COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED...
Once again I have to look at what that PRIOR PIECE OF SHIT SCHOOL failed at. I've been doing homeschool with Tommy for a week now. One week. 4 days to be exact. In 4 days, I've figured out his 'trend'.
Day 1- we have all the information
Day 2- whoops! dropped some info.. review review review
Day 3- gone. "FOOTBALL?"
Can I suggest something? When you're approaching your school with problems of comprehension... nevermind.. I HAVE NOTHING!
-smh-
For 5 years.. I kept telling those motherFUCKERS that "his comprehension is NOT getting better". SO they focus on teaching comprehension.
"HEY MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!! HOW ABOUT TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY THERE IS NO RETENTION??"
We start the neuro-psych eval next week. NOW we'll get to the bottom of this.. IF there is a bottom TO this.
How can you have a student for 5 years and NOT see this??? In the 5 years, 4 of the years was with the SAME teacher!!!!!!!!!! HOW DOES THIS GO UNSEEN?!?!
OMG my stomach is on fire. Tears stream down my face as I type. I want to punch each one of those motherfuckers in the throat for pushing Tommy aside as UNTEACHABLE and moving on to the nicer more teachable kids. They're so not worth going to jail for. Let me rephrase that. They ARE worth going to jail for.. they're certainly not worth the BAIL it would cost to get me out.
I hope karma rips them a giant NEW asshole.. LITERALLY! I wish eternal explosive horrific diarrhea on each and every one of those motherfuckers.
Dear Monarch School for Autism-
We are dealing with the comprehension piece now, too. We had a neuropsych done last year, and we knew this was probably coming. I have to go back and look at what it said, but I know it said we were set on a course for issues with it..nothing like sitting around waiting for it to hit. The school doesn't seem to really get it, either. They know, but really have no plan (even though I KNOW the psych said there was a specific program they could use. Her teachers seem to have no clue, nor have they asked the psych even though I have TOLD.THEM.TO). A lot does come into play surrounding the comprehension piece, though. We just sat down with the autism person to discuss it last week and there is a shit ton we have to do. It goes beyond just general comprehension, and really has a lot to do with the core deficits of Autism itself...and it's all very confusing and I have no clue what we are doing...yeeeaaah....(sorry that was pretty incoherent...ha)
ReplyDeleteNot incoherent at all!! That was my cry-fest this morning.. WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO!! She swears this neuro-psych will have more answers for us. The school kept saying we didn't NEED this testing so as a gullible freak that I am I signed off and WAVED the testing. I'm so glad i am in THIS district that actually gives a shit. We only have 4 more years to do something with this. I know 4 years sounds like a long time.. but with the deficits that we're seeing.. I don't know. I can't even think that far down the road.
DeleteI really.. REALLY had no idea it was THIS bad. I mean.. i knew and had SCREAMED that his comprehension was lacking but.. never ONCE.. did they even HINT that it was this bad. This.. AUTISM SPECIFIC school. NOTHING. BASTARDS.
As someone who recently suffered a bout of weekend long explosive horrific diarrhea. . . I know just how angry you must be to wish this eternity on them.
ReplyDeleteI hope the neuro-psych offers some answers for you, Rhonda.
Thanks Jim. Lifelong explosive diarrhea isn't even enough in my world. It's just the worse thing I could think of. :/
DeleteThanks.
How many ways can I say THANK YOU for this post? I feel awful that you are at this crossroad now at Tommy's age but you know what to do. I would not know that neuropsychology would be the way to go for the comprehension issue. That's kinda what I was writing about with the "out of focus" stuff too - it's definitely part ADHD for us but when I was doing homework with T the last two days, he could not do "less than" and "more than" which was a program ABA supposedly "mastered" with him just about 2 months ago! WTF? He's not retaining it. I've seen this over and over with different programs they "master" and then - oops - he can't do it anymore. You've really pointed me to something I need to look into. I've already started googling and put in a phone call to our neurologist.
ReplyDeleteI've just started reading but found this as a basic - http://aspergercenter.com/articles/Smart-Isnt-Everything.pdf Hmm- what a surprise - school based neuropsych evals may not help... I will come back and share with you if I can find more - meanwhile - if you have an extra pitchfork and torch, I'll be your backup!!!
I'm so glad this could help you Karen. My main purpose was to get this off of my chest. Since writing this, and calling many parents.. i'm finding this to be more of a trend for ASD kids. Something I've never known before (because our wonderfully shitty school never brought this to my attention. Like you, Tommy mastered things, and dumped them. There was no maintenance on things). When I called my district yesterday (hysterically crying.. how do you fix or WORK with this in only 3 years. we only have 3 years left in the school system!) She notified me that she ordered for a specific neuropsych that specializes in autism and reassured me that this test will give me the answers i and THEY need.
