Over the summer months, there was no contact with the school or district whatsoever...exactly as I had expected.
However, we did get to meet with the PT (I'll call her Lisa) that will work with Ben at school as she attended one of Ben's regular PT sessions in order to meet with him as well as discuss the level of intervention I wanted to be provided.
Before meeting with Lisa, I had always been quite anti-PT-in-school. I know that this isn't the norm and that most parents want as much services at school for their children as possible. I guess that I felt that I really didn't want Ben singled out and pulled out of class. Ben is just like his peers when it comes to cognitive, speech and fine motor skills and I really felt that the best place for Ben was in the classroom with all of the other kids.
Well...that was before Ben had SDR. And before I realized how tired Ben still gets and that PT at home after school was not likely going to work as well as I had envisioned.
However...I was still skeptical.
Until I meet Lisa.
I can't even tell you how much I liked her, how much Ben responded to her. The first meeting went great. She got to see Ben work on his independent standing as well as his forearm crutch walking. He totally performed for her.
After she saw what Ben could do, we talked about how much intervention I wanted for Ben. She suggested that she see Ben once every other week (this is the most she can offer due to her case load). She also talked about how beneficial it would be for his Aide to see him at these sessions in order to incorporate what they are working on in his every day school routine.
We also discussed how the next 12 months is a critical year for Ben as he continues to progress as the SDR and how focussing on gross motor skills during kindergarten and grade one will not take away from the learning he'll do in the classroom...basically because she could easily tell that he is above-age-level when it comes to letters and numbers, etc.
So. In the end we agreed that she would seem him once every two weeks at school. And I felt more than happy with that arrangement.
To be continued in part 3...
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It sounds great that Lisa is so helpful. There was one part of your post that had me confused -- you said that before the operation you wanted to have as few services at school as possible but that changed after the operation. I thought the operation had helped and that Ben had regained the strength he lost but that sentence made me wonder if I had it wrong. You don't have to respond of course! I'm just a stranger rooting for you all.
ReplyDeleteYes, the SDR really did help Ben and he has regained the strength he lost BUT now there is so much possibility as to what Ben can achieve if he continues to work hard. Now that the spasticity is gone, I'm confident that he'll eventually be able to walk unaided (at least indoors). I guess I describe SDR as a procedure that gives Ben the body he needs to go further, but without A LOT of hard work, he wouldn't get anywhere. All the surgery did was lessen the spasticity...now he has to do the work!
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. I am amazed how just how hard kids are capable of working when they have to.
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