Beth and I just got back from Sensational Kids. Once again she had a pretty good session. First Beth had speech therapy with Rod. Last time they had made up a story with a picture of a girl with her bag of apples which had fallen to the ground. Rod started with the same picture this time. Last time it had also involved a boy pushing the girl and a bump in the road as reasons why she may have dropped these apples. They weren’t in the picture this time but Beth, rather than working on something new, tried to use them as reasons why the apples had been dropped. Rod told Beth that she had to use what was in the picture. He gave her some multiple choice questions to try and bring in the girl in the picture’s feelings. Once Beth had these guidelines she could write that the girl was sad. She did find it difficult to explain why the apples may not have been all right to eat after being dropped and kept saying silly things about aliens and the grim reaper rather than saying that she needed help. The ideas of the apples being bruised, dirty or broken didn’t seem to occur to her.
It’s amazing the way her mind works, you can tell that something is going on in there but it’s getting it out that’s the problem. For example this morning Bill was talking on the way to school about a movie with Will Smith. Beth piped up with the name “Jayden Smith” and then said “Justin Bieber” and the name of a song. I was trying to get her to explain what the relationship was with what Bill had told me. I could tell Bill was itching to tell me the answer but I wanted Beth to tell me. As I didn’t know the answer I couldn’t prompt her. She just couldn’t explain it so Bill told me. Jayden Smith is Will Smiths son and Jayden and Justin Bieber sang that particular song together. I figured it was something like that but Beth, though knowing the answer, didn’t know how to explain it to me.
Next Beth had Occupational Therapy which seemed to go well too. Whiskas (not her real name) had a little dial that they had made for Beth to take to class to show the ‘speed of her engine.’ There were activities too that Beth could do to make her engine run ‘just right.’ This is to regulate kids like Beth when they’re feeling sluggish or too hyper. I also got a report to take to our year 6/7 review for high school.
I have made an appointment to go and see Heatherwood next Wednesday. I had a look on their website and it looks like it’s designed for Beth. As Beth’s IQ score was over 70 in previous years we didn’t qualify for anything but mainstream schooling but it has now dropped to 63. Much as I hate the lower score, this means that we can now look at special schools. The only thing that concerns me re Heatherwood is the travelling time, over an hour each way on their bus, but the pros outweigh the cons as far as I’m concerned. The thing I love for us too is that it’s only for mild intellectual disabilities so she would be with kids like her. She could make friends who want to have playdates and sleepovers and they could be equals. I hope it lives up to all that it seems because it sounds amazing.