DeleteSo now.. thinking about.. all of these regressions he's had. 2 years ago he could write script so beautifully. Now I have to correct his pencil holding. 2 years ago he could cut with scissors. Yesterday, i bought the scissors with the spring built in to make it easier. I can't make high or low of this. To be honest.. its scaring the shit out of me. Not because of WHAT is happening.. its that its taken THIS LONG for me to realize this.
That teacher had him for 4 years. The SAME teacher. I homeschooled him for 4 days, and realized there was a GIANT problem here. The FURY that is in my veins Karen.. i can't put it into words. I can't wait to get to therapy Tuesday.
They've moved the eval up and will be starting it next week. I'll be giving everybody updates on here for sure.
This scares me too. I called our neurologist and asked if a neuropsych eval would be appropriate for T. I haven't heard back yet - long story but your blog did get me to start thinking about all the hints I've been getting that we are heading down the same path. I don't know if it can be "fixed" do you? I read a study that shows retention of information by autistics can be facilitated with the use of Oxytocin - have you heard about this? It's a study from 2007... http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223%2806%2900729-3/abstract?source=aemf
DeleteWill check back in for updates. Thanks Rhonda.
I have not heard about that.. i am headed over there to read it now. Yes, this is becoming something VERY noticeable in my local community. I had a nice little breakdown over it. It's scary as HECK!!! My district head keeps reassuring me that the neuroEval (which you can get the school to do = pay for) will give me the answers i want. While I am accepting that for face value.. i am expecting the test to tell me just how bad the deficits are I have a gut feeling that I will not learn WHY this is happening. Cant wait to read this article
DeleteThat article seems to talk about immediate retention.. We're having a problem with long term retention. Long term being.. 3 days. I call it the 3 day dump. He's got it.. He's got some of it, then its gone.
DeleteAnd I'm a little late to the party but totally feel you. Trying to tell them comprehension is a hard one because they just don't get it. They're all, "well he can read, so what's the problem?" And I'm all, "but he doesn't understand what he just read, don't you see that?!?" And they're all, "No."
ReplyDeleteThat's about where I loose my shit in frustration. I'm with you. I wish I had more than my support, shoulder and hugs (I almost typed jugs) to offer.
I've been screaming this for 5 damn years. hahahaa jugs.
DeleteMy district swears this neuropsych eval will answer my questions. Supposed to start in 2 days.
Wow. NOt sure what to say other than that just reading this made me furious right along with you.
ReplyDeleteYour last part about explosive diarrhea made me laugh. This post is not about making us laugh of course but I just had a visual of this and it was funny.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad to see that they just brush a child aside as difficult to teach. Seriously, my son's teacher and I communicate via email, meetings and work together for solutions and agree on things that stump us. Neither of us have all the answers but we don't give up.
Oh. my. god.
ReplyDeleteI am *so* sorry. I'm an anime lover, so you immediately made me giggle with your top picture. You wiped the smile off my face pretty quick, let me tell ya!! I'm with you. I wish I could ring your doorbell, smiling brightly with a couple of baseball bats and be all "C'mon! Let's go!"
**hugs**
you're awesome :) Thanks so much. My daughter is a HUGE anime fan. Not sure which one that pic came from.. i was searching for a picture that could be the example of just HOW pissed I am lol That came close.
Delete((hugs))) thanks again :)
I know this comment is coming in really late, but was wondering if you have ever had him do a full 24 hour eeg with sleep study to check for epilepsy - because there is a kind of epilepsy that mainly / only occurs during SLEEP - so you never see a seizure during the day, and it doesn't wake them up but does disturb the sleep cycle so they get much less REM sleep than is necessary for the brain to do its job correctly which during sleep is to... lay down memories and solidify learning.
ReplyDeleteA friend's son was having tremendous learning and cognition issues, then they discovered he had this kind of epilepsy. On effective anti-epileptic meds now, he is FINALLY able to retain information. And epilepsy is co-morbid with autism about 25% of the time (little known thing)
Hi Varda- actually We've tested him 3 times. Twice, a horribly forced hour each and then finally we spent 5 days hooked up to the EEG in the hospital. Tommy shows all of the SIGNS, however he's never been able to show any activity during an eeg. Interesting right? One of the medications he's on is Lamectal which is used for Seizures as well as a mood stabilizer so the docs feel they're (as well as I) feel we're covering both basis with that medication. We especially treat him as such when my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy 2 summers ago. I suspected some sort of seizures about 10 years ago. Now, to retest him at the SIZE he is now with his sensory issues.. would be a physical disaster. So, we will continue to treat him as such unless something else happens.
Delete