harstad happenings

Yesterday was my regular meeting with Jonah's teacher, speech therapist, and physical therapist. We met to discuss Jonah's goals for the school year and what type of progress is being made. Here is the breakdown.

Socially

• Jonah has adjusted to the classroom well and has two friends that he talks to and plays with. He will only parallel play with the others and chooses not to talk with them.

• He likes the play kitchen the most. That said, there isn't anything he doesn't enjoy at school.

• Jonah still will not greet or say goodbye to anyone. This is something that is a real struggle and is due purely to stubbornness and a unwillingness to do what one should. A perfect blend of his mom and dad. Whoops!

Speech

• Jonah has only met one goal, has not achieved one goal, and is "making progress" on the remainder.
  
• Unfortunately, he has really clammed up with this speech therapist, and she gets very little out of him. To get him to talk, they have to pull out a check mark/sticker reward chart. This isn't a big deal since all the kids started out with one, but he is the only one left using one, and that is the big deal. We've decided to up the ante and have the teachers insist on more from him before he gets a check mark on his chart. Jonah is the type that is a master at manipulation, and will do the bare minimum to get the same result. He really is all about the shortcuts. So, we have to make him work harder. It works at home, and I am hoping it will help him make progress.
• Some of you may wonder what exactly they work on with him. Currently, they are (and have been) working on initial (that is the starting sound) 's' and 'f' sounds, 's' blends ('st', 'sm', 'sp'), and final 'n' and 't' sounds. They just started working on the hard 'k' sound, but this is not going well and will most likely be a long process to incorporate the sound into words. Thankfully, he can do it in isolation, which can be hard enough for some kids.
  

Physically

• We still have a ways to go. There are no concerns with the occupational therapist (fine motor skills), but he works with the PT several times a week for his gross motor.
  
• Jonah can now pedal a tricycle, but cannot steer and pedal at the same time.
  
• He is now jumping perfect nearly all the time, but is unable to do this in large groups, and isn't able to get much height.
  
• They will work on climbing once the weather is better for the playground.
  
• His running is also coming along, but like all the others, is not on par with this peers.

In general, the group feels that many of Jonah's real struggles are due to internal processing and organizing. As an example, I couldn't understand why Jonah can jump with no problems alone, or in a small group, but not in a large group. The consensus is that his brain needs to process too many things at once. It needs to process who is there, what is happening, how it is happening, why it is happening. Then it needs to process how to join in. But that requires processing how exactly to jump. But if the situation requires talking, well then he needs his brain to focus on that. It's is just so much for him to do at once, so he instead needs to focus on one thing at a time. He chooses to observe. For family, this probably doesn't surprise you one bit I am sure as we all know he has been an 'observer' since he was a little baby.

In the end, they love having him. He really keeps them on their toes as they haven't had a kid so strong willed, manipulative (and I mean that in the kindest way), and shy before. The teacher has noticed a tremendous difference in his interaction with her since she came to our house for a home visit. We will have the speech therapist come soon to see if this helps him too. We find that if someone comes over, he is far more trusting and willing to interact with them. Unfortunately, we need to be extremely cautious about the timing of this because we don't want to skew his test results.

The SLP and the PT will both do their full assessments on him once he turns 4, in April. The PT has told me straight out that there is no way he will pass this as he has trouble with the 3 year old one. The SLP thinks that he won't do fantastic on her assessment, but that is mostly due to his shyness with her (which is why we have watch when she comes over).

To get funding for school next year (which by the way, we REALLY want unless he miraculously gets through this before then), Jonah either needs to be rated as 'severe' in one area, or 'moderate' to 'severe' in two areas. He will be rated as moderate for gross motor skills, so with that and his speech, there is a good chance he will be back to school in the fall. He is currently rated as 'severe' for phonological delay and expressive delay.

Aye.