One down, two to go

So, we had our meeting last week with Chris. The whole family, minus Ben, met with her for an hour and a half. Will really liked her. More importantly, so did Dad! I think she is going to be great for Will. She did an incredible job of explaining to him exactly what her job is. This is what she said, in my words:

"We all have toolboxes. Your mom has a toolbox. Your dad has a toolbox. I have a toolbox. You have a toolbox. The tools that are in our toolbox are the things we use to learn. Everyone has different tools, too. It takes a lot of time to figure out what tools you have and what tools you need. For many people, they don't figure that out until they get through high school or even college.  My job is to help you figure out what tools you need. I am going to be your shortcut so that you don't have to wait until you get through high school."

Wonderful! Just what we all wanted to hear. I have more to share, but that is it for now. He meets with her twice this week for the testing. He doesn't know it is testing, but we do! Can't wait!

We picked up Will's teacher assignment today. He has Miss P and Mrs. K. We got to meet them both today, too. He looooved them!  Which is great. He is very nervous about starting school, but I think seeing his teachers today helped a lot!

Oh boy! Here we go...

So, April 20th I sounded so full of excitement and hope and promise for figuring all this stuff out with Will. It was not to be.

He was given the CELF-4 (can't recall at the moment what that stands for!). He scored a 22 on it and the criterion for a child his age is 18. Great. He did great. Well, to be truthful, he did not do great, but he beat the criterion and therefore did not qualify for anything else from the Speech and Language department at his school.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE, AGAIN!

What makes matters worse is Mrs. C, his teacher, never even followed up with us about it. Nope. And she had ample opportunity to. The last day of school she gave me a hug and told me that if I wanted her to speak to his teachers in 5th grade she would be more than happy to. Great.

So, school ended. Will received a Personal Achievement Award for getting all A's and B's all school year. Great.

I was thrilled and proud of him for receiving that award. But, it just covers up all of his struggles. Once again I feel that he is just falling through the cracks.

So, summer came and now summer is soon going. It is August. I finally, FINALLY, contacted The Affinity Center, which does psychoeducational testing and therapy and treatment. We meet with a psychologist on Monday. Chris, Will and I. I spoke to her on the phone for almost an hour last week and I am excited to meet her and have her meet Will and get this ball rolling.

However, I think our first obstacle to deal with is going to be his anxiety. He is very worried about going to 5th grade. A new school. New teachers, new schedule. New everything. His mantra lately is that he hates school and is very stressed about it. His words. Great.

So, it may be that Will goes in for a session or two with Chris (Dr. Mayhall) before school starts and before we do any testing. We need some strategies to help him deal with the anxiety of the new school.

Then, we will hopefully move into testing. I have been doing lots of reading this summer. Some great books, that I will reference a little bit later. I have also just in the last couple of days been research Executive Function Deficits and believe I have hit the jackpot. Much of what I read describes Will and his issues.

So, I hope to bring that up at our meeting on Monday. I want her to look into that as a possiblity.

Any hoo. Just wanted to update and I plan to do a lot more updating as we get into the nitty gritty of figuring all of this out, once and for all!