This week we met with Ryan's teacher and teacher's aide on the afternoon of Parent Night. They seem fond of Ryan and were willing to listen to some of our concerns and suggestions for Ryan to have a successful year. We learned that Ryan has already mislead them in to believing that he does not eat breakfast in the morning before going to school. Technically, that is true. He doesn't eat at home, he eats at Young Hearts when he arrives there at 6:30. He would arrive at school, saying he is hungry. On the day we met with his teachers, that very morning he claimed of hunger and no breakfast at home when he arrived to Kindergarten and they allowed him to eat at a snack. A snack of goldfish no less, which are not gluten free! We were surprised to hear that Ryan accepted this gluten free snack. He is usually so good about telling others when he is not allowed to eat something. And they felt terrible when we alerted them to the fact that Ryan is on a special diet and it is outlined in his IEP. Both Phil and I know what it can be like at the beginning of the school year getting to know all of the kids, so we can understand how they may have overlooked that on his IEP. We also informed them of the breakfast situation and that it would never be the case that he doesn't eat breakfast before getting on the bus. He is at Young Hearts for two hours prior to the bus coming, so he has plenty of time for a good meal!
Later on that evening I went back to the school for Parent Night and learned a lot about his teacher's expectations and the routines they are developing in the classroom. I think Mrs. Allen will be a good match for Ryan. She is caring, but also firm and routine oriented, and Ryan needs that. It was my first time on the other side of the desk for one of these nights and I certainly like it better this way... less stress! I'm not sure many parents understand the stressful part of being a teacher. We know at times Ryan may add to that stress so we are planning to do our part to keep Ryan prepared and encourage him to do what is expected of him.
Ryan has already been given some handwriting assignments. Here are some pictures of the kids working on their homework during the week. (Julia wanted so badly to do homework as well!)
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Soccer Practice
We had our first soccer practice this week and of course it was a challenge with the fields still being closed. The league called at about 5:00 PM to let us know that the fields were closed and that we would have to relocate our practice. I sent an email out but only half of the team got the message and this was the week that the other coach could not make practice. So by the time I got to the new field, had a parent volunteer to drive to the other field to see if he could find anyone, the other parents left all mad. But we had a good practice. He and another little boy decided in the middle of practice that they did not want to practice anymore and sat down to watch a video that Julia brought. Julia came with us because it was back to school night at Ryan's elementary school. However, after 5 minutes they both rejoined us without any prodding from me or other parents. After practice was over the whole team ran over to the playground and all had a lot of fun running around. Hopefully they will still enjoy that same type of relationship at the end of the season but we are off to a good start. Next weekend, weather permitting, we will have our first game.
Meeting Dr. Cowan.
On Thursday, I took Ryan to meet Dr. Cowan. This was our second meeting with Dr. Cowan but the first time that Ryan meet with him. Ryan did great. There was a train play set in his office and Ryan immediately started playing with it. For over an hour Dr. Cowan put Ryan through a variety of different exercises both physical and verbal. He had him write his name, draw different shapes inside one another, and had him copy and build different shapes using blocks. It was easy to see that Dr. Cowan does this type of assessment a lot for he was able to guide Ryan through several transitions. One of the most effective ways was using slight of hand to get Ryan ready to focus on the next task. Ryan did great on all the tasks. Dr. Cowan had a Richard Scary book out and was having Ryan explain to him what was going on in the pictures. He was doing such a good job that Dr. Cowan turned to me and asked if Ryan had this book at home, which we do not. Ryan blew me away with two of the tasks that Dr. Cowan did at the end to demonstrate Ryan's learning style.
One of our biggest worries with Ryan over the years has been him following directions. He is good at one and sometimes two step problems but three have always been a struggle. Dr. Cowan held up three different crayons and asked Ryan to put them in three completely different areas around the room. Ryan did this without issue. When Dr. Cowan did the same exercise but put the crayons on the table instead of holding them up in front of Ryan, he did not do as well. He was able to do the first and third but forgot what to do with the middle crayon. The last exercise really blew me away. He had Ryan describe to him a movie that he just saw. He drew six different boxes and inside each of those boxes he drew a small picture describing what was going on in the movie. He then had Ryan come over to me and explain what was happening in each of the boxes. Then Dr. Cowan took the paper away and quizzed Ryan. He asked him what happened in the 4th box and Ryan described what happened in the square. He quizzed Ryan on two more boxes not in sequential order and Ryan described it perfectly each time. When I dropped off Ryan with Dawn, we did the same exercise and he was able to repeat the story and got the squares that I selected correct. This was absolutely amazing. Dr. Cowan illustrated that Ryan thinks in pictures, not words.
At the end of the appointment, Dr. Cowan diagnosed Ryan with Systematic Pragmatic Language Disorder (SPLD). The ironic part is that this is not something schools test for and was one of the reasons Ryan tested out of Speech. This is something that we will have to look into but it did give us a lot to work with both at home and at school.
Community Day Parade
On Saturday the town had a Community Day parade ending at the town fields for a huge carnival. It was a nice parade but really disorganized. They had all the under-ten players arrive an hour before the parade starts and just had them wait in a parking lot,. It was total chaos but Ryan did well waiting. He ran around with his other "orange teammates" and did well marching in the parade. He did have one melt down after the parade was over. There was a huge inflated slide in the middle of the carnival that he wanted to slide down very badly. However, the line to get tickets was huge and just as equally long was the line to get on the slide. We did not have time because Julia had to get to her audition for the Nutcracker. We were able to go on one ride with Amelia and Alyssa, who along with Uncle T came to the parade but that was all we had time for. Ryan still wanted to go on that slide and we did have a little difficulty talking him out of going on that ride. But he eventually came around and left with us peacefully. I was thinking that with the old Ryan I would have had to carry him out kicking and screaming out of the carnival. I like this new Ryan better.
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| Waiting for the parade to start |
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| Ryan very focused! |
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| Stopping along the parade route to say "hi". |
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