School District Evaluation

Today has been a big day! McKenna had her big eval by the school district to determine qualification for their early intervention preschool. The big news is- she did well! Very very well. So well that it's not looking like she'll qualify. At least that's what the 3 women who were involved in the process hinted at.

I am having lots of mixed feelings and emotions. So hopefully writing this will help me sort them out.

First of all we will not know for sure for about a month. We have a scheduled meeting at the end of April to discuss today's eval and if she qualifies, make an IEP. If she does not qualify then I guess we'll be discussing that.

They administered the PLS4 (Preschool Language Scale-4). McKenna definitely performed for them today. She sat right down at the little desk and was very focused and deliberate. After about 20 minutes they had everything they expected to have and then kept going. They ended up going to a 3 1/2 year level- so 1 year ahead- and that's where they stopped after joking she was going to test into kindergarten. They raved about her focus and concentration, how she held her pencil correctly and how controlled she was while drawing, how cute and sweet she was, how much she clearly comprehended and understood. They were impressed with her vocabulary. They did make a comment on her articulation being inconsistent. And there was a few times they did not understand her.

I made sure they knew how hard we had worked to get to this place. I told them how it's always been very clear that she is not delayed in her receptive language, but that it is the huge gap between her receptive and expressive that we are concerned about. They were extremely complementary of me. With statements like, "Wow- it is clear that you have done an amazing job with her!" and "This is what is possible with hard work and early intervention!"

I am thrilled! It was so amazing to have an eval with McKenna where the report was not negative. It was uplifting and rewarding for all of our work over the past year be recognized and praised. I had tears of joy. I also feel a lot of pride in McKenna. She works hard and is very smart!

So why mixed emotions? Well I have some concerns . . .

First Steps will drop us at the end of the summer, they do not go past age 3 years. So then we will lose Ms. T. who I respect and give her the credit for McKenna's amazing improvement over the year. Children's Mercy will only work with a child for 6 months. That's their policy. They have so many children on waiting lists and usually services are being duplicated by First Steps or a School District. You can see where I'm going with this... I'm afraid that come August McKenna will suddenly be without ANYTHING. No therapy at all.

I am not okay with that. Ms. T. is not comfortable with that either.

Some of my thoughts on the test today. It tested McKenna's ability to take that test. Yes- she did well. This child has been drilled in similar ways since last summer at least once a week and since Jan twice a week and since Feb. four times a week. 4 times a week she has been drilled in similar ways. She knows exactly what is expected of her and is eager to please, participate and do well.

She is a perfectionist. She has a set vocabulary that she has drilled over and over and those words she can say without many mistakes. She speaks slowly, deliberately and carefully. She smartly and strategically uses synonyms that sound cute and age appropriate for harder words that she would struggle to say. She did that today with great skill. I noticed- they didn't.

The women today were so impressed with her receptive and even her communication skills that I don't think they were focused on the huge gap between how smart and comprehending she is and her actual "verbal" communication skill. I'm telling you McKenna could possibly have fooled them into kindergarten on that test.

What that test did not do was put her in a real world context, every day life with no prompting, no context. What that test did not reveal is that when I have no context 90% of what McKenna says I don't understand. What that test did not show is her confusion and frustration when she tries to tell me what she's upset about or what she's excited about. That test did not show how she is completely silent when her cousin Vallery comes over to play. Cole and Vallery talk and talk and talk and she says next to nothing as she plays with them. It did not show her inconsistency, how she may be able to say, "I want cheese" and then struggle to say, "two books". Or how she may say something spontaneously very easily and then struggle when she tries again.

What was revealed is that results are relative. Yes McKenna did well, she did well when compared to a lot of the children who are delayed more globally. She even did ok verbally when compared to normal children her age. BUT you have to be 50% delayed when compared to the norm to qualify- according to the states guidelines. Now I think McKenna could possibly test as high as kindergarten "receptively" but "expressively- verbally" she's barely able to keep up with kids her age. So I think there is at least a 1 year gap if not more between her expressive and receptive. I don't know if they caught that.

Of course I will discuss all of this at the meeting in a month- especially if she does not qualify.

However if she does- I'm also concerned that there be someone there who is really experienced with Apraxia. Because otherwise I'm afraid she'd be the star pupil and not pushed beyond what is expected of someone her age when she should be ahead- verbally.

Over all though- what I have realized today is that I can stop worrying about whether or not McKenna will ultimately be successful in overcoming this. If you take what she did today and blow it up on a larger scale it showed me that she will be successful. She is already working around her problem. I know there will still be hard days and I know there is still a lot of hard work ahead of her, but I am confident she will overcome!

Also if we do not qualify for help from the school district- I *WILL* find a way to keep her in speech therapy at least twice a week. I WILL. Where there is a will there is a way! I have no doubt in my mind that it is the shear amount of help I have gotten her this past year that has made such a difference for her. Everything you read about Apraxia states that the more therapy the better. That has totally been true for McKenna. The more times a week she works the more headway she makes.

