Its 5:15 am so forgive this if it is unclear in any way.
Well I met with the psychologist regarding the testing done with my DD at 4 years 10 months and here is what she reported:
My DD scored a 0 on the autism scale. She clearly said that she does not appear to have Aspergers.
She does have many symptoms of ADHD,but not enough to be diagnosed with it.
She scored in the 99.9th percentile on tests given, and hit ceilings. She gave her the EMDA (test of early math) and the TERA-III (a reading assessment). On both tests she was performing at least like a third grader (the reading test was pre-k to third). The psychologist admitted that the tests did not show her full range and may have had too low of a ceiling. The tester was not willing to discuss what tests she used during testing and was not open to my questions about them during testing. It felt very secretive. Maybe she thought I would prepare her for them and not get an accurate picture? Who knows. She wasn't good about returing calls or responding to email. Insurance is covering the testing so it wasn't like I was hiring her specifically for gifted identification. Now I am wondering of those types of tests are even useful for the schools.
She said that she did not recommend that she attend the public K and that she would need a special program because of the asychronous development. She said she needs to be with children her own age because of her impulse control issues and activity level, but needs advanced curriculm.
She also stressed that my DD's cognitive development should not be emphasized over her participation in situations with no right and wrong answers. This recommendation came from observations during testing where my DD expected herself to know everything and showed signs of being hard on herself (boy do I understand that tendancy). I wondered if she thought we sat around doing math problems all day here since she already spends 99% of her day just playing, doing crafts, romping around, etc. She is no longer in pre-k,and I just started doing a very brief sit down "homeschool" session with her in the last month or two, but that is always a tiny portion of her day and not even every day.
So,now what? I am going to call the public school and talk to the gifted teacher. Right now they only have programming that starts in third grade. I also plan on touching base with the local Montessori school. They would be able to give her academic challenges,but have no free play time except recess and no imaginary play toys. I think she needs both. I wish there were more options. The public K is only 2.5 hrs so even if it were a poor fit, she would be in and out of there very quickly. How much damage could that do? Homeschool is not an option. She needs outside influences and I need a break,which brings me to the final point...
The tester acknowledged that she was not an easy child to parent and was exhausting. During her testing, she was highly active, talked non-stop,and got bored very easily and would seek out stimulation such as playing with testing materials etc. esp.during boring tasks. She answered things before asked questions, and was silly. They had to discontinue a task of attention because she was bored with it and would get up and walk around.
What classroom works for a child like this????
Thanks for reading all this if you made it this far.
