Intervention...

I have a student this year, he's 5 years old. He has been diagnosed with ADHD. He also has many of the major and minor signs of autism. We noticed this when he started with us in September. He is highly intelligent in specific areas-(numbers, letters, shapes), lines objects up-(cars are a big one) repeatedly and then doesn't do anything with them, will do the same thing for hours, does not handle transitions well, eye contact is minimal at best, does not understand verbal instructions, cannot generalize at all, everything he learns is basically through rote memorization and has pretty much no meaning to him, he cannot handle having his hands or arms touched, his fine and gross motor skills are poor and showing very little improvement, he is very clumsy, and probably the biggest one, his social skills are extremely delayed. He does not seem to understand social cues, obvious and subtle. Like if a child tells him no, he will do it anyways and then not understand when the child gets mad at him. He will just reach over and grab something out of another kids hand and not understand why it was wrong. He will get into kids faces all the time, yell out things at inappropriate times, etc.

We've been trying to work with him, but when you have a child where nothing generalizes from one situation to the next and it has no meaning to him, it is very hard to explain things and teach appropriate behavior from inappropriate behavior. I have talked to my supervisor about my concerns, and she agrees that he does have autistic tendencies and needs to be evaluated by a specialist. My supervisor has been talking to the mom and dad about getting him tested-(this is a very slow process because mom and dad are against the idea that something is wrong with their child-case in point, they're 3 year old has perfect hearing but does not talk-not one single word-and they just took her to the Dr. for it 2 weeks ago) Our boss, however, is another story. She basically wrote us off and told us that it wasn't our problem. The staff at the center is basically frustrated with him-(he is definately not an easy child to work with day in and day out)-and a few of the younger teachers just flat out won't work with him at all. Which puts more pressure on the other teachers because we have to pick up the slack.

I don't know what to do. I am not in a position to talk to his mom about it because I am an assistant teacher. My supervisor, as I said, has been trying to talk to his mom about getting some kind of intervention but right now it's pretty much at a stand still. I see this kid struggling every day to just comprehend the basic routine that we have had since he started. After 5 months he just doesn't get it. I'm worried that he is going to get into an elementary school and then just be pushed through because nobody wants to deal with him--but he tries so hard to 'do it right'-he's just not sure what 'right' is. In addition to that, elementary schools aren't required to test for delay's until 3rd grade, and if a parent wants testing done earlier-they have to pay for it, and it isn't cheap. This kid needs intervention now, not in 4 years. I'm really having trouble with this because I know something is going on with him and he needs intervention but I'm walking a very fine line with my boss right now as it is, so throwing this into the mix is almost sure to get me less hours at work--which, as selfish as it sounds, I really can't afford right now. So, what do I do?

Creative Expression...

I try to promote creative expression in my preschoolers. I don't ask them to paint something specific, I just let them paint. The same goes for drawing, building with blocks, singing, writing, ect. I will ask them what they are painting, drawing, building, or writing but I don't limit them by saying "you have to paint, write, build _____." That said, I do have my limits for what I consider to be appropriate creative expression-and it doesn't always match what some parents think is appropriate creative expression, as I found out today.

We have this boy in our preschool class. He's 4, very intelligent, cute as a button, and has a very impressive imagination. Today he came in with his mom, got his stuff off, and washed his hands. Then he came out of the bathroom and started yelling/screaming, in various pitches, random vowels and consonants. No real words at all, just completely random. At the time I was talking to his mom. After a minute or 2 of these random vocalizations I turned around a said, "K***, please stop, you are hurting our ears. You can do that when we are outside." Then I turned back to his mom, intending on continuing the coversation. She says to me, "Oh, that's his way of 'creatively expressing himself', he does it all the time at home."

Okay, now I understand that kids need creative outlets, and that they can be loud. But honestly, I don't want to listen to a high pitched squeal of random letters at 7:30 in the morning. I don't want to listen to it period, but there is a time and a place for it-(like outside)-if that's what he needs to do to 'creatively express' himself, regardless of how I feel out it.

So, for those parents and teachers out there, what do your kids do to creatively express themselves?

Winter Olympics....

Ah yes, it's here again. I have many memories of sitting in front of the television until all hours of the night just to watch the US Olympic Team compete. I love the winter olympics. I'm a winter sport fanatic, probably due to the fact that I've lived in the sub zero temperatures of the upper peninsula of Michigan my whole life. We have winter from October-April/May so winter sports are huge here. One memory that comes to the surface everytime the winter olympics come around is me and my sister's attempt at bobsledding.

I was 5 at the time, my sister was 7. We had been watching bobsledding the night before with our parents...it was our favorite sport. So the next day my sister and I got the brilliant idea to go bobsledding, problem was we didn't have a track. After a short brain storming session, we figured the 20 or so stairs leading from the second to the ground floor would be a sufficient track for our first time out.

Grabbing our wonderful 2-person lime green sled we set out up the stairs to become bobsledder's. Once at the top of the stairs we got the sled in place. My sister put on her gear; a helmet and pads. I had no gear but the jeans and sweatshirt I was wearing that day. We loaded up into the sled. I, of course, was in the front...I became my sister's airbag. "Ready?" I asked, "Yup" she replied. "Okay!" I said excitedly. "Wait wait wait! I forgot something!" she yells. Out of the sled she goes, bounding through the hallway door and into our bedroom. I sat there in the sled, excited about bobsledding. She came back with a pillow off of my bed and proceeded to place it between us-extra padding for her. "Okay, now we're ready." she says. We count down, "One, two three!" and off we go. Down the old wooden, but very sturdy, steps of our victorian style house.

