Mince Pies

We went to see the class teacher tonight, she is very pleased with his work,

in his maths book was a test on percentages and he had a Level 4- , which is great as this moment in time, average is Level 4 by end of primary.

The teacher is very pleased with his handwriting it seems average in form but still a little slow. We have the 1:1 help at least to the end of the school year (July 2008), the SENCO hasn't bothered to inform us so we are pleased about the fact that she at least remembered to apply for it! He is going to get both sets of spelling words for the spelling tests next year (easy and harder) as he is doing so well with them, he has some catching up to do.

The biggest problem is getting his thoughts down on paper before he gets them jumbled, and keeping on task, the helper is still egging him on, on occasions. He has lots of good things to write, still it's processing speed letting him down. Science is good.

So very pleased altogether.

Assessment with mental distractions Follow up 8

I am pleased again with these results. Matthew was turning again to look at his score on the screen just as he was finishing each session. Grrrrrrrrrrr. I also noticed he was twitching his hands quite a bit as he listed things, on the floor moving trials this however didn't seem to alter his balance he seemed well in control. He needs to tighten up those scores (the bar indicating range of 3 tries). Matthew always has trouble with test 2, don't know why! but I have been told that 4 + 5 are the most important. We also did the eye tracking. Smooth persuit was excellent and saccades had three red bars(a bar chart was shown to me on the computer comparing this time to last time) compared to 7 reds last time (they indicate speed of movements, slow movements = red bar).

Voting on X-factor

Absolutely no worries about Matthew's working memory anymore. It's better than mine. Matthew loves "Same Difference" and asked me if we could vote for them. We waited for the number to flash up and I quickly punched in the wrong number. As I grasped for the number, he just shouted across to me 09016161104. Makes me smile as he is so much quicker than I am these days, always correcting my awful memory.

Occupational Therapist at school

As promised the OT came out to the school, (delayed 2 weeks because she was sick). She assessed Matthew with a handwriting assessment, talked to the class teacher, observed him playing football. She chatted to Matthew to discover what he would like improved. Waiting for the report now.
She has 5 strategies to help him
1) Tying laces, which he knows how to do just doesn't get practice in this age of velcro.
2) Strengthening shoulders
3) A wedge for him to sit on
4) Strategies for organising his work (not himself)
5) A special knife and fork to make eating easier, although he is ok he just prefers not use them.

She is going to give him a handwritng program called ?Meska to help with fluency. She discovered his class teacher went on a course a few weeks ago called "Write Dance" which the teacher is going to implement with the whole class as well as with those that need more help.
Finally an OT assistant is going to come out and give him a short 4-6 week course doing some of the above with him probably in Feb.
She stated that much that she would have done with him had been done already through Dore so her job was much easier. As she was trying him on some exercise matthew kept saying "I know that one".
Waiting for the report.
If only we had had this a year ago we would never have needed Dore?- Joke as good as the OT dept is I don't beleive their programs to be long enough or relentless enough. Unless somebody knows different.

Cubs Astronomers Badge

Last night Matthew came home proudly with his Astronomer's badge. The Cubs have been absolutely fantastic with Matthew. The Leader of our Scout pack has a Dyslexic son only diagnosed at 14 due to the schools labeling him thick and lazy. (Another horror story). This unfortunately had to be filled in quickly, and he had trouble getting it down at speed, but it's all his own work, and he was very proud.