Ethan's progress in school

This morning I had my yearly meeting ( it's called an IEP..Individualized Education Plan) with Ethan's teacher, speech therapist, reading tutor and school psychologist. We basically sit down towards the end of every school year to go over his progress and to discuss the goals we want him to meet next year. Todays' meeting was a little different as we were also discussing an IQ test that he took a few days ago. He took quite a few other tests that tested his math skills, his reasoning skills, his grammar skills, his listening skills, and various other types of skills necessary for school & everyday life. The results of the tests were good and bad. His IQ was tested twice, once using a language-rich test and once using a non-verbal test. Since Ethan is still struggling with language he tested very poorly on the language-rich test, but on the non-verbal test they gave him he scored off the charts. Basically this tells us what we already knew, and that is that Ethan struggles with anything that requires him to comprehend a story and re-tell it, or to read a story and answer questions. So in that resprect this particular test score didn't surprise me much. However, the other IQ test where he tested above average was a wonderful surprise. All of the teachers were utterly amazed at how well he scored, saying that they've never seen a child with below average language skills score so high. They said that overall, if anyone were to ask me about Ethan's IQ, they said it would fall in the "average" range, so I was fully satisfied with that. They have labled him " Language Impaired" , so he officially has a label ( not sure if that's good or bad). The speech therapist compared him to someone who has had a stroke and the part of their brain in charge of speech is affected, they have to learn how to talk all over again. She said Ethan's got a similar issue, except he's never had a stroke. She said his brain absorbs information, but when he needs to retrieve that information his brain will sometimes have a hard time relaying the information correctly.

Some of the other testing they did resulted in scores across the board. Some of his scores were terrible, between 1%-8%, while others ( basically all of the math tests) scored anywhere from 95%-99%. That didn't suprise anyone since he's truly a math whiz. The teachers talked about him having a photographic memory, which essentially helps him cope with his comprehension weaknesses.

Overall he's doing fine in school, just lagging behind in some areas such as reading comprehension. He'll continue to get speech therapy twice a week, and a writing tutor comes into the classroom 4 days a week to sit with him during reading and grammar studies in the classroom. She will continue to do this next year as well. He also goes to a writing group an hour before school starts to get extra help on learning how to write paragraphs. My son certainly works super hard just to keep up with the rest of the kids.

Socially he's doing great! His teacher told me that all of the kids love him and that he often helps the other kids in class who are struggling in math. She said that he's very well behaved, very respectful and has a great attitude towards learning. She said that he's got great determination to learn, even when his brain can't process something he still tries over and over again. Something she said was great about Ethan is that he's not at all embarassed about his 'issues', never seems to get embarassed that he has a special tutor in the classroom. She also said that he always asks for help when he's struggling. She said some kids don't ask for help and end up falling behind, but Ethan is the first one to admit when he isn't understanding something and immediately asks for help. This is a great skill that will carry him far in life.

I think that even though Ethan has some weaknesses ( and we all do), he's got so many strengths as well. He's a good friend, a funny kid, and a very loving son. He may not have a brain that works 100% for him, but he takes what he was given and he makes it work. I couldn't be more proud of him, and I'm so lucky he belongs to me! I sometimes get jealous of other people who have kids that don't have any issues in school, and I wonder if they know how lucky they are. But then I remember that Ethan has so many wonderful qualities, and that he's got intellect in many other areas. He truly is one-of-a-kind, and for that I am grateful. I am excited to see what kind of person he grows up to be, because I'm certain he will make me proud.