The ride was awesome people, absolutely awesome! We got closer and closer to the bottom of the steps. The excitement was starting to turn into panic at this point because there is solid wall a meer 3 feet from the bottom of the "track." Of course, being 5 & 7, we didn't take this into account while we were at the top of the stairs. In addition to the wall, there is a cast iron radiator almost 3 feet tall to the left of the bottom of the stairs. We missed the radiator and crashed into the wall at full speed. My sister, of course, was fine--she had all that padding on, remember? Me on the other hand, I came out of it with a bloody lip and a loose tooth-(also bleeding).

While all of this was taking place my parents were working in their office. Due to all of the noise, my dad came running out of the office to find us in a heap, me with blood coming out of my mouth, my sister in full gear, and our sled broken almost completely in 2. He looked at us in sheer amazement--either wondering what to say or why he had such stupid offspring. Then he found his voice, "What the HELL are you two doing?" he screamed. I looked him in the eye, smiled real big and said "We're bobsledding!" while spraying blood on his pants.

We weren't allowed to watch bobsledding for the rest of the winter olympics that year.

#1 Reason I Want To Move South...

SNOW!!!!!! We are in the midst of a white out/blizzard right now and let me tell you, it sucks. The wind is ridiculously cold and the snow is blowing like crazy. Everything on the Canadian side of the river is closed, just about everything on the American side of the river is closed, and all schools within 50 miles of this place are closed. That is, all schools except for the University that I attend. Yes, all of the head start, elementary, secondary, and colleges are closed except for the one that I attend. Gotta love it! The university decided to close at 3pm. Okay, classes start at 8am, the weather is just the same now as it was this morning at 7:30 and it's the same as it was last night before I went to bed. I don't understand the thought processes that go on at that school, I really don't. There has been no change in weather and now they decide to close the school. What gives? Anyways, I want to move south...I don't care how far south, just south. I don't like lake effect snow or blizzards. 21 years of this is long enough for me.

Confidence

I've noticed something weird lately. I am not as confident as I used to be. Now, I've never really been an over-confident person but last semester at school I generally felt that I had a handle on things. When I would take an exam I was confident going into it that I knew the information and would do well on the exam. Most times I would do fairly well on the exams and every once and awhile I would do better then I expected. This semester though I am questioning myself more. I go into exams feeling under-studied and no where near as prepared as I should be. I don't speak up in class even though I know the answer for the fear that I might be wrong. So today, I sat down and thought about it, where this lack of confidence is coming from. After mulling over it for awhile I realized that I become less confident in myself after I've been home for awhile. I spent almost 3 months at home with my mother last year before coming back to school and, though my mother is not a bad person, she definately is not one to lift you up.

Now, that being said....I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'm not sure if I should just let it go and hope that the confidence will come back if I just give it time....or do something else. If I should do something else, then I need to figure out what to do. I mean, obviously I can start by speaking up in class more and not questioning myself more but what if that doesn't work? And if it does work, what happens when I go home again? How do I prevent this from happening again?

It's just amazing to me how one person can change the way you look at yourself and feel about yourself in a short period of time. I mean, I know that she's never going to think I'm good enough, or I tried hard enough, or that I deserve the things that I have earned. But knowing that stuff doesn't seem to change the way I feel. It still effects me, as much as I try to deny that it does, I know it does--the people around me know it does, and she probably knows it does too. Just something to think about for the week I guess. Happy SuperBowl Sunday!

Patience.....Running.....Low...

That's how I felt during the last hour of work today. The kids were absolutely hyper, just bouncing off the walls. We had the kids dance for a good hour to wear them out, it worked. But one kid in particular just kept pushing the teacher's buttons & nothing we tried worked. Time outs didn't work-(he'd throw the chair), redirection didn't work-(he'd hit you), speaking to him didn't work-(he'd spit at you), absolutely nothing. Then he chilled out a little bit when we all did art before the parents got there--that is until he decided to suck on the markers-(he's 5). So his mom called and asked us to get him ready to go because she was on her way. The job fell to me today, so off we went to the cubbies to get him ready. After throwing a tantrum about getting ready to go home, I got him to put his legs in his snowpants. Then he decided that he didn't want his feet to be out of his snowpants. That was another tantrum. Then he didn't want his snowpants zipped up. Yet another tantrum. I was beyond my limit at this point so I took his hand off the zipper and went to zip it up myself. While zipping his snowpants up I managed to catch part of his finger in the zipper. So then off we go to the office, him screaming bloody murder the whole time, to get a bandaid. Then there was another tantrum in the office because he didn't want a plain band-aid-(it's all we had). Then the boots went on-another tantrum, coat went on-another tantrum, hat went on-guess what happened--yes, yet another tantrum from a 5 year old. FIVE!

In short, my patience was shot by the time I left work tonight. I seriously just wanted to scream and I don't often get to that point-(in fact this is only the second time in 2 years that I've ever felt like that). For those teacher's out there, how do you handle this??? I'm really at a loss, I just get so frustrated because we go through this about everything, all day. By the end of the day I just want him gone. I know that sounds horrible, but it's the truth. I just don't want to deal with it after a certain point. Maybe tomorrow will be better.