I posted a couple of months ago that Nathaniel started karate and yesterday he earned his very first belt! We’re SOOOO proud of him and the hard work he’s put in so far. The test was an hour and a half long and he had great focus! At one point, they had to be on their knees bent over with head resting on the mat…and they had to stay there for 5 minutes! If they looked up at all, they failed the test. I was SO nervous for him because I wasn’t sure he’d understand. But he didn’t move a muscle!!
I’ll include more photos at the end! But since we’re talking Nate stuff, I thought I’d give everyone that reads an update on how he’s doing in school and whatnot.
The transition to 2nd grade this year was an easy one as he has the same teacher that he did last year. She looped up to 2nd grade and I requested that he stay with her. Thankfully she agreed and it made the start of the year effortless for him. If you recall, last year at the beginning of the year, it took him more than a month to adjust. It wasn’t that he was acting up at school, he would never do that. But when he got home, he’d basically come home and lock himself away in his bedroom for an hour. He wouldn’t want to talk to me or play with the girls or do anything. He wanted to be left alone. This year, we didn’t even have one day like that. Are we setting ourselves up for issues at the beginning of next year? I wish I knew. But I think we may try next year with no additional transitioning support to see how he does. For us that means, on the last day of school when the whole school does the “step up” (where they find out who their teacher is for the following year and then go into their classroom for a bit), Nate will participate in that but will do nothing else. In the past, he’s spent additional time in his new classroom before school lets out for the summer or will go in during the summer to see his classroom and see the new teacher. He’s come a very long way in regards to transition and I think this will be a good thing to try out and see how he does.
We have his scheduled IEP meeting coming up this week. I sat down this morning and read the draft of his new IEP. I always have such mixed emotions when I read his IEPs. While everything that’s written on those pages is 100% correct and nothing new to me, it always feels like a kick to the stomach. I feel like it’s a whole book of pointing out his weaknesses and how he’s not as good as his peers. It is indeed a book of pointing out his weaknesses, I know it’s not a matter of him being as good as his peers, just that he’s different. I still dislike reading all of it there in black and white…and often wonder why such a sweet boy was dealt such a difficult hand.
But I digress. His IEP for the next year has lots of lofty goals, ones that I hope he can attain. I know each year when his IEP is up for review, I think to myself “wow, they’re putting goals on there that seem a bit out of reach for him”. Yet each year, when we look back on his previous years IEP, we often see that he’s mastered most of his goals. And when I start having those Debby Downer thoughts about his IEP, I just have to think how far he’s come in 4 years. When he started at the elementary school in 2006, he had maybe 3 or 4 words, couldn’t transition to a new activity easily, wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, wouldn’t interact with peers, etc. He’s come SO very far and I’m thankful for the wonderful staff that he’s had the opportunity to work with. They play a huge part in his success in school.
Here are a few key goals that he’ll be working towards in the next year:
- Will demonstrate increased math comprehension skills by improving from a 1.5 to a 3.5 on the following: interpreting dada using charts, graphs and line plots, answering more (more, less, same, etc) questions using charts, graphs and line plots, answering addition and subtraction word problems using pictures, words and numbers and lastly identifying key words in a problem to determine which operation he needs to use.
- Will improve visual closure skills by correctly identifying a shape/number/letter/object with 75% of the figure blocked on 4 out of 5 trials.
It’s not a big surprise to us that his biggest area of struggle is with comprension, not just with reading and understanding what he’s reading but with stuff that people tell him. Things have to be broken down into very small parts for him to truly understand. This is a very common attribute with those children on the autism spectrum. So he has quite a few goals specifically targeting reading and comprehension. Here are just a couple:
- Be able to tell what the words “inference”, “predict” and “conclusion” mean in child-friendly language.
- After hearing or reading a second grade level passage, will be able to identify clues that will support an inference, conclusion or prediction has has made.
- Will orally summarize a story to include the main characters, events and actions in order.
Yeah, sounds like a lot…and it is, especially since everything that I mentioned is only a fraction of what’s on his IEP. Will he attain all of his goals in a year? I hope so but if he doesn’t, that’s ok. There’s always next year. We know that he works very hard and does his best…and really what more could a parent ask for?
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