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| Give me a break! - and so to Junior school |
The summer was fantastic, My sister and I went to Cornwall for two weeks,with all the kids and stayed in a log cabin. We spent time on the beach sunbathing and paddling in the sea. People were so helpful, there was always someone on hand to help me lug the double pushchair with my twins in who were now one. We also spent time hanging around the campsite, there was an on site restaurant which had lots of entertainment. One night they had a karaoke,all the kids got up and sang, Liam and Katherine sang 'Bad day' by Daniel Powter, Susie and Dan sang Bon Jovi 'Living on a Prayer' and my five year old nephew Adam sang the first few lines of 'Baa Baa black sheep' before having a fit of giggles down the microphone, everyone there was laughing and cheering them all on, they were the campsite celebrities. We also visited to the aquarium and the zoo and museums. The children learnt the joy of freedom and I learned I had a huge fear of wind turbines.
During the summer holidays I was faced with a tough decision, let him go to the Junior school linked to his first school - possibility of not getting the help he needs but being with children he knows that except him
Or send him to the local school - possibility of help but not knowing anyone and maybe a chance of bullying.
I decided he would be best being with people he knows and seeing what happens with the help. worse comes to worse I could always go private no matter what it cost. Liam was excited about going to a new school but he still wasn't the same child, still quiet and withdrawn.
He started the school in September and within weeks I was invited to attend a meeting with the head mistress, his class teachers, special needs teacher and class room assistants, this looked promising.
At the meeting they told me that Liam does not participate in class, he fidgets and gets up from his seat and walks about, he doesn't concentrate on the work he's given and has a strong stubborn streak if he's not interested. I thought the teachers were having a go at me and felt defensive. I know what Liams like, its not his fault, it might be mine i don't know, I don't know what his problems are so how can i deal with them. They also said that Liam spends playtime and lunchtimes alone I was heartbroken, my poor little boy. After ten minutes of being told what Liam was like at school they told me they we going to monitor him closely, they showed me incidents and events that had occurred in the first few weeks all written down with times and dates, where he was, what he was doing, who he was with and how they dealt with the situation. It was so factual. They were gathering detailed information for a statement. They were going to help.
Liam was re-signed to the pediatrician, given in school speech therapy and given an individual education plan. The classroom assistants were going to take him out of class to give him one to one assistance and small group work with other children with similar problems. It was amazing.
Liam had two teachers in his first year at the Junior school, One of the teachers had a child in another school with speech problems and used the ideas she got from her child's speech therapist and adapted them to suit Liam, going above and beyond her role as his teacher, she was amazing! They gave him a doll to talk behind to encourage him to participate in the classroom and gave him a playtime buddy a few years older than him to sit with him at lunchtimes.
The educational psychologist came to the school to see him and called me into a meeting to talk over the information he wanted to put in for the statement. there was so much and it was difficult to get my head around everything.
Over the course of the year Liams confidence grew, his speech improved slightly, the occupational was still a waiting game and I eventually got an appointment for the pediatrician.
At the appointment with the pediatrician she assessed Liams handwriting, drawings and had a conversation with him. She was still reluctant to say what was wrong. She noted down her findings and arranged to see me at the the beginning of the new school year, when Liam would be in year 4.
The summer before Year 4 my sister and I took the kids to Dorset, We stayed at a golf resort. The accommodation was fantastic, it had a sauna in our cottage!! The surroundings were beautiful, woodland walks and fields, The children ran free for two weeks. We took them to Monkey World where two baby monkeys took a shine to my almost two year old twins Luke tried to offer one of them his bottle and the monkey tried to take it, Wherever we were around their cage the monkeys were too. We also took a trip to the Tank museum but never actually made it inside, outside they put on a tank display, guns were going off and tanks were driving through muddy lakes, it was amazing. The children had a ride in a tank which quite frankly was terrifying but the kids loved it, and they all got to handle the rifles. On the way back we took a trip to Longleat Safari Park, my car wasn't performing exceptionally well and with all the stopping and starting it decided to give up in the tiger enclosure. After a 'small' panic and a five minute break it started again so we drove through to the lions enclosure, I decided to do a quick u turn and escape into the wolves enclosure where my car decided enough was enough and broke down. We were rescued by the patrol guys ten minutes later. I was wondering how exactly I was going to pursued the AA to come and perform roadside recovery, thankfully the patrol men came with a tow truck and got us back to the car park, and within an hour my car was repaired and ready for the journey home.
