Teacher expressing "concerns" about behavior

Re: Teacher expressing "concerns" about behavior

• iLoveChocolateMilk5150

  October 2012

  I can truly understand what your going through.  My husband and I just discussed possibly home schooling our 5 year old recently after numerous discussions with our daughter's teacher about her behavior (not listening, being mean to other kids, etc).  Quick info about our little one:  She is hearing impaired, severly speech delayed and was born with a cleft palate.  Here is a copy of one of several emails we receive from her teacher pretty regularly:

  " Imani has been on my mind this week and i'm trying to figure out a plan where she can become successful in the classroom while following classroom and school rules. She has a tendency to "shut down" on me and refuse to work for what ever reason. I looked back in Carole's reports and it was stated that she would have these moments in her class as well. My concern is that if 1/2 her day is refusing to work, then she is not learning.  As you know first grade is a very crucial year for learning and I don't want her to miss that. With that being said, I am rigorously asking other special education teachers to come and give their two sense on what I can do to help Imani.  Last Friday a woman named Joan came to observe Imani.  She is a specialist that works with Autistic Children. She suggested Imani needs her day broken down in three parts  and that for every three happy faces Imani earns she gets time on an IPad.  I have one and am willing to bring it to school to motivate Imani.  I'm going to try it this week and see how it goes. I was able to take pictures of her doing her work today. I know Imani has never been diagnosed with Autisum, but she has what we call "soft signs" such as; extreme phobias, trouble with loud noises, echolalic speech etc... I'm not suggesting Imani is Autistic, but every good idea helps me figure out what makes Imani tick and how to help her reach her highest potential. Imani has really good first grade academic skills.  I tested her reading and so far she is reading at a first grade level."

  Our daughter rarely has good days in school.  Personally, I would like her to stay in school with other kids because I am hoping that she will eventually "grow out of"  these bad behaviors.  I want her to blossom socially so that when she is older, she could possibly be mainstreamed in school.  The school psychologist has started working with the teacher about this issue.  We are also looking in to getting more tests to see anything else could be going on with her so that we can change the way we handle her unwillingness to be a good girl.  Only time will tell if the best option for you and your child is home schooling.  I wish you and your family the best!
  

   

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• rakle99 member

  October 2012

  I would suggest you contact your school district and ask for an educational evaluation. They can do a speech/language eval, psyc eval, and others. It seems like even you noticed your daughter's communication difficulties. The child study team will then look at all the results, look at the gaps, and suggest what to do next. 

  I would also suggest you start a daily communication book with the teacher. She needs to document your daughter's behavior with specific information, so you can start keeping track. Specific means "during a craft activity, she refused to use the glue stick and threw a tantrum when I tried to encourage her to do so", not "she threw a tantrum during art". You should do the same, so that any specialist you end up taking her to has data.

  I would also ask the teacher what her strengths are in the classroom. You and any other doctors/specialists will need to know that too in order to isolate any concerns.

  Taking her out of school and putting her with one person all day will only exasperate  any social issues she may have, and will further isolate her from her peers. 

  It can be scary, but the earlier you figure this out, the better chance she has to have a positive school experience. Good luck! 

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• lite-bright member

  October 2012

  IME, it's a good idea to listen to the teacher if they think your child's issues go beyond the average. 

  My DD1 is 4.5 and was diagnosed with autism at three. One of the precipitating events was that an instructor in the twice-weekly toddler class she had been attending for more than a year took me aside and asked if we'd ever had her evaluated, because she "just didn't process things like the other kids."

  Her behavior was not actively disruptive or anti-social; mostly it was a matter of being repetitive and not in sync with the rest of the group. If all the kids were racing cars around, my DD1 was the one off to the side throwing leaves in the air by herself.  

  I'm so glad that I listed to that teacher and my gut. It's easy to get defensive, but that doesn't do a child who needs help any good. One thing to remember is that with some developmental disorders, if there is a sensory or social component, then a child may act very differently in a classroom environment than when they're at home or in a familiar environment with parents who may unconsciously be compensating to accommodate the child, and adjust their actions/daily life to smooth over as many behaviors as possible. 

