Re: Evaluating school programs ... and wandering off topic

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/2/2004 11:20:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

mcnamara333@... writes:

If I contact the deaf and hard of hearing coordinator for the

district, what kinds of things should I ask to evaluate whether

their program specifically for deaf and hard of hearing kids is

right for my daughter?

Donna,

You may find that your daughter is not going to fit the usual answers that

most of us have had. Since she had no fluency in her native language, the ESL

placement seem very out of place to me. I'd be looking for some more basic

solutions, more basic language aquisition information than an elementary ESL

classroom. Sounds like they need to look into finding a TOD who has worked with

younger children as well as kids her age. Emotionally she is older than her

language skill reflect and that has to be taken into consideration as well.

I would explain to the coordinator that your daughter is going to be a

one-of-a-kind for their system and as such she will need a one-of-a-kind

solution.

You might do well to contact some people who specialize in early

intervention and talk with them about emergent language. If she is really

starting from

the beginning, they might know about the kinds of things to expect and what

benchmarks she would be reaching better than an ESL teacher or a TOD for

similar age children. Not that she belongs in an EI program, just that they

might

be familiar with the early stages of language aquisition and use. I remember

my kids mispronouncing all sorts words (jabbers = garbage) and

mis-conjugating verbs (scram = screamed) and their early sentence structure

sounded like

something Tonto would say in the old Long Ranger episodes. (I'm dating myself,

huh?)

I seem to remember in your earlier post that you mentioned that your

daughter also needed to work on her motor skills. (If I not remembering

correctly,

then please forgive me.) I know that there are studies that have been done

linking fine motor skill development with helping brain development. I don't

know if that is very age specific -- it's been a while since I read those

papers. Even if it was tied to an early age, I'd still work on those skills and

make them as much fun as possible.

So, I'd get myself a bunch of crayons, markers, and colored pencils and

spend time drawing and coloring. Coloring books are not expensive items (check

out the dollar store nearest you.) And you can buy paper by the ream at Walmart

or any office supply place.

Get a big ole bin of pony beads and plastic lanyard string-stuff (at AC

or s -- craft stores near me). String beads into necklaces and then

wear whatever she makes for you proudly. My husband wore every single painted

paper Father's Day tie to church and my kids were thrilled. String the beads

into long strands and use them on your Christmas tree (if you have one). Or

decorate the bushes outside, or the indoor plants. Or hang them above the

kitchen cabinets. If anyone has the audacity to comment on your decor, tell them

you have a very special interior decorator. (That'll shut 'em up.)

Get a box of penne pasta and color/paint it with paint made from evaporated

milk and food coloring. Let that dry and then make long beautiful strings of

that and then hang it from the trees and bushes for the squirrels to munch on.

Building fine motor skills takes time, practice and lots of patience and

encouragement. I called it our " crafty time " and I no longer have to initiate it

-- haven't had to for years. Take your daughter's creations and display

them. We have what we call " the fridge gallery " . It had grown to extend onto

several kitchen cabinets and started to overtake the kitchen. So I decided that

one or two pieces at a time could be framed (inexpensively in cheap frames

from those same craft stores) and hung on the wall on the way upstairs. I

bought

simple plastic 11x17 frames and I change out the art whenever she brings

home something new and wonderful. The art from school is almost always smaller

than that, so far everything has fit. My daughter is thrilled with her gallery

entries. And at some point everyone who comes over sees them when they head

upstairs towards to bathroom.

I don't mean to make light of this. It is hard work to build these skills.

When I was getting my teaching degree I worked with a young woman who had been

severely injured in a car accident. She remembered being smart, being able to

ski and being able to write in script. She would get so frustrated at times

because she wanted to get back to that point. And she never was going to, but

she certainly was capable of rebuilding some of her motor control and that's

what we worked on. It's hard when the kids get frustrated, but I tried to

make it fun not work. When that happened, we just put it aside until she was

ready to try again. Or ditched that idea and went with another kind of

project. Increase the difficulty as your daughter's skills improve. If she likes

painting & stringing big pasta, work your way down to the smaller sizes. If

she's already ready for pony beads, start there and work down to those

itty-bitty

sead beads and those wire-like needles.

And draw. I don't care if you think you can't draw a stick figure ... you

can draw for a kid. Make chalk drawings on the driveway of the animals you saw

at the zoo or on TV's Animal Planet. Draw pictures of imaginary monsters or

aliens. No one knows what those are suppose to look like anyway. A big round

circle with spiky hair and silly eyes and feet coming out of his ears ...

whatever you draw will be fine and it will encourage her to just do it and not

worry about perfection. No one expects us to be DaVinci, and besides, that

would be intimidating for a kid who is just learning to control a pencil. My

daughter and I have always drawn all the time, we color each others' drawings.

And we laugh. There's nothing like knees, hands and faces smudged with colorful

sidewalk chalk to make you laugh at your own silly appearance. And it cleans

up with a hose.

Motor skills do not have to be developed in dull boring routine activities.

