Need some help concerning (school,ADHD, developmental delay)

[CharityLynn]

Ok, I guess I should give you a bit of background first..

my son was born 5 weeks premature he had a ot of lung problems the first 2 years of his life, we also started notcing he wasn't as developed as others his age. At the age of 4 he was diagnosed as being developmentally slow..at 4 he was at the level of a 2.5 year old. He was also "diagnosed" with ADHD and he had some sensory issues(thank fully I believe we have worked through most of these) He was tested for a preschool classroom that deals with children with difficulties. He was in that classroom for 1.5 years and he has to go to Kindergarten this year because he has turned 6 this summer.

I am a bit nervous about him starting kindergarten...he still is unable to recoginize numbers and letters (he knows a few...very few unfortunately).
But even before I am able to worry about this there is the matter of hearing and vision tests...

We went to have the hearing and vision tests done today..he passed Vision he had a little trouble with sitting still and taking direction but he did an awesome job. Unfortunately it wasn't the same with the hearing test... the tried having him raise his hand when he heard a sound..that did not work at all..then they gave him a button to push, he did get a few with that but he got board and wouldn't sit still and was being noisy, kicking the wall, chair..anything and making silly noises too, he'd push the button just to push it..he laughed and thought it was funny.

I have been told he can not go into schoolw ithout these testsm but what do you do when the child won't do them, not that he can't but he just won't...I am so frustrated. School starts in 3 weeks and I have no idea what to do about this...

Any info would be awesome...or even just words of encouragement or people who have been in a similar situation...


I do not have my son on any ADHD medications...he has on a sedative (he has night terrors and just won't sleep without them..hopefully I'll be able to take him off these) He does have medicine re-check on the 18th of this month, I was thinking of asking is he could try the hearing test again then...

Thank you for reading..

Charity

 

[DisneyMomOfThree]

Was his preschool class with the public school system? If yes, I would think that with all the testing and IEP's that they would have it noted somewhere
and maybe you could skip the testing or have it postponed. Lots of Pixie Dust
for the coming school year.

 

[Talking Hands]

I suggest you take him to an audiologist who specializes in working with children. There are tests that can be done that do not require him to participate. They do tests on infants so they can do it on him.

 

[CharityLynn]

Disneymomofthree--Yes, good idea IEP would have something. I will contact his last school teacher and see what she can do to help me. Or maybe I should Croyden which is where he had to be tested and everything...

TalkingHands, you have an excellant point. I do believe there is a place nearby that they can send him to maybe I'll see if his doctor will refer him there if he isn't able to do it on the 18th..

thank you both.

 

[roseprincess]

First of all

I have twins that are special needs, they are 8 now. When they were 3 or 4 yrs old, they were both in an early childhood preschool program thru my school dist. My dd,who has a heart condition and is mildy dev. delayed had problems passing the hearing test at school. Part of it was b/c she had so much wax and fluid in her ear. The other part of why she didn't pass was she didn't quite understand to raise her hand, etc. when she heard the tones.
The school at first would have a volunteer or teacher's aide with her during the hearing test to help her understand when she should raise her hand when she heard the tones. This didn't always work. Then by state law( in Il.), the school nurse has to refer your child to see an audiologist or ENT Dr. The school nurse just sends home a note to the parent with the Il. exam sheet stating your dd didn't pass the school hearing test, please have your child see an ENT/ audiologist. This is what usually happens every yr with my dd when she was 3. I'm guessing this coming fall, this will probably happen again with us. Forgot to mention, both my kids are ADHD also, so I do have them on
generic Ritalin. The Ritalin really helps them focus at school and at home.

Anyways, if your ds has an IEP(which he really should have), the school he attends should make modifications to have a volunteer or teacher's aide with him during the school hearing and vision tests. If he still doesn't pass the hearing due to not being cooperative, etc., he might need to be refered to an audiologist. I don't know your state rules concerning that, being referred.
It might be better to get your ds checked by an aud. at an ENT office, an ENT that specializes in children.

