1st time - looking for help

Volunteering in the classroom to help out? What are his deficits that qualified him initially? Maybe the IEP team is trying to lay the ground work to get him in a more restrictive environment with teachers who have more skills to meet his intense needs? What did they say specifically that he wasn’t getting, what are his behaviors is he more inattentive/dreamy and passive or is he hyper? What are his current goals?

I am a speech pathologist who works with elementary kids and I have a lot of experience with preschool and kindergarten. Perhaps if you shared more I could give you more specific things you can do at home with him. Also perhaps you should check in getting private speech for him through your insurance. I did this for my own daughter before I became an SLP. She needed more speech therapy than the school was able to provide.

He was initially qualified for speech & language - he is behind (I think right now he is at the speech level of either a 3-4 year old). He has no problem comprehending and understand what other people say - he just has problems getting his own words out.

His major problem right now is that he is so shy that he won’t ask for help. He is an extremely passive little boy. He has never once been told (at school) to be quiet or settle down or pay attention. He just doesn’t like having attention directed at him. At home he’s a normal 6 year old boy (he runs around and is loud and starts lots of fights with his little brother). He acts like he’s scared to death of anyone he doesn’t know that well.

I didn’t know that insurance will cover speech & language - is there any advice you can give me on finding someone?

Although he is young, this child may well have an anxiety disorder that could be helped, perhaps through play therapy. I would not put his shyness down entirely to his S/L disorder or to “personality”, although it is certainly true that some of us are born more shy than others. He may also need some help with understanding the rules of social interaction. He may not understand how things work in the classroom or how to interact with teachers and other children at school. He is not too young for explicit social skills instruction, perhaps via a S/L therapist.

If you talk to your pediatrician he can make a recommendation for speech and language therapy. The insurance may balk at first saying go to the school district but the pediatrician can fight for you with the insurance building your case that he needs INTENSIVE intervention and what the school is providing isn’t enough then he would probably qualify for private therapy.

Early intervention is definitely the way to go as you are paving the way for his future. Play therapy will help him develop confidence and learn ways to interact with other children his age. When you are at home find ways to interact with him, cooking, building lego’s, forts and get him to talk with you, do things together…

However, DO NOT LET HIM go into his own little world playing by himself with his toys..Because he needs to learn to INTERACT with other people and peers and you can do this at home by setting up play groups for him and also playing with him yourself.

It sounds like he is a more passive child with a slow internal motor, a slow to warm up kind of kid who could be ADD-Inattentive, ,but it is too early to tell right now. Does it take him a long time to get moving in the morning, what type of things does he like to play with and do?

I want you to observe him this week and see how he plays with his toys and siblings and then get back to me. We will figure this out… I am a mother and a speech path so I have seen it all… Your little guy kind of reminds me of my son when he was a small child…He was kind of skittish and scared around people he didnt’ know…he liked to play by himself and not talk with other children. It was like he was in his own little world… later on my son was diagnosed ADD-Inattentive and with the help of meds it pulled him out of his world and into ours..

Patti has probably given you the best advice and I can’t add much…just wanted to say welcome from another mom of a guy who ‘won’t speak up and ask for help!’. I read thru quickly so maybe this has already been suggested — can you get an IEP accomodation (maybe thru SLP) that teachers MUST engage him????

My son manages ok without, but has no expressive language problems — thanks to his 5th grade teacher the school is no longer able to blame this on him, and he has come WAY out of his shell. But for a kiddo with expressive language problems I don’t think you can wait for maturity — IMO, the school will ALWAYS do this — wait for him — unless you make sure thru IEP that they cannot. And waiting for a kid who never engages — will NOT HELP HIM. But they will just pass him on, telling themselves it is all the fault of his innate ‘disability’ and therefore NOT THEIR PROBLEM.

It is not that they don’t want to help — but they ARE way busy and overworked, and the tendency is to blame the child (or their disability, but amounts to the same thing!), since one cannot be all things to all children — it is the rare teacher who is otherwise, and your boy can’t wait for a star. In my experience the stars are about 1/5, and for every star you will get a real DUD! The IEP can afford you some protection…

Best wishes to you! Read, read, read, all you can find on this site — as some problems/disorders have similar symptoms, but very different causes. It is important to ensure that YOU know more or as much as anyone who may be advising you…then you can pick WHAT advice should apply. It will likely all be well-meant, but YOU are the expert on your child!

My daughter was also extremely shy in new situations, although she was advanced in language. Shyness is not just dependent on language skills. In her case it took from one to two months for her to get involved in the group. Even then she was not one to push forward or to be a star on stage, although in her own quiet way she often led a small group.

Since we moved several times I got to see a pattern in this; first meeting with the teachers they would tell me that she was terribly withdrawn, and I would tell them not to worry, she just takes time; second meeting they would tell me how miraculously all their social interventions had worked, and I said yeah, right.

When she was young, up to age seven or eight, I had to be the one to push forward and demand things for her because she wouldn’t demand for herself. After that she decided getting over her shyness was less terrible than having her mother interfere and she took over for herself most of the time. Of course this was a kid who was always fiercely independent.

Look at your son and see if he does come out of his shell when he knows the others in the group; if this is true, then you can bite your tongue and let him work it out, but if not you will have to take action.
Try to teach him methods of asking for things that don’t require competing — asking before class or after instead of while everyone else is demanding attention, for example.
Consider tutoring to help him get the academic skills he needs so he doesn’t slip behind while everything else is being worked on.
He may “grow out of” the shyness in the sense my daughter and I did, learning to cope with it. You can’t change how he feels, but respecting his feelings you can teach him to deal with them.