Anything that has her controlling her fingers will build fine motor skills.

Playing Cat's Cradle with a piece of string, kneading cookie dough to mix in

the chocolate chips, learning to " play the spoons " by clacking together a

pair ... think of something that takes finger control and you're building motor

skills. Even helping you by stirring the spagetti sauce could build larger

skills and balance.

Gross motor skills can be built by dancing in the living room to Chubby

Checker singing the Peppermint Twist. Or doing a really bad tango down the

hallway. I can emabarrass my daughter instantly by simply dancing in front of

her

friends -- so dancing now has that added bonus. (grin)

You're moving in the right direction by looking for ways to help her with

her very specific needs. Take everything you read and hear and pick out the

pieces that work for her. You'll find your one-of-a-kind combination of things

that will fit her needs.

Best -- Jill

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/2/2004 11:20:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

mcnamara333@... writes:

If I contact the deaf and hard of hearing coordinator for the

district, what kinds of things should I ask to evaluate whether

their program specifically for deaf and hard of hearing kids is

right for my daughter?

Donna,

You may find that your daughter is not going to fit the usual answers that

most of us have had. Since she had no fluency in her native language, the ESL

placement seem very out of place to me. I'd be looking for some more basic

solutions, more basic language aquisition information than an elementary ESL

classroom. Sounds like they need to look into finding a TOD who has worked with

younger children as well as kids her age. Emotionally she is older than her

language skill reflect and that has to be taken into consideration as well.

I would explain to the coordinator that your daughter is going to be a

one-of-a-kind for their system and as such she will need a one-of-a-kind

solution.

You might do well to contact some people who specialize in early

intervention and talk with them about emergent language. If she is really

starting from

the beginning, they might know about the kinds of things to expect and what

benchmarks she would be reaching better than an ESL teacher or a TOD for

similar age children. Not that she belongs in an EI program, just that they

might

be familiar with the early stages of language aquisition and use. I remember

my kids mispronouncing all sorts words (jabbers = garbage) and

mis-conjugating verbs (scram = screamed) and their early sentence structure

sounded like

something Tonto would say in the old Long Ranger episodes. (I'm dating myself,

huh?)

I seem to remember in your earlier post that you mentioned that your

daughter also needed to work on her motor skills. (If I not remembering

correctly,

then please forgive me.) I know that there are studies that have been done

linking fine motor skill development with helping brain development. I don't

know if that is very age specific -- it's been a while since I read those

papers. Even if it was tied to an early age, I'd still work on those skills and

make them as much fun as possible.

So, I'd get myself a bunch of crayons, markers, and colored pencils and

spend time drawing and coloring. Coloring books are not expensive items (check

out the dollar store nearest you.) And you can buy paper by the ream at Walmart

or any office supply place.

Get a big ole bin of pony beads and plastic lanyard string-stuff (at AC

or s -- craft stores near me). String beads into necklaces and then

wear whatever she makes for you proudly. My husband wore every single painted

paper Father's Day tie to church and my kids were thrilled. String the beads

into long strands and use them on your Christmas tree (if you have one). Or

decorate the bushes outside, or the indoor plants. Or hang them above the

kitchen cabinets. If anyone has the audacity to comment on your decor, tell them

you have a very special interior decorator. (That'll shut 'em up.)

Get a box of penne pasta and color/paint it with paint made from evaporated

milk and food coloring. Let that dry and then make long beautiful strings of

that and then hang it from the trees and bushes for the squirrels to munch on.

Building fine motor skills takes time, practice and lots of patience and

encouragement. I called it our " crafty time " and I no longer have to initiate it

-- haven't had to for years. Take your daughter's creations and display

them. We have what we call " the fridge gallery " . It had grown to extend onto

several kitchen cabinets and started to overtake the kitchen. So I decided that

one or two pieces at a time could be framed (inexpensively in cheap frames

from those same craft stores) and hung on the wall on the way upstairs. I

bought

simple plastic 11x17 frames and I change out the art whenever she brings

home something new and wonderful. The art from school is almost always smaller

than that, so far everything has fit. My daughter is thrilled with her gallery

entries. And at some point everyone who comes over sees them when they head

upstairs towards to bathroom.

I don't mean to make light of this. It is hard work to build these skills.

When I was getting my teaching degree I worked with a young woman who had been

severely injured in a car accident. She remembered being smart, being able to

ski and being able to write in script. She would get so frustrated at times

because she wanted to get back to that point. And she never was going to, but

she certainly was capable of rebuilding some of her motor control and that's

what we worked on. It's hard when the kids get frustrated, but I tried to

make it fun not work. When that happened, we just put it aside until she was

ready to try again. Or ditched that idea and went with another kind of

project. Increase the difficulty as your daughter's skills improve. If she likes

painting & stringing big pasta, work your way down to the smaller sizes. If

she's already ready for pony beads, start there and work down to those

itty-bitty

sead beads and those wire-like needles.

