A Taste of Success

Math. This word can bring smiles to parents of kids on the spectrum, or it can make you cringe. Math doesn't seem to come easy to Daniel, but it is one of two subjects in school that he does not do modified versions of the curriculum. For those of you who aren't familiar, there is accommodated and modified curriculum's. Accommodated means that they are learning the same concepts, and basically doing the same work. There are just some adjustments to help due to their disability. It could be things like getting more time during a test or a few extra days before taking the test. It may be doing half of the number of problems. Things like that. Modified means that they are not doing the same work. Something about the curriculum's requirements are not being met.

For Daniel, writing, social studies, reading, and science are all modified now. Social studies was the first to go. It is too heavily language based for him. Then came, the rest one after another. This started in about 4th grade. He still does spelling, technology (shocking!) and math as accommodated. He is very strong in spelling. Always has been. He constantly asks me how to spell things and it drives me crazy because he KNOWS how to spell it, he just wants ME to spell it. Why, I do not know. He loves the way that letters sound and as I've mentioned he loves letters. I just think he enjoys hearing words spelled out. He'll look at you with anticipation waiting for the letters to spill off of your tongue. If I'm being a good sport, I'll spell it. If I'm not I'll say, "you spell it". Either way. It will get spelled!

But, math. Math has been a lot of work. He learned touch math in elementary school. I would say it wasn't until about 3rd grade that he really started even doing this sort of work. Before then it was all behavior issues. Let's just say he had some catching up to do. We work our tails off for math. It really depends on the unit on how much he learns.

This year is 6th grade. The math that they do was not long ago, 7th grade work. It all gets pushed down further and further. Most of his tests this year have scored in the high 50% range. While that seems low, his wonderful wonderful teachers continue to say, "He's learning more than 50% of the work!!". How's THAT for a positive attitude? They are gems, for certain. My feeling is that he is probably learning even more than that because test taking is not something I would rank very high on his list of achievements. His two report card marking periods thus far have him passing once you put in all of his homework etc. Last year this was really difficult for me. That was the year that "real grades" started in our district. For a perfectionist like myself seeing a D on a report card is a bit jarring. I have, like usual, gotten over it. You just HAVE to. (If you want to keep your sanity that is) I am actually starting to believe the, "look how much he's learning" mantra. I don't know if this sounds like a "bad mom" but I am surprised at how much he HAS learned. I wouldn't have thought it possible.

Now if you've been reading me long enough you have to know that something "happened" right?? Well it did. Last week he had his latest math test. The unit was adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions. It even included algebra of solving equations, with fractions. Guess what he got on the test. Go ahead. A friggin' 91%!!!!!! Can you believe that? I knew he knew this stuff, but 91%? I've felt equally as confident before only to see a 60%. It's amazing. I'm so happy for him! OK, I'm happy for me too. I'm the "math" person in our house. Which in and of itself is funny, because my husband is an engineer. I'm no slouch with math, but he's an engineer. I am just a bit better at breaking it down for Daniel's understanding. I have to admit to you, my dear internet, that the first thing I thought when I saw that score was, "YES! This will help pull up his grade for the whole marking period!" So, maybe, I haven't moved on TOTALLY from dealing with the low grades. I'm entirely proud of all he does achieve and learn. No matter what. I mean that 100%. But oh, it was a sweet sweet moment to see what he had achieved.

Team Daniel

Don't you love it? It sounds so positive and upbeat! A few years ago Daniel's resource room teacher at his old school started calling our monthly meetings Team Daniel meetings. The team is the rather large group of people who get together to basically, get Daniel through his education. A long time ago I requested that we have monthly meetings to keep in touch. This is written in my IEP. I found that while a lot of these people were in the same building, getting together for 30-40 minutes once a month helped keep everyone on the same page and we could share strategies with each other. I'm sure the school district isn't thrilled with the fact that we request these meetings, but I've never had any complaints. . . to my face anyway! Our team consists of my husband Todd and I, the resource room teacher, the general ed teachers, para pro, speech teacher, AI (autistic impaired)consultant and social worker. (it used to be OT also, but he "graduated" from her last year) Depending on what's going on the principal may be there, or a "specials"teacher like art or music. I find the meetings to be very helpful. They keep me updated. We can make decisions about where Daniel's education is headed. It's all good right? Well most of the time.

