We had conferences for Z last night. We got the report we expected to get: he is doing great, blah blah blah, reading, math, fine, and so on. The thing to work on: "Everyone really likes Z, but I would like to see him open up some." Yup. We know. He is so quiet in class, and so reserved when he is there. He doesn't really initiate with anyone, and is so quiet when people talk to him. Sounds eerily like his Daddy...both such introverts. To those who know him well, they know that he can be a nut and loud and talk your ear off, but in a big group setting Z is just so quiet. His teacher thinks that it will change a bit next year, when he is at school all day (and there is lunch and recess and more time for social interaction). But Z, according to Dorothy, is so much like Nate as a kid. Z is fully aware of who is not behaving, and he is sure to make sure that he is. He told me the other day, "Mom, I almost talked out in class, but then remembered not to!". His teacher told us that he does volunteer answers by raising his hand, and that she always calls on him when he does ("but Mom, I don't want to raise my hand all the time because that's not ok"). He is very aware of what is right and wrong. Sooooo Nate. And really, how do you teach introverts to not be? We're just trying to give him skills (eye contact, respond when people talk to you, ask questions) and making sure that we have friends of his over so that he can get more comfortable with them on his own turf so it will be easier at school. Bigger kids, different set of problems.
Today I had an IEP for C. We had him tested for his speech a few weeks ago. He has some weird sounds he makes for certain letters, so we figured we should have him tested. He was approved for 30 minutes a week of speech through the school district.
Around the same time I had him tested, we watched video of Z at this age, and were blown away by how clear and intelligible his speech was. The littles are nowhere NEAR as clear as Z was. Granted, there are a lot of factors ("second" kids, boys, preemies, triplets, etc, etc), but still, the discrepancy was very noticeable. The next day we had a friend of the boys over, and Z started talking to her (so sweet). I told him she was younger than the boys, and he goes, "Huh? But she can talk!". Yeah....
That same night I went out with some triplet friends and talked with them about their kids speech, and decided I would get the other boys tested as well. The three of them just kind of babble around and are not clear at all. According to his testing, C is intelligible at 60% in context, and 0% to 40% out of context, which makes him sound much younger than he is (although his size makes him seem much older than he is...). I think that the other boys are close to that. They will be tested in a few weeks just to see if they can qualify for any speech, even though they don't make any of the weird sounds/pronunciations that C does. It would be great if someone could just work with all 3 of them at once!
Keep up the good work, Z! =)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're getting the littles' hearing checked. I chatted with C and L a bit at CBS the other morning when I was in HH and we were outside at the same time, and I was a bit surprised by their speech. Such adorable little guys, though! And I WAS able to understand when they told me their Dad had built them bunkbeds and C said he and Z were sleeping on the top beds. Too cute!