Assessment 2020-21: Lola

 

Lola is scheduled for a psychiatric/behavioral evaluation starting July 16th.  I've done the two initial consultations, and I am grateful to finally get this ball rolling for my darling girl.  She is bright, funny, creative, energetic, and feisty.  However, she has clear symptoms of ADHD which are interfering with her quality of life and her ability to learn.

This past school year has been both delightful and frustrating with Lola.  She's so capable of learning and so incapable of gathering her focus long enough to do the actual learning.  We've adapted and changed curriculum plans trying to meet her where she is with some success but not nearly as much as I know she could have with more than environmental support.

 

Supports in place:

   Brief lessons

   Textured sensory cushion for her chair

   Chair bands for her to bounce her feet

   Sitting in my lap for lessons

   Including movement as much as possible 

   Allowing oral completion of work

   Doing work in a variety of settings and with a variety of writing implements

   Frequent breaks

   Frequent changes in activity

Reading

Lola is finally getting to make true reading progress now that we've returned to using How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  She completed First Start Reading Level A and most of Level B.  She also completed all of Core Skills Phonics K and most of Phonics 1.  But neither program seemed to contribute to her actually learning to read. 

 

She's up to lesson 52 of 100, and I'm seeing increasing decoding and fluency overall.  She does have days when whatever level of FASD she has interferes with her memory and thinking skills, and we both struggle on those days.  But she's learning to read, and I make a very big deal of the good days, so that she has a sense of accomplishment.

Math

Like Baymax, Lola began Rod and Staff Arithmetic Grade 1, following the Memoria Press kindergarten curriculum plan.  It was a fail from the start.  Even doing the brief lessons as outlined was too much for Lola.  She made sporadic progress toward completing pages, but there was little sign that Lola was actually learning anything.

I switched her to The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Math.  This was a much better fit!  Lola's attention span has prevented her from finishing that book even as of this writing, but I've watched her go from randomly putting numbers together to noticing patterns of addition and subtraction and even memorizing some addition facts.  

This summer she has switched back to doing Rod and Staff arithmetic pages, and I'm not arguing.  The Good and the Beautiful math will still be waiting when she's ready, and in the mean time, she's reviewing concepts already learned.   

 

Enrichment

During Morning Meeting, Academy, Evening Reading, and any other family learning moments, Lola seems to be in her own world, oblivious to what is going on.  She can rarely narrate what I've presented, but then, just often enough to be encouraging, she will share an insight or memory or connection that astounds me.  

 

So Lola is learning.  

 

She does benefit from being present. 

Social/Emotional

Lola's ADHD symptoms get in the way of her success at most things--chores, school, routines, even following direct commands in the moment.  This leaves her frustrated and prone to lashing out at the closest target.   It is clearly true that she is about 30% younger than peers of her chronological age in how she copes with frustrations and handles tasks.  

If I subtract 2 from her 6 1/2 years and treat her like she's 4-ish, we can mostly get along.  She knows she's technically older than Baymax, though, and this will occasionally be a problem as far as privileges and responsibilities go.  She loves to be a helper as long as helping is her idea.

I don't see the same trauma behaviors from Lola as I do from many of the other kids.  Her behavior struggles seem to be related to her attention and immaturity struggles.  However, she is learning some negative trauma behaviors from older siblings . . . at least I think that's what is happening.

In conclusion

I love my Lola!  She is spicy sweet and crawls into my bed 9 out of any 10 nights.  Though this is due to not being able to stay asleep and needs to be mended as soon as possible, it is endearing, and I try to remember to enjoy it while it lasts.  

She's really smart, and I look forward to diagnosis and remediation allowing her to shine academically and socially.  I think it may be the miracle of homeschooling that has allowed her to learn as much as she has in the past year.  In the mean time, we're doing everything we can to adapt her environment to allow her to learn and grow the best way she can.