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My daughter Marie has been in an early childhood special education program. She first went into this program this year because her teacher saw signs of weak cognitive skills. We went to Marie's first meeting with her teacher where she sat down with us and did a progress report on Marie. I am so frazzled now because Marie's teacher is concerned about her cognitive skills. By no means are these huge, but they are enough of a worry that she continues in this program. Some examples of Marie's weaknesses are best seen through examples that her teacher provided. One example is that every day several children are selected to sit on the couch for story time. Children might be selected based on what they are wearing, for example, "anyone with an animal on their shirt can sit on the couch today". Well, Marie understands when it's not her day to sit on the couch, but she makes sure that she is wearing an animal on her shirt the next day (as an example) and thinks that today she can sit on the couch because she's wearing an animal on her shirt. Another example is that they use a new coatroom at the school now and it's down the hall from the original coatroom. Marie continuously goes to the old coatroom and needs to be reminded that she's now in the new coatroom. Also, her teacher spends one-on-one time with Marie. Marie was given a picture to copy. It had two birds and a tree on it. Marie took the trunk of the tree and put it horizontal to the ground instead of vertical. If I ask Marie what she did at school today she cannot tell me. If I ask her who she played with she cannot tell me. It's the "wh" questions that get her stuck. If I prompt her and start naming people at school, then she will continue to tell me what she did and who she played with. I know these are just a few small examples, but I hope you get the idea. She knows her letters well, if I teach her something new she knows it the very next day. In general, she's a very smart girl. There is just this one area where she's just not clicking. Her memory is fantastic. She thrives on stability and we give that to her.
Now her teacher wants us to let Marie go through a very extensive set of tests to see exactly from where this lack of cognitive skills stems so that we (along with the school) can work on this area with her. I am happy to do the testing, but worry about labels. But if we don't do it then she might continue to struggle when we might have an answer and be able to hone in on that area.
Does anyone know some examples of what the school might be looking for when they do this testing? Is the cognitive struggle tied to ADHD, or autism, etc? I'm trying to find specific LD's that have weak cognitive skills as a main component and can't find much. I just get returns in Google with a ton of advertisements for a place called LearningRx.
If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd love to hear. Thank you.
ETA: I'm sorry for posting this here - I just saw the Special Needs section and posted it there. If anyone still wants to answer, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Last edited by shoes4birds; 11-10-2008 at 07:02 PM..
Reason: posted to wrong board...
First - make sure her vision and hearing are tested and OK.
This sounds like it might be a processing disorder (a label, I know). She hears the direction or explanation but can't make it stick. Auditory processing disorders are most noticeable in noisy environments like school and least noticeable at home where the directions and information is directed right to her.
Good luck
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