And draw. I don't care if you think you can't draw a stick figure ... you

can draw for a kid. Make chalk drawings on the driveway of the animals you saw

at the zoo or on TV's Animal Planet. Draw pictures of imaginary monsters or

aliens. No one knows what those are suppose to look like anyway. A big round

circle with spiky hair and silly eyes and feet coming out of his ears ...

whatever you draw will be fine and it will encourage her to just do it and not

worry about perfection. No one expects us to be DaVinci, and besides, that

would be intimidating for a kid who is just learning to control a pencil. My

daughter and I have always drawn all the time, we color each others' drawings.

And we laugh. There's nothing like knees, hands and faces smudged with colorful

sidewalk chalk to make you laugh at your own silly appearance. And it cleans

up with a hose.

Motor skills do not have to be developed in dull boring routine activities.

Anything that has her controlling her fingers will build fine motor skills.

Playing Cat's Cradle with a piece of string, kneading cookie dough to mix in

the chocolate chips, learning to " play the spoons " by clacking together a

pair ... think of something that takes finger control and you're building motor

skills. Even helping you by stirring the spagetti sauce could build larger

skills and balance.

Gross motor skills can be built by dancing in the living room to Chubby

Checker singing the Peppermint Twist. Or doing a really bad tango down the

hallway. I can emabarrass my daughter instantly by simply dancing in front of

her

friends -- so dancing now has that added bonus. (grin)

You're moving in the right direction by looking for ways to help her with

her very specific needs. Take everything you read and hear and pick out the

pieces that work for her. You'll find your one-of-a-kind combination of things

that will fit her needs.

Best -- Jill

[Guest guest]

(Wow-- Jill's reply was great on this topic!)

This is for the Mcnamara family with the newly-adopted daughter.

A book that might be helpful, even though it really only goes up to

age 6, is one " The New Language of Toys: Teaching Communication

Skills to Children with Special Needs " by Sue Schwartz and Joan

Heller . It is all about how to elicit language through

play. There are specific examples with specific toys. Though it's

written for parents and teachers of kids with a variety of special

needs, both authors' expertise is with deaf/h-o-h kids, so the

advice is really appropriate. At the end of each chapter, which is

correlated with one year, there are lists of age-approproate

vocabulary and concepts, tons of books to read with your child, and

a checklist of language, physical and cognitive development

milestones for that year for you to fill out.

As for speech therapy, I would think you would need to boost it up

over 20 min 3x/week for your daughter. Since she is older, she

should be able to handle longer sessions, but mostly she has a lot

of catching up to do, and needs intensive therapy. You may also

consider supplementing with private speech therapy. Sometimes you

can get some therapy paid for by your medical insurance. This may

be particularly true in your case since she is having surgeries

done. (Medical insurance usually won't pay for what they

consider " chronic " therapy that is never-ending, but they may pay

for several months of " acute " rehabilitative therapy after surgery.)

I know it is several hundred miles away, but it might be worthwhile

to take a road trip to St. Louis, where there are several good oral

schools. I think it would be really helpful to you to visit and to

get their perspective. Even if you are unlikely to end up going

there, you would get a flavor for what kind of program they would

put together for her, and that would be a really useful educational

experience for you! Ask the people on this list if they have

experience with particular schools.

Finally, have you contacted the Clinic? They are in LA

but will work with you by correspondence for FREE! (They will

actually assign a teacher to you.) They also have a (free!) summer

program. Check out their web site www.jtc.org. I bet they would be

really helpful.

All the best!

Lydia

7 1/2 implant at 4

Colin 10 1/2 hearing

[Guest guest]

Donna,

I just had another thought. To figure out what kinds of services

your daughter needs, you should consider having her speech and

language evaluated by an independent speech-language pathologist

(SLP) who has expertise in children with hearing loss. In addition

to the evaluation, the SLP should write a recommendation for what

services are appropriate. Your school probably does some

evaluation, but if it is done independently, it won't be skewed by

what the school is willing to offer.

Here in Massachusetts, people often go to one of 2 places for

evalutations. There is the e School (private oral school) in

Norhtampton, for kids who communicate orally, They do a

comprehensive 2-day eval. There is also the Boston Center for Deaf

and Hard of Hearing Children. They have specialists that can do

evals on signing or speaking kids. I believe both places will also

do cognitive evalutations. Our health insurance has paid for one

yearly evaluation at the Boston Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing

kids. Perhaps you can find something similar near you?

The important parts of the evaluation, in my opinion, are 1) being

done by a knowledgable, independent (unbiased) person or people and

2) giving you a written recommendation for what kinds of services

your daughter needs.

Also, do go visit a variety of programs -- not only those in your

district but those in neighboring districts as well as private

schools.

Best wishes,

Lydia

> In a message dated 9/2/2004 11:20:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> mcnamara333@s... writes:

>

> If I contact the deaf and hard of hearing coordinator for the

> district, what kinds of things should I ask to evaluate whether

> their program specifically for deaf and hard of hearing kids is

> right for my daughter?

>

>