Thanks for listening/reading! (-:

Love,
Amber

McKenna Singing

I took some video on my cell phone of McKenna singing last night. She was singing "Old McDonald Had A Farm". She is singing really fast. That is her approximation of all the different words. She says mostly the same words over and over, but she says them really fast. I think it makes her feel like she's saying all those words.

In this first video she says something at the very beginning that is supposed to be "eieio" . . .It's "ye ye doh..." Then she goes right into "moo moo here, moo moo here". Then she starts listing other animals. She says them each twice. I think the 2nd one is pig? The 3rd is "neigh neigh here" which is a horse. Daddy laughs with delight (He hopes McKenna does not take it the wrong way). She gets stuck on "neigh...". and then explains she's singing horsey...



This video starts with "moo moo here moo moo here" . . . then "baa baa here". In both videos she only repeats the "moo"animal sound twice so the others are "baa here" then "neigh here.." then "pig here.." then "oink here.." and that's where she gets stuck in this one- on oink...



And in both examples there are inconsistencies, various vowel sounds throw in at different places and vowel inconsistencies within the same word. For instance in the 2nd video she says, "a peg here" and then very nicely pronounces it "pig" when she repeats it.

The fact that we can even figure out what she is saying/singing is huge, a big improvement. We are very proud of her.

It is sobering for us to watch these though because somehow it just becomes more clear... her struggle . . . all of the work left for her to do.

What was also hard was McKenna wanted to see the video of herself. I watched her closely as she watched herself sing. She did not smile watching herself. Her eyebrows came together, her shoulders slumped just a little and she looked really confused. Then she just turned away and distracted herself with a toy.

Of course we praise her. We tell her she is singing so well. That she is awesome. But- she's too smart and self aware to totally believe us. She "knows" she's not where she should be. That's hard.

I think she's unbelievably cute!! I know someday she'll look back at these videos and smile. Someday . . .

Amber

Busy Girl

McKenna has a new schedule that we will try to maintain through the summer until First Steps turns McKenna over to the school district in August.

Monday 8:30 to 9:15-(in home) Occupational Therapy and Sensory Integration
Tuesday 1:45 to 2:45-(in home) Speech Therapy
Wednesday 8:30 to 9:30 (in home) Speech Therapy
Friday 8:30 to 9:15 (at Children's Mercy) Speech Therapy

These pictures are all from Christmas!

McKenna's best friend is her brother Cole.



McKenna loves her Ma! (my mom)

McKenna loves her Pa! (my dad)






I've had to write her schedule on our calendar that hangs on the wall so I can keep it straight. This will be our 1st week to do all of it. We are going to be watching her closely to make sure it's not too much. I don't anticipate it overwhelming her though. She has such an eager attitude most of the time.

Her 2nd session of OT was yesterday. Ms.C. had her make cookies. She made her touch and smell all the ingredients. McKenna did fine with ingredients that she is use to. I make cookies with her often, but only 1 recipe and I don't encourage her hands to be in the ingredients. I will now... The ingredients that she had never seen before she would literally scream and dive for me, bury her face in my shirt and refuse to touch it or smell it. She was fairly agitated and uncomfortable the whole time, but she did mostly hold it together and participate. Ms. C. is allowing Cole to participate as long as he cooperates and models good things. Cole has suspected sensory issues himself so I'm hoping some of this therapy will rub off on him. (-:

McKenna really loves her speech therapy with Ms. T. lately. She is so excited when she pulls in the driveway. She dives right in and works hard for the whole hour. Today she didn't pull away and run to me even once. She is consistently putting 3 words together and with relative ease if they are well established words. There were a few words today that gave her trouble. "Banana, Giraffe, Elephant, Gorilla.." Those are hard words though! She even said a 4 word sentence twice. "Hippo in the boat" . . . (-:

McKenna sits in what the OT calls the "w" sit. Her knees together and feet out on either side. Her OT Ms. C. does not want her to sit like that. She'd rather her sit cross legged. Today Ms. T. and I reminded her throughout the whole session. We'd say, "McKenna fix your legs please." She would say, "Oh taaay" . . . in her cute low little voice and then she would always fix her right leg and was unable to fix her left. Every time we had to pick her left leg up with our hands and turn it out so she was sitting properly. We probably did this 10 times or more throughout the hour long speech therapy session. She was very good natured about it today though so that's an improvement.

McKenna had her first appointment Friday at Children's Mercy for Speech Therapy. She met her new therapist. We will call her "Ms. A". She had McKenna trying to blow bubbles. McKenna was unable to purse her lips. We've known since before Christmas that she has reduced motion orally, but I had not really experimented much to see what she can and cannot do. Well 1 for the "cannot do" column . . . "Can't purse lips" . . . *sigh*

McKenna has been reading books to herself lately. It's cute, but a little sad. All she says page after page is ," tuma oh tuma uh" . . . Every once in a while she'll say an actual word she knows, but I've only heard her do that a few times. It sounds like, "tuma oh tuma uh night night.." or "tuma oh tuma uh hosey (horsey).

Anyway... Over all we are moving forward- slowly, but surely . . .

Amber