My daughter has not been diagnosed with anything. We have a meeting with her teacher, principal, school counselor and a few other people tomorrow. Here is a description of my 8 year old daughter. I have always noticed “problems” with her. When she was 4 years old, we started working on preschool stuff. I have never had a worse experience in my life. And it has gone downhill since. During that time, 4 years ago, I told my husband that there was something going on in her brain. He told me she was probably just not ready to learn the things I was trying to teach her(which was basic preschool stuff). So I figured maybe he was right. But as the years have gone by, all of the little things have turned into big things. All of a sudden everything I said wasn’t right with her, my husband is finally seeing. It ranges from severe problems with math at school(she had to repeat first grade, which is where she now) to lying, stealing, disobeying, bad personal hygiene(I have lost count on how many times I have showed her how to wipe since she was potty trained at 3½). You can be talking directly to her face to face and she just looks like she is in another world and you end up repeating yourself cause she wasn’t even listening. This is a constant thing. The most frustrating thing for my husband is her babbling. There is hardly an occassion when she speaks a sentence that makes sense. One of her sentences can consist of about 4 or 5 different thoughts. It is like she doesn’t even think before she talks, it all just comes rolling out. Drives my husband nuts. It has been like that since she learned to speak more than a couple of words. Another thing that drives him nuts is that she can’t get our names right. Well, she will be speaking to me and start with Daddy, I mean Mommy….. and vice versa. She will look directly at me but still start talking to me by calling me daddy and have to correct herself. She cries over everything. She is the most sensitive child I have ever met…..besides myself…LOL. If we even slightly raise our voices to her she has a complete meltdown. She is horrible to her sisters and brother. She threatens to “beat them up until they bleed” if they don’t do what she wants. If they do something she doesn’t approve of, then they are not her friend anymore. She has started slapping her sisters. The thing is she slaps them, realizes that they are going to tell on her, then she says she is sorry. Trying to convince them not to tell because she knows she will get in trouble.
Our huge struggle with school is math. She had to repeat first grade. Now her second year of first grade is almost over and she is no further along in math than when she started. I kept telling her teacher that she was having problems and she kept telling me to use flashcards with her at home. UGH! Not helping. So finally I sent a note to school with Miranda to give to her teacher. I told her teacher that I was extrememly concerned that Miranda was going to be held back again because of her inability to learn basic math. So her teacher called me immediately. She set up a meeting with us, herself, school counselor, and a psychologist.
What does this sound like. I have had some people tell me ADHD, some bipolar, some ODD, and etc, etc. What should I be asking about tomorrow at the meeting. I want to be prepared as much as possible.
Thank you
Heather
Re: What does this sound like to you??
I’m with Beth on this, I would have her evaluated privately, not just math but the language issues as well. Eight year old children generally don’t babble.
You may need to still go ahead with school evaluation to see if she qualifies for special education services (at the least you could get accommodations for her while you seek private help) but a private eval may be more helpful in getting all the pieces of the puzzle figured out.
Amy
Sometimes the inability to learn math facts is related to sequencing issues but there is clearly more than that going on here. Personally, I would seek an outside evaluation for her. The school can,with testing, tell you that she is behind in math but in my experience won’t do a good job of telling you the underlying processing issues. I think this is especially true with a child who has difficulty with math rather than reading. Language based disabilities are much more common and that is what the school is used to dealing with.
Dyscalcia is the technical term used to refer to math disabilities. Math disabilities also can be part of a constellation of weaknesses referred to as nonverbal learning disabilities. These term can be used generically to refer to any nonlanguage based disability or can be used to refer to a specific syndrome called Nonverbal Learning Disability. My son was son has nonverbal learning disabilities (comprehension difficulties, visual perceptual, small motor, weak social skills) but not of the severity of the syndrome. Look in LD in depth to see if this sounds like your child. Attention issues often go along with this syndrome.
Being held back a second time will not help. She needs to be taught differently. And flash cards won’t do it with a kid like yours. The emotional stuff could just be due to her feeling overwhelmed because school as presently taught is not a good fit for her.
Beth