Assessment 2020-21: Brother

 

Brother has the spirit of an angel . . . and the face of one, too.  

 

He started this school year in his best place.  He was emotionally stable, learning at a rapid pace, meeting therapy goals every week, and happy every day.  However, small boys grow quickly, med adjustments need to be made, and Brother is no longer in his best place.  His sweet spirit is now often hidden by rages, and we're really struggling to find the balance we once had.

Here's the academic goal list we started with:

Academy

Phonics Grade 2, Rod and Staff

Reading Grade 2, Rod and Staff (includes Bible readings)

Language Arts Grade 2, Rod and Staff

Explode the Code 3 and 3 1/2

Arithmetic 2 (finish) Arithmetic 3 (start), Rod and Staff

 

He worked so well at the beginning of the year.  We scheduled his RBT time during his independent school hours, and with so much support, he raced through both Explode the Code books, finished up Arithmetic 2,  got a great start on Arithmetic 3, and finished the first 2 units of the phonics, reading, and language arts books.  

His progress slowed considerably when we had to shorten our formal school hours to handle the babies and the difficult behaviors that so heavily influence our days.  I wasn't worried because I knew we'd add weeks to our school year to make up for the shorter days, but then Brother's own behaviors got in the way of his academic success.

I decided to play to his strengths--math being one of them--and drop his weaker areas with hopes of picking them back up when his mental/emotional state was stabilized.

We have not reached that point.

However, he has completed 80 of 170 lessons in Arithmetic 3, and he will complete his entire Language Arts Grade 2 curriculum in another week.  (He has a funny affinity for grammar!)

His reading skills have suffered.  Without actual testing, I'm not sure exactly what he has lost, but through my own observations, it seems he has lost a great deal of his fluency and even some decoding skills.  

 

Brother loves our group school times.  He soaks up what is verbally presented, and he's got a great mind for memorization.  He struggles to make sense of what he memorizes, but if we need a fact or a scripture reference, we can often count on Brother to remember!

 

He wants everything to be black and white, perfectly compartmentalized.  Areas requiring subjective judgment are almost completely lost on him and cause significant conflict in our home.  We do our best to make the decision-making process as clear and objective as possible, but there are times when that simply cannot be done, and when those decisions affect Brother, we can expect a terrible storm.

 

He had a huge number of ABA goals to meet for behaviors, and he has met and maintained them as long as his RBT and/or BCBA are present.  His therapy has faded from 10 hours to 4 per week, and his BCBA and I have discussed pushing him though this fading process very quickly while maintaining or increasing the parent-training hours because Brother is not generalizing his positive behaviors--he does not do for me or for siblings what he will do for his therapists. 

 

Quite a few trauma behaviors have manifested themselves in the past 2 months, and I am pursuing a resumption of his play/EMDR therapies as soon as possible. 

I hate to see Brother struggling the way he is.  Having seen how happy and focused and engaged in life he can be, I simply want that goodness for him all of the time.  Struggling, evaluating, and adjusting are always going to be a way of life for him and for us, though, so we are doing our best.

Brother feels his best when he is doing meaningful work and has plenty of active time balanced with quiet time.  He's an amazing worker!  The tougher the job, the more he likes it and the happier he is afterwards.

 

He brings a lot of light and joy to our family.