There have been times when I've left these meetings feeling very frustrated. Times like when I get the feeling that the majority of the people there don't understand Daniel at all. This is how I felt most of last year. I just never felt that anyone could understand his learning style. Or that they could figure out how to retrieve that information he has hidden under lock and key in that head of his. I don't know if it's true but I always had that "feeling". If you are the parent of a child with special needs you know that feeling. The one when people look at you with the sad smile one their faces and they are thinking, "she just doesn't understand his disability, she wants too much" maybe even, "she's in denial". Whatever. I know different. I know that we push. We don't push to frustration, but we push because Daniel always always seems to rise to the occasion. It never fails to surprise me. As soon as you get together to talk about a problem he seems to solve it himself. It's like he's messing with you!

Yesterday we had our first meeting of the year. We gave ourselves some time for the new teachers to get to know him and see where he is academically. Now I need to say this. . . he has AMAZING general ed teachers this year. They are general ed, yet they understand autism. They have had lots of training. It's unbelievable. I am so going to be spoiled after this year. Most of what we have been talking about is academic for him. He sort of floats on the edge of everything. He learns, but slowly. It's all just catching up with us. He is in 6th grade now. The work comes hard and fast. He learns at school and we have to sit through all of his homework and reteach a lot of it to him. We have to "model" some things. Especially writing. But we have been fighting switching to modified work. Modified means the child is not meeting all expectations of the curriculum. They will not learn all of the points laid out that a 6th grader (or whatever) has to meet. Accommodated means they are learning the same things, just in a different way. It may be presented differently, they may be given more time, have someone write the answers the child gives them. Lots of things. Social Studies went to modified in 4th grade. The higher level thinking that is required, he hasn't been able to do. The vocab is tough. He has significant speech and language impairment. I gave up beating my head against the wall in social studies a long time ago. It's not that he doesn't do it. He does, on a level he can do. Some of it is modeled. Meaning we show him how to do it. He learns from that too. He takes in a lot.

Spelling is accommodated. He is a great speller. It's sort of amazing. He loves words. Always has. Writing was modified last year. Then there is math. Math has been the great divide. We got through last year with it being accommodated. But all year, as they sped up and sped up and the grades started dropping, I knew it was slipping away. Oh, I put up a great fight, but I knew it was gone. We have been trying to keep him on the graduation path. It may be unrealistic, but who knows. He tends to surprise everyone like I said.

So back to our first team Daniel. I finally let it go. We all agreed. He IS learning the math. He just needs more time with each unit. Maybe twice as much time. That's an accommodation. But if you do it on each unit you'll never get through all of the curriculum. It's tough. Todd and I decided that we would rather he learn all of half of it, not none of all of it. Understand? If we keep working on a unit and he really learns it. He'll learn it forever. That's how he is. It is something I've been fighting but I could see the writing on the wall. It was time. It was out of his grasp. So everyone else is moving on and he is reviewing the new information he's been working on the past few weeks. And you know what? He's doing it on his own. Independent (that's a big buzz word) He's confident, he's proud. And I have to say. I'm sort of relieved. I thought I'd be upset that we had to let that go. But I'm not. I will keep on things and make sure he is always learning up to his highest potential. Team Daniel all agreed.

The teachers commented on how productive our 30 minute meeting was (we also agreed on how to go about his new English Language Arts lesson). It's amazing that when you are comfortable with the people you are working with, when you are confident in their understanding of your child's abilities how much you can let go and how high you can soar.