Liam started in year 4 with one teacher and a lot of classroom assistants who sat with Liam and helped him through his work. He had obsessive compulsive disorder. Occupational Therapy came to the school to do an assessment on him, they set up a soft play area and also a quiet corner with books and colouring and told Liam to go and play. Within seconds Liam was thrashing around in the soft play area and running up soft cushion blocks and leaping off them, three times the occupational therapist leapt off her chair with fear that he was going to hurt himself. After they put him on a trampoline and watched him go wild and then to the body board where he lay down and threw himself across the school hall. Their final test on Liam was getting him to walk in a straight line, then making him do it again with his eyes shut, which resulted in him walking along lifting his legs really high a stamping his feet down. I was stunned but the occupational therapist was delighted. She said I should get an appointment within the next few weeks with the pediatrician to discuss her finding.
I walked into the paediatricians office once again thinking we were going to have more test with no diagnosis, but things seemed different, the pediatrician sat me down and told me that having seen the report from the occupational therapist she was now happy to confirm what we always suspected. Liam has got sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia and speech and language delay. We have a diagnosis. She told me she would be writing a report supporting the occupational therapists report to send to the education department to assist in getting him a statement.
Six weeks later a letter landed on my doorstep, Liam has been granted a statement, and with that in place would receive in school speech therapy and occupational therapy. We'd done it. There was one person who was there with me throughout, giving me advice, chasing things up, and basically made a nuisance of herself with the education department, and that was Liams deputy head. When I picked Liam up from school that day I took with me a bottle of champagne, chocolates and flowers. I walked into the school and found her, without even saying a word she flung her arms around me and gave me the biggest squeeze. The funny thing was she hadn't heard the news herself but seeing me ladled with gifts told her what she wanted to hear. She was straight on the case arranging Liams first sessions.
During the first session of his new occupational, Liam had to do a cognitive and visual test, this tested his ability to solve problems in front of him just by looking. The results came back that he was the equivalent age of a six year old, his reading level was 5 years and his speech and language came back at 5 years 6 months, He was 8 years old.
He finished year 4 speaking better, reading better and busting with confidence. And in his book bag was a leaflet with lots of holiday activities, One thing that caught my eye was Explore Learning, a maths and English tuition centre but all done on computers in a fun way. I took Liam to a taster session and he loved it, so I enrolled him. He had two hourly sessions a week.
Liam started Year 5 full of excitement, no obsessive compulsive disorder just totally bouncy and fun. He had a new teacher, a male. Its what he's needed all along.
Each month he was there I saw an improvement, his age levels were rising slowly for his reading and his speech was fantastic though still young for his age. All I heard was my teacher did this and my teacher did that, it was so great to hear him sound so settled and his teacher certainly had a way with him, during school Liam concentrated, participated in class and never once got out of his chair during lessons, He helped the teacher whenever he could. Parent/teacher meetings were a pleasure to listen to now.
Half way through year 5 they repeated his cognitive and visual test. They could not believe the results. In a year Liam had jumped from being the equivalent age of a 6 year old at age eight to being the equivalent age of a 14 year old at almost ten years old. With his teachers help and explore learning Liam had completely turned around. At his first annual statement review they had to re-write it taking off his cognitive and visual needs.
So now he's ten years old, about to finish year 5. He has all the help he needs in place. He still struggles to form a conversation in the correct way, he is a total live wire and doesn't sit down for too long or sleep through the night, his diet is limited, his concentration is still erratic and his pain threshold is high. He's just had his fourth lot of grommets. But he has lots of friends in school, he takes part in class, he reads by himself and enjoys his life to the full. We have weekly homework for Speech and Language therapy and Occupational Therapy as well as having monthly appointments with the school, speech therapy, occupational therapy, ENT and audiology. We're waiting for occupational therapy sessions to help him understand his problems and a session to help him control his behavior and We still go to Explore Learning twice a week. This is Liams life so far. He is my amazing, loving and complex child and I'm lucky enough to be his mum........ And so to the twins...............................
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