Updates from the past week or so:
The twins had their school district evaluations. B's was either depressing or funny, depending on my mood as I look back on it. There were 5 well-intentioned women, coming at him at all different angles, trying to do a cognitive, speech and motor assessment concurrently. I think one woman was an intern... she kept chasing B. around the room with some little blocks, saying "Can you give me a block?"
B. ended up very giggly and wild, jumping around and singing "Mail!" (his latest obsession, by way of Blue's Clues). He basically did nothing for them. I heard one woman say to another "Have you seen him gaze at an object for five seconds?" Now, B. might not be much at the usual academic tasks, but he definitely has extended gazing down, when he's not completely over-stimulated.
At the end, just to show them a little of what he is capable of in calmer settings, I did the manual alphabet, and he said the letters up to "g", when he started skipping around and then said "sing with me...Yay!" They seemed to think this was miraculous, which I guess it would seem to be if you've watched someone jump around a room for 90 minutes singing the word "Mail".
Wow, didn't know I had that in me. Guess it's still bothering me. Anyway, I called the diagnostician and suggested that they have fewer people in the room when testing G. They listened, and G. actually was able to concentrate fairly well. He still did what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it (including a very lengthy rendition of Old McDonald in a kind of Darth Vader voice), but he did do some of what they were looking for.
On the junk food front, B learned to say "fry", as in french fry.
J. is completely caught up in the Christmas excitement this year. Almost nightly, we drive to a neighbor's house and sit in front of their yard with the windows rolled down, listening to a cycle of three Christmas carols, in time with which a multitude of lights flash on and off. J. tries to sing along, which sounds great except for one which he thinks is "Pop Goes the Weasel". I think it's really "On Christmas Day in the Morning".
He is also very interested in taking pictures. Some of his efforts are below:
8 comments:
Love the pictures you pain with your words and the pictures your little guy took.
Keep us posted on what the outcome of the evals are!
I meant to say "paint" not pain ...
Geez! :)
I never know which is worse, the unsettling period whilst they're evaluated or the results with the 'deficits'? Or is that just me?
Best wishes
This is my calling card or link"Whittereronautism"until blogger comments get themselves sorted out.
Oh I hate the evals. Hate them!! I can't imagine what you describe. Poor kid. Five people at once! Anyone would have a hard time with that.
Love the photos, by the way!
Evaluations are always insane. And as you demonstrated, how can we completely trust that they evals are accurate assessments?
And Pop goes the Weasel is one of my favorite Christmas songs!
I would like to chase them around the room barking orders at them:) Gosh, why do we have to do these things? Yes, Cotton is very into singing jingle bells, and of course the song ends eieioooooo!
Pain may have been more appropaite!
Love the pictures, especially the last one. reat eye for composition at such a tender young age! ;-)
Ugh, don't get me started on evals. Nik had one this week. I learned a lesson from it though —ask for what I know he needs in advance. In this case it would have been extra time onthe front end to help him calm and settle, as well as time to explore the new environment. Nik gets totally overwhelmed in a new environment and gets really rammy, giddy, throws things just for the feeling or the sound...it's ugly. So OF COURSE he tests on the lower end of things.
The picture of the intern chasing B around...too funny! I keep telling myself these are only snapshots taken on "bad hair days" and they don't really mean jack about who my kid is and what he's capable of.
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