Re: Regular vs. special needs kindergarten

[Guest guest]

i hope all goes your way

chris

<skatingmary@...> wrote:

Thanks for the all the posts to my original post. My daughter is in a DDP class

that is for children with receptive/expressive language delays. She has apraxia,

fine and gross motor delays, sensory issues and some attention problems. She

really would like to go to her sister's school next year. Her developmental

pediatrician suggested we try a regular K next year, since her skills aren't

good enough to go on to first grade. Her teacher and therapists are

recommending that she stay in the program for one more year. The school will

support her being in the class one more year. We have our IEP meeting scheduled

for April 11. We have a pre-IEP meeting on the 28th of this month. We will see

what happens.

Thanks again for all the posts.

[Guest guest]

I would love to hold Edik one more year in pre-K, however, as I dsicovered

yesterday, the oficial entry age for Grade 1 in Alberta is between 5.5 and

6.5. Edik has turned 5 on March 13, which means that he will be 5.5 to start K

and exactly 6.5 to start Grade 1.(

>===== Original Message From " kiddietalk " <kiddietalk@...> =====

>

>Research Link / When Children Aren't Ready for Kindergarten

>

> H. Holloway

>

>How can schools promote the achievement of children who are old

>enough to enroll in kindergarten but who are not developmentally

>ready to succeed? Two approaches that parents and schools commonly

>use are delaying the child's entry into kindergarten and retaining

>the child in kindergarten for an extra year.

>

>Giving children an extra year, whether through delayed entry or

>kindergarten retention, makes sense in view of the ample research

>suggesting that the youngest children tend to lag behind their

>classmates. West, Denton, and Reaney (2000) found that in the spring

>of their kindergarten year, younger children had lower reading and

>mathematics knowledge and skills on average than did their older

>counterparts. These researchers also found that older kindergartners

>were more likely to persist at tasks, more eager to learn, and

>better able to pay attention.

>

>Delayed Entry Versus Kindergarten Retention

>To avoid the disadvantage suffered by younger students, some parents

>choose to delay the entry of their children into kindergarten. Zill,

>Loomis, and West (1997) found that children whose kindergarten entry

>was delayed so that they started kindergarten when they were older

>performed better than their younger classmates in grades 1 and 2.

>These researchers concluded that the extra year before starting

>kindergarten does not harm the children who are held out and may

>help most of them.

>

>In contrast, the researchers discovered that children who repeated

>kindergarten were doing worse than their younger classmates on most

>school performance indicators by 1st or 2nd grade. For instance, two-

>thirds of the retained students had received some negative feedback

>from teachers compared with less than half of the nonretained

>students. The retained students were also much more likely to have

>problems concentrating, to perform below their capabilities, and to

>act up and disrupt the class. Zill, Loomis, and West concluded that

>repeating kindergarten had not helped those children and may have

>actually made matters worse.

>

>Reasons for the Differences

>What explains the difference between the school performance of

>delayed-entry children and those who repeat kindergarten? Both

>groups of students are older than most of their classmates, so why

>don't the beneficial effects of being older apply to both groups?

>Some possible answers are that

>

>The underlying developmental problems of the two groups may differ.

>

>The two groups may have different socioeconomic backgrounds.

>

>Parents who choose to delay their children's school entry may have a

>higher level of awareness and involvement.

>

>The stigmatizing effect of being required to repeat a grade may harm

>children's academic progress.

>

>(read full article)

>http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200304/holloway.html

>

>=====

>

[Guest guest]

Toni,

My daughter is not autistic, but she also chews on her shirt and hair. She has

had these two behaviors on and off since the beginning of last school year. She

does well for a while and then they come back. As far as I know, she doesn't do

these things at school. I know that she did them in her preschool last year. One

idea that I was given was to let her chew gum or eat crunchy foods. Last year,

they gave me a rubber-like tube for her to chew on. I didn't really like that

idea. I will ask her teacher and therapists about these behaviors again. I hope

we can get our daughters to find other behaviors to keep themselves content and

happy.

Toni Wells <mommybizz@...> wrote:

Maybe I wasn't quite clear. That happens when I'm going 5 directions at

once. :-)

Hope isn't a typical apraxic late talker, if there is such a thing. She's

autistic and she turns 5 in May. As fast as her behavior goes, in general

she does very well. A simple redirection ( i.e. Hope you need to finish

this) and she's fine. However if she's bored (i.e. the work is too easy) she

starts to self-stim, like getting up and spinning in circles, hopping and

saying she's a bunny, severe echolalia, or chewing on her hair. That's why

if she goes to a regular class she'll have an aide with her to get her to

stop those things. In an autistic class, they already have teacher aides in

place to handle any students who start to stim or need some extra help.

Would another year improve her behavior? Probably not. We're trying to

teach her other things instead of the stims she currently has, at least

something less disruptive. But it's a long process. Where she came up with

chewing on her hair, I have no idea. That's a new one that popped up in the

last few weeks, but when it showed up the bunny hop thing has decreased. So

maybe she's replacing it with hair chewing.

The " they " is the school district. While it isnt their choice where she

would be best served, they do have to make a recommendation. After the

district makes the recommendation, we take that to our team (who already has

their daily reports on her progress and behaviors, and the reports from the

Children's Hospital Developmental Unit with their current evaluations of

Hope) and they make their recommendation. After I get the recommendations,

it's my call what happens. The team we have working with Hope now is out of

the Pressley Ridge schools ( http://www.pressleyridge.org/state/pa.html )

Yes I'm in PA, and luckily as soon as Hope is registered with the school

district that ends the association with the IU at least directly. Not that

they've been bad, but getting any information out of them or changes has

been like pulling teeth.

the only motor skills Hope has a problem with are oral, she has difficulty

jumping forward, and she has trouble throwing a ball. So motor skills isnt

a big issue as far as school is concerned. She's still getting occupational

therapy to help her get caught up on those, but her difficulties shouldnt be

a problem in school. Her speech has now progresed to where she's on the

level of 32 months. Can you tell we just had our private evaluation done

this year? lol Fine motor she's at 60 months. Where her psychologist

thinks we'll run into the problem is cognative she's at 70 months and her IQ

test had her slightly above average. At the time of the evaluation they put

her at 57 months of age.

Our team says they feel Hope would do well in a regular class with an aide.

But she would also do very well in an autistic class since she would have

some assistance, but would also have to depend on the methods she's being

taught to stop her stims on her own. After the district comes up with thier

idea of where she would be placed, then we can compare that and the details

as far as therapy sessions with what our team came up with. So far they're

taking her current preschool teacher's recommendation to heart and barring

any of the evaluations coming up really low (which from the looks of the

results from the private evals they wont), they'll probably go with her

recommendation. which was for the autistic class. It was our team's

recommendation not to stay in the IU or to wait until she's 6.

Hope is a whole bunch of contradictions. She can read short books (like the

Scholastic book club Nick Jr books). She can solve 100 peice puzzles in

about an hour, but she just learned how to put her socks on by herself and

still needs help snapping or buttoning her pants. What does it mean down

the road? who knows. Maybe something will just click and she'll finally

" get " these things. Maybe she'll be a 30 year old computer wiz who still

needs help getting dressed. She has the ability to learn the things. If she

does or not is the unknown, so we keep trying to teach her those things and

hope she'll pick them up. But at the same time we dont stress out over the

things she can't do, we dont make a big deal out of them when she needs

help, and we help her find ways to get around what she can't do.

Does that help clear up where I'm coming from?

Toni - mom to Hope, 4, and Faith, 3.

" If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he

hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however

measured or far away. - Henry Thoreau