that we see the pediatrician to determine our next steps. We are looking into having Liam evaluated for things like auditory processing disorder or possibly ADD, if he isn't too young. We have seen some improvements, both at home and at school, but I think a lot of that is because we have all been using techniques to help Liam work through things. Like getting right in his face to talk to him, having him repeat things back to us, having him do jumping jacks to get the "wiggles" out, having him close his eyes and count to 10 with deep breathing to trying and center himself when he seems "wired".
What we are hoping for today is to find out if we are going down the right path, what steps we should take next and how to ensure that we (and his teachers) are using the best tools and techniques to help him succeed. He has 3 months of pre-school left, off for 12 weeks of summer vacation and then he will be going into the kindergarten programme. We are so glad that we made the decision to not put him in kindergarten this year. I think he would have been too frustrated to be able to give it his "best work".
We just want to make sure that he does the best he can and that we do whatever me need to to help him.
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4 comments:
Andy I would be REALLY Surprised if they test for APD and seriously I do not think an ADD diagnosis is able or should be done at his young age. I think you and DO are doing great things with him...there are a lot of these thing that boys at this age do that are a like...Spencer is really Liam's big brother in this regard...I have some links on ADD and APD if you are interested...Spencer has made great strides here at the end of first grade...how old is Liam..when is his birthday...Spencer is a young smart as a whip first grader he will not turn 7 until 2 weeks before school starts...Second grade...the beginning of the year is soo hard for him but mid year we begin to see changes...if you ever want to talk IRL on the phone let me know...I would love to talk about this stuff with you...
Debi
thank Debi,
Liam is 5.5, he'll be 6 in July, so will be 6 when he starts kindergartedn.
Andy - You know that I already think you guys are making all the right moves on Liam's behalf, whatever dx they might come up with! :) At our house, Emma calls it getting her "sillies" out when she needs to bounce on her mini-tramp or run around or what-have-you.
A couple other calming and centering strategies you might not have tried yet: kid yoga and kid burritos. Emma can often calm and quiet down after doing just a few yoga poses (she learns them with kid names, like they call the "corpse" pose "lay down dolly" instead...), and if she's really overwrought, we will wrap her in a blanket (aka Emma Burrito) and then put "toppings" on her - doing pressure like spreading the salsa and sour cream - and then she goes from being a burrito to a butterfly hatching out of a cocoon and unwraps herself at the end.
You might get other good ideas from the book "The Out-of-Sync Child has Fun" which I took out of the library so many times, I finally bought it.
:) (((hugs)))
love the out of sync child forgot al about it...Liam is in the same place Spencer was he turned 6 on August 9 two weeks before school started but we did send him...glad that we did too...we all make the choices that are good for what we see in our child every day.
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