  Quick general update in case you’re not on Facebook.  Both my husband and I are insane. Greg decided to coach both Liam’s U8 and Brianna’s U6 soccer teams.  I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s in Organizational Management, not for the degree, but because I felt like my brain was slowly atrophying. Brianna is doing gymnastics as well as soccer.  Her pre-school is sending weekly homework home just to get them use to it.  She absolutely loves having homework like her big brother and tends to finish it all in one night - and now on to Liam and why I’m updating my blog.  

We had a parent-teacher conference in September, about a month into the school year.  This was only for parents that the teacher wanted to meet with or if the parents really wanted to meet with the teacher, so basically not every student needed one.  Well, Mrs. Reckes was concerned about Liam’s speech.  So much so that she actually had the speech therapist in the first part of the conference.  Greg and I talked before the meeting about this possibility.  This is now the third teacher that thinks Liam has some sort of speech or auditory problem.  I got a little pissed and explained that every year this comes up and when the school evaluates Liam they say there’s nothing wrong, he’s just young.  Anyway, the meeting went really well.  The speech therapist explained the process (have to wait 6 weeks) and gave us a bunch of stuff so we could start working with Liam.  In a round about way, he said that if we did a private assessment he’d love to see the results because it might be that they would have to do something then.

My dear friend, Ashley, has a friend that works in special education at the community college level.  She got me some information.  I got information off the web.  There is a private school in the area that specializes in children with learning disabilities, so I called them to get some information.  They suggested a couple of places to go for an assessment.  We ended up making an appointment for last Friday at the Central Coast Language and Learning Center (you can Google them).

I took Friday off of work.  I let Liam’s teacher know on Monday that he’d be out on Friday for a learning assessment.  The assessment was scheduled from 8:30 to 3:00 with a lunch break.  When we first sat down with Erika, she explained to Liam a little about what was going to happen that day.  Then she said that they were going to find out how he learns best, because his teachers and family would have to change how they taught him and he didn’t have to change a thing because he was fine the way he was (or something to that effect).  I almost started crying because I was so worried that he’d feel like there was something wrong with him and I was so happy at how she explained it to him.  Mom and I left as they started the assessments. 

When we went back to pick him up for lunch, he was all excited because he had popcorn and it was made in an old fashioned popcorn machine.  It was relieving to see him relaxed and having fun.  During lunch he asked if there were brain doctors.  I said yes and asked why he was wondering.  Liam said he needed a brain doctor to get the voices out of his head.  So of course, my mind goes straight to the worst case scenario.  My mom was much more calm.  She asked him what the voices said.  Evidently they said very bad things (again my heart starts pounding) that he couldn’t repeat.  I told him that he could repeat it because we asked and he wouldn’t get in trouble.  The voices say things like . . . . SHUT UP and STUPID.  Ahhhh, relief.  My mom asks if the voices are saying those things to him or to other people.  He said both.  My mom then explained that sometimes when she’s working on something very hard and people are talking around her, she wants to yell SHUT UP too, but she knows that wouldn’t be nice so she holds it inside.  All I can say is thank God for my mom.  I’d be a complete basket case without her.

Mom also noticed that Liam’s face was dirty.  I assured her that we had in fact cleaned his face.  Liam then told us it was from him crying earlier.  Evidently he got scared during one of the breaks when he noticed we weren’t waiting for him.  He thought we weren’t coming back.  I assured him that I would never do that.  

When we dropped him off for the afternoon session, they said the testing should be done at 3pm.  So mom and I did some retail therapy.  At 3 he still wasn’t done.  It took another 30 minutes.  He had worked with a few people, who are experts in different areas, and two of them mentioned his great and active imagination and great sense of humor.  He charmed them all.  Unfortunately, Erika didn’t have time to go over the results that afternoon, so we set up a meeting for Monday (yesterday as of this writing) night, so that Greg could be there too.

We met with Erika for an hour on Monday night.  She went over every score and placed it on a bell curve that the school district uses to determine if kids are qualified for services.  His highest score was a 117 in perceptual reasoning, followed by a 113 in working memory.  These two scores are in the high average section of the bell curve.  Most of his other scores were in the average range with the lowest being a 93 in syntax (basic reading).  Erika said that this wide gap made her think that something was in fact going on with Liam.  She then went on to explain more tests and scores.  He scored in the low average in broad writing (81) and visual motor integration (82).  He scored low/boarder line in broad reading (70) and oral reading (79).  These are the scores that the school system has to do something about.

He has been diagnosed as mildly dyslexic. 

Erika said that the school system probably wouldn’t have caught it until about 3^rd grade because it is a mild case.  She said that since we are catching it so early, with intervention he will be able to build new neural pathways and be able to completely overcome it (meaning that he probably won’t qualify for extra time on tests and stuff when he’s older).  She suggested that Liam have twice weekly one hour sessions to work on his reading and speech.  He has a slight articulation problem but they think that’s because he’s missing so many teeth and it can be corrected easily.

Greg and I are so happy we spent the money to get a private assessment and now we’re planning are next steps.