Best chance age to start kindergarten ...for 'most' speech impaired

[Guest guest]

Many of you are looking at the age to start kindergarten from only a

personal opinion.

If we try to look at this from an outside standpoint of what will be

best for our children as a 'group' post research articles on this,

and continue to share our own personal experiences for our own

children, or as and others have done as adults who grew up

speech impaired -perhaps we can find a way to help 'most' of our

children in the future to be top students who are confident and

social. (which statistically is not the norm right now as you can

find out by studying research on our population of children as

a " group " )

Of course there are exceptions to any rule -and perhaps there are

severely speech impaired child who still requires intensive daily

speech and/or occupational therapy at five years old will do fine in

kindergarten and then be ready for first grade/HS and do well in all

aspects (academics, social, maturity)in the mainstream.

Academics and social are not the only issues to consider -maturity

and self esteem -are very important too. And that is just

for " normal " kids. For our kids -we also know how much therapy/how

intensive and how tired or how much school will our children miss.

If that's not something you think matters please let us know why.

Here are just three key points to try to take this discussion from a

personal opinion and bring it to an issue of what would be best for

most. Please feel free to respond or add more:

1. Children with speech impairments are statistically at risk for

learning disabilities. Do you accept that stat as fact? Would

there be strategies that as a group will give our children better

odds and if so would a trend of starting our children in

kindergarten at six be one of them? If not -please share why.

2. Why do you believe most preschools for hearing impaired children

etc. as well as most multisensory schools like Montessori have

preschool go up to age six?

3. For those of you with older children -are you happy you started

them at the age you did and what age was that? (and to and other adults

in the group - please feel free to add more)

And if you think this issue is only discussed by parents of special

needs children...this is a topic for " regular " kids and educators -

and one that has been researched. Something else to keep in mind

that I pointed out is to find out the age others in your town start

their children. If you don't -while you start your children at five

because " your child will be bored " if you don't...your five year old

may be sitting in class next to children that are 12 to 18 months

older that unlike your child do not have pull out for intensive

speech and occupational therapy.

Here is just one poster on this topic from a site discussing this

online:

" I have two late boys -- one October, one August. Both are gifted

kids, way ahead academically. In both cases, I sent them on to

kindergarten rather than hold them back. In both cases, I have come

to regret that decision. Many boys have been held a year, so there

are kids 18 months (or more) older than my boys. They are much

bigger, much better at sports, threatened by young boys who can

compete academically, and terrific at bullying the young/vulnerable

boys. Middle school has been a nightmare for the older one; he is

immature as well as young and is not near ready for the organization

or social accuity required to survive. We are considering changing

schools and have him repeat 6th grade to belatedly right-size him.

Given the chance again, I would gladly trade the risk of academic

boredom (they are bored anyway) for the social benefits of not being

the youngest boy. An added plus: you have them another year before

they go on to their adult lives. anonymous "

much more at

http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/school/fall_bday.html

(and I guess point 4 -why do almost all the parents of " normal "

children that responded to the above question have the same opinion?)

I don't want to argue mainstream vs. inclusion since I think most

know what I mean by mainstream when I say that. Tanner has been

schooled 100% of the time with the rest of the regular class except

for pull out therapy since starting kindergarten at 6. Here is an

article on mainstream/inclusion for hearing impaired children

http://www.deafeducation.org.uk/natural/integration/integration.html

).

=====

[Guest guest]

> For those of you with older children -are you happy you started

them at the age you did and what age was that

As far as the above portion, in my experience, holding a late

birthdays child back one more year is for their benefit. I have a 13

year old Sept. birthday child(normal development) that I knew no

better and put her in at 4 (turning 5 our cut off is Nov. 30). There

are many reasons to delay, social, academic, and just over-all

matuurity.She was routinely placed in classess with children that

were about 11.5 months ahead of her. It was a major issue, not just

in the early years, but at the early middle school level as well,not

so much academically at that age but physical maturity for

athletics, and just the usual puberty(interest in boys etc) in itself

their mental differences are significant.Not to mention later on down

the road going away to college at 17!

Now my early birtday child Feb. she started at 5 yrears. 9 months,

and boy the differences academically were astounding, reading,

attention to task, motivation. We have yet to get to the puberty age

(Thank God) yet so who knows about that yet.

On to my July 5 y/o who has some issues we are dealing with, as far

as holding him back, my husband was against it, the school said he

was ready, and I asked the age ranges of his current class placement,

he thankfully is one of the earlier ones, the others that are

younger, especially the little boys are really struggling with

attention, they have a hard time with following directions. My son is

doing quite well, starting to read, LOVES school and his new

friends. We will see how he does in the rest of kindergarten, and

beyond.

This has just been my experience, not scientific just a mom's

perspective.

[Guest guest]

wrote:

<<Academics and social are not the only issues to consider -maturity

and self esteem -are very important too. And that is just

for " normal " kids.>>

Parents, this point can not be over-stated. My son is probably one of the

worst case scenarios of

a child that was a victim of starting kindergarten too early.

At the beginning of the year, we moved from out of state and I talked back

and forth with the school

(all friendly conversations) about placement. I leaned towards preschool

but they pushed hard for

kindergarten for a list of reasons that I won't waste space with.

Nonetheless, I decided that maybe they knew what they

were talking about.

My son wasn't happy. He was getting frustrated with the work in the class

(lots of worksheets) and homework was terrible.

There was lots of bribery to get it done. Behavior started to come out

(non-compliance and being silly during class lessons)

and we were meeting with the school about every other week over services,

behavior, etc.

A few weeks ago I finally put the pieces of the puzzle together that he was

being strapped to a chair and a wooden tray was slid on

for not completing fine motor tasks and for running around the room. This

was one of many things that the teacher was doing to torment

my son. Both my son and the teacher became VERY frustrated and it ended in

disaster. Luckily we caught it, and I put my son back in

mainstream pre-K where he is doing fine. (He has only had two weeks there

so he is still adjusting and having issues in general from

his torment inflicted by the last teacher.)

So our story is one where my son truly should have been held back. The

teacher took out her frustration on my son. This all started about one week

after my son's dad left for a 4 month military deployment. I can't imagine

the stress that my son was under during this time. This went on for a few

weeks while I

was still in the dark about what was going on.

I am going to update the list about our case when the dust settles. But for

those of you considering what to do next year for your kids who are eligible

age-wise for

kindergarten, please consider my son's story. He is a docile smart child

who wasn't ready emotionally or socially for the challenges of kindergarten.

Tricia Morin

North Carolina