Terabith
08-01-2008, 02:29 AM
I recently had my three year old tested by the school district because she seems to have a lot of difficulty with social and practical life skills. She tends to not want to interact with other kids. She pretty much just looks right past them. Plus, she refusees to potty train and is not very independent in things like dressing herself.
I have seen a lot of improvement recently. She has gone to Vacation Bible School this summer at several churches, and she interacts well with the adults there. I saw her playing with another child once, which was amazing. However, she is still a long ways from where I would like her to be. She does play with her four and a half sister. I plan on homeschooling, but I really think that she would benefit greatly from preschool. I toured their developmental preschool and thought that it would be a good fit for her.
The school district did a surprisingly thorough examination. I was in the room the whole time; the psychologist felt it was important to have her relaxed and comfortable. I think the way she performed was fairly representative of her normal skill set. On the Stanford Binet IQ test she had a total score of 139. On the verbal subscore, she had 146, with a 150 on the absurdities test. I am not entirely sure exactly what that means, but it seems fairly high. Not that I am going to put a ton of faith in a test given to a child one month after she turns three. However, she has always been amazingly verbal (speaking in full sentences by eleven months), and she asks amazingly complex and abstract questions. Her motor skills were pretty high, with a 138 on the Battelle motor skills index. (Apparently they score motor skills in a similar way to IQ). However, on the adaptive/ social skills, her battery total was 85. (same scoring method apparently) In order to qualify for the developmental preschool, she would have had to score 75 (a 25% delay), but given the great disparity between her scores on the IQ and motor skills and her social/ adaptive skills, they said there was cause for great concern. The psychologist said she would have liked to see a score of at least 120. The psychologist said that as she gets older, it could be helpful to have her tested again, that she would qualify for gifted services but that she might be on the autism spectrum, even though she interacts very well with adults and has a full range of expressive language and pretend play. My gut says that she doesn't need something like speech or occupational therapy.
My current plan is to send her to preschool two mornings a week. In addition, she is involved in several outside activities (Sunday School and Children's Church, Wed night church activities, a religious education Friday morning program called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, swim lessons at the Y, a My Gym class and free play day, and Musikgarten). She does well as long as there is structure. I'm trying to arrange a couple of regular play dates, but am having a hard time finding those. I'd like to think about what would be the most helpful for her. Should I work on academics at home? I've tended not to, although I work with her older sister. She does sit in on read alouds. I have noticed she is missing some basic skills that have gotten jumped over since Anna already mastered them and Anna jumps in to answer any questions asked of Catherine. So I need to be more careful to check that she knows things like shapes and body parts. Is she gifted? It looks like it to me, but she's not brilliant like some kids I've seen. Her reading skills are very rudimentary and she doesn't display them often, although she recognizes a few sight words, knows her sounds (has since 15 months), and tries to sound out words every once in awhile.
Any advice? What do these scores mean? Thoughts on best ways to parent and teach a child like this? Thanks!
I have seen a lot of improvement recently. She has gone to Vacation Bible School this summer at several churches, and she interacts well with the adults there. I saw her playing with another child once, which was amazing. However, she is still a long ways from where I would like her to be. She does play with her four and a half sister. I plan on homeschooling, but I really think that she would benefit greatly from preschool. I toured their developmental preschool and thought that it would be a good fit for her.
The school district did a surprisingly thorough examination. I was in the room the whole time; the psychologist felt it was important to have her relaxed and comfortable. I think the way she performed was fairly representative of her normal skill set. On the Stanford Binet IQ test she had a total score of 139. On the verbal subscore, she had 146, with a 150 on the absurdities test. I am not entirely sure exactly what that means, but it seems fairly high. Not that I am going to put a ton of faith in a test given to a child one month after she turns three. However, she has always been amazingly verbal (speaking in full sentences by eleven months), and she asks amazingly complex and abstract questions. Her motor skills were pretty high, with a 138 on the Battelle motor skills index. (Apparently they score motor skills in a similar way to IQ). However, on the adaptive/ social skills, her battery total was 85. (same scoring method apparently) In order to qualify for the developmental preschool, she would have had to score 75 (a 25% delay), but given the great disparity between her scores on the IQ and motor skills and her social/ adaptive skills, they said there was cause for great concern. The psychologist said she would have liked to see a score of at least 120. The psychologist said that as she gets older, it could be helpful to have her tested again, that she would qualify for gifted services but that she might be on the autism spectrum, even though she interacts very well with adults and has a full range of expressive language and pretend play. My gut says that she doesn't need something like speech or occupational therapy.
My current plan is to send her to preschool two mornings a week. In addition, she is involved in several outside activities (Sunday School and Children's Church, Wed night church activities, a religious education Friday morning program called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, swim lessons at the Y, a My Gym class and free play day, and Musikgarten). She does well as long as there is structure. I'm trying to arrange a couple of regular play dates, but am having a hard time finding those. I'd like to think about what would be the most helpful for her. Should I work on academics at home? I've tended not to, although I work with her older sister. She does sit in on read alouds. I have noticed she is missing some basic skills that have gotten jumped over since Anna already mastered them and Anna jumps in to answer any questions asked of Catherine. So I need to be more careful to check that she knows things like shapes and body parts. Is she gifted? It looks like it to me, but she's not brilliant like some kids I've seen. Her reading skills are very rudimentary and she doesn't display them often, although she recognizes a few sight words, knows her sounds (has since 15 months), and tries to sound out words every once in awhile.
Any advice? What do these scores mean? Thoughts on best ways to parent and teach a child like this? Thanks!