Hope everything will work out well with the hearing test at school.

Rosemarie

 

[Nik's Mom]

Hi. When we were having my ds tested for autism, he also had to take the hearing/vision tests. He was 5 at the time, and had a significant speech delay and was not cooperative with the hearing test. He just didn't understand what they wanted him to do. We explained to the school district, and they understood. My suggestion is to go through with the tests. The tester should just write down that they couldn't complete the test and that should be given to the school district.
By the way, my ds has made huge improvements in his special day class! Just wait until you see the changes in your child when they enter a good program!

 

[SueM in MN]

I haven't done this for a while, but I was a Public Health Nurse for over 12 years and did a lot of Pre-Kindergarten screening. I had an aide to help me and we switched off doing vision and hearing. The parent volunteers mostly helped with sending kids around to the various testing stations and helping them keep one eye covered for the vision test.

Your child will not be the only one who is just not able to "get" the hearing and/or vision test. he also won't be the only one who can't recognize letters or numbers. Even though the message that parents get is this is Kindergarten Testing, it's actually Kindergarten Screening to find the kids who need some further testing, evaluation or a little extra help. Even though they make it sound like your child will not be allowed in school unless he passes, in actuality, he will. The testing is more for figuring out what kids to put togetherr in which class and which ones will need more assistance.

If your child was in that school district already for his Early childhood (EC)/Preschool, they should be already aware of his special needs (when I did K Screening, I already knew some of the EC kids because we did try to do screening on them while they were in class). If not, just talking to the screeners like Nik's Mom mentioned is helpful.
Some kids (even without special needs) are just too excited to follow the directions, or have never been done anything like the hearing test before and just don't quite understand what they are supposed to do. Some were too excited to sleep the night before, or scared about the process or (if it's afternoon,) in need of a nap or too busy watching all the other activity.

Some of the kids are very worried about making a mistake and so they either never raise their hand (because they are not sure if they heard anything) or raise it all the time (because they are afraid they will miss letting you know). Some testers are better than others. A good tester can put the child at ease and make the test into a game. A bad tester may intimidate the child and/or get inaccurate results.

This is what I did (and taught others to do) when I was involved in testing:
I talked to the child before we started the test and said we were going to play a listening game to listen for beeps. I turned up the volume loud enough to hear without the earphones on and demonstrated what it sounded like (it is important that they know they are listening for beeps - sometimes kids are afraid to reposnd because they are not sure what they are supposed to be listening for). Then I explained that some beeps would be loud and some would be very soft (whispered at that point and turned the volume down to hardly hear it). It's also important for the child to know that there are no "right" or "wrong" answers and I would be happy if they tried their best. Then, we would practice the child raising their hand a few times with the earphones off. One of the biggest "problems" I saw was kids would raise their hand when they heard the noise and then forget to put it down. When it seemed like that was happening, I would ask if they still heard the sound. Most of the time, they would say no and then I would point out their hand was still up (exactly what I did depended on the child and my rapport with them). If a child was untestable at that time, I would note that and put them on a list to retest after school started. Our procedure was to restest twice more before referring on (which was basically the "send a letter" that roseprincess mentioned). When we restested, we might try other thinngs besides the hand raising - some kids did really well with picking up a block when they heard the sound. We tried to work with the teacher and/or parents to help the child be successful. But, we also realized it was a screen and that there are quite a few more specific tests an audiologist could do - some of which don't require any cooperation.

For some children who were not able to complete the first screening and just seemed to not have the idea, we asked the parent to play listening game with the child at home (I explained it to the parent and the child). It involved using household items that made loud and quiet sounds and sounds like whispers to get used to the process of letting someone know when they heard a sound. I always suggested the parent and both have a chance to listen and make sounds. When we did retesting, some of the kids were very enthusiastic and told me they had been playing the "Listening Game" at home.