  
  
  DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010

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• rakle99 member

  October 2012

  -auntie-:

  iLoveChocolateMilk5150:

  I can truly understand what your going through.  My husband and I just discussed possibly home schooling our 5 year old recently after numerous discussions with our daughter's teacher about her behavior (not listening, being mean to other kids, etc).  Quick info about our little one:  She is hearing impaired, severly speech delayed and was born with a cleft palate.  Here is a copy of one of several emails we receive from her teacher pretty regularly:

  " Imani has been on my mind this week and i'm trying to figure out a plan where she can become successful in the classroom while following classroom and school rules. She has a tendency to "shut down" on me and refuse to work for what ever reason. I looked back in Carole's reports and it was stated that she would have these moments in her class as well. My concern is that if 1/2 her day is refusing to work, then she is not learning.  As you know first grade is a very crucial year for learning and I don't want her to miss that. With that being said, I am rigorously asking other special education teachers to come and give their two sense on what I can do to help Imani.  Last Friday a woman named Joan came to observe Imani.  She is a specialist that works with Autistic Children. She suggested Imani needs her day broken down in three parts  and that for every three happy faces Imani earns she gets time on an IPad.  I have one and am willing to bring it to school to motivate Imani.  I'm going to try it this week and see how it goes. I was able to take pictures of her doing her work today. I know Imani has never been diagnosed with Autisum, but she has what we call "soft signs" such as; extreme phobias, trouble with loud noises, echolalic speech etc... I'm not suggesting Imani is Autistic, but every good idea helps me figure out what makes Imani tick and how to help her reach her highest potential. Imani has really good first grade academic skills.  I tested her reading and so far she is reading at a first grade level."

  Our daughter rarely has good days in school.  Personally, I would like her to stay in school with other kids because I am hoping that she will eventually "grow out of"  these bad behaviors.  I want her to blossom socially so that when she is older, she could possibly be mainstreamed in school.  The school psychologist has started working with the teacher about this issue.  We are also looking in to getting more tests to see anything else could be going on with her so that we can change the way we handle her unwillingness to be a good girl.  Only time will tell if the best option for you and your child is home schooling.  I wish you and your family the best!
  

   

  Just butting in.

  You should probably look at having your little girl evaluated for an ASD. While it's tempting to write her social challenges off to her hearing and speech issues, if she has a mild ASD on top of that, getting her educational setting appropriate is going to take some major finessing. The combo of autism and hearing impairment is a hard one and not one where "Outgrowing" or "Blossoming" is a likely outcome.

  DS has had a couple of classmates who were classified as Deaf/Autism in school. The combination of the two things makes their desire to engage significantly less than one would expect and their ability to disengage significantly easier.

   

   

  I know this is off the original topic, but I have to butt in here. As a teacher of the deaf, I very rarely see students with both autism and hearing loss (I've only seen two my entire career, my point is it's very rare for both conditions to coincide). I do, however, see a lot of schools evaluate my students for ASD without doing a comprehensive functioning listening eval. Child study teams are often very surprised after I get involved and I show them that if a child does not have proper access to auditory information in the classroom, they exhibit many signs of autism and ADHD. Most clinical audiologists do not understand that a child's hearing loss is much more significant than an adult's, and do not even bother testing kids to see if they have complete access to the speech spectrum with their hearing technology. If your daughter doesn't have an FM being used in school, that will further affect her ability to develop language, academic, and social skills. She should be tested by an educational audiologist, to find her aided benefit, her ability to comprehend information in quiet speech, conversational speech, quiet speech, in noise without an FM, and in noise with an FM. She should also have a teacher of the deaf that is trained in your child's communication modality in order to help the school staff weed out what is caused by her hearing loss and what could be something else. Only after her access to auditory information is evaluated can you then look at any other underlying conditions.

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• JenF910 member

  October 2012

  lite-bright:

   One thing to remember is that with some developmental disorders, if there is a sensory or social component, then a child may act very differently in a classroom environment than when they're at home or in a familiar environment with parents who may unconsciously be compensating to accommodate the child, and adjust their actions/daily life to smooth over as many behaviors as possible. 

  I was wondering about this. Her behavior has always been different at home v. school. It use to be she was better behaved at school, but since switching building to their preschool in Jan it has been downhill there. She loves seeing her friends outside of school and she does play with them not just parallel. She does still have issues with sharing. She prefers the slighty older kids 5/6/7 yr olds and seems to not have issues with sharing with them. Shes loud and outgoing in public but mostly quiet at school. She seems to prefer having more personal space with kids her age but loves being close to her teacher and at home she cant get close enough to us and family sometimes. I feel it will be hard to explain this varying behavior to a doctor.

  I think the way it works here in PA is you have to contact the Count Intermediate Unit to come out for observation. You need a form filled out by the parents and one by the teacher with concerns. I was going to wait until we had our meeting to ask if she thinks we should move forward with that. I'm not really sure what our options are if she is diagnosed with something, if we have to find a new child care center or if they can handle things. Although since her teacher said she's never had a student like this I'm skeptical they will be able to keep her there

  

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• JenF910 member

  October 2012

  -auntie-:

  Does you child have any special interests? Topics of kinds of play around which she is very interested or perhaps knowledgable?

  Not anything in particular....she is so all over the place (short attention span) that she never sticks with one thing for long

  

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