Adventures of Carolyn Plain and Tall: May 2009

Sooo, Seth's rockin mohawk haircut lasted only 1 day. He came home from school and asked me to make him bald. When I asked him why (thinking perhaps he was teased or something) he said.... because I've never been bald before. So we cut it off, but I refused to make him completely bald. Since then his hair has grown in, and cut again super short.... but shaped a lot better than this picture.

Seth also started soccer a few weeks ago and really loves it. He had his first game last Thursday against the orange team. He's really sensitive about his personal space and doesn't like to be touched, so he struggles with the swarm of kids around the ball. But when passed the ball he does really well dribbling down the field. His long legs make him one of the tallest in the team.

Throughout this past school year we have discovered that Seth has some auditory functioning difficulties. Seth has struggled with listening comprehension in Kindergarden and has difficulty focusing. While we've known about these symptoms for years, they really started to affect his grades and social maturity in the classroom. At home, he had trouble understanding directions, focusing on any one thing at a time, and carrying on a relavent conversation. I had suspected that, like several of my relatives, he may have ADD.

Together with the help of Seth's teacher we decided to have him evaluated by the Speech Pathologist of the school. Sure enough she was able to pinpoint the problem, and last week I went with him to the University of Buffalo Hearing Clinic for further testing. Auditory Figure Ground is what they found he has. Apparantly the short-term auditory memory area of his brain has smaller "storage" than the average person. So anytime you give a long set of directions, read a long story, or introduce auditory information in the presence of back-ground noise his brain is unable to retain it all. Additionally, when he does have a lot of background noise, he becomes very overstimulated, stressed out and physiologically wants to shut down into his own little world.

The good news is that the Audiologist was blown away with how well the reports from the speech pathologist were done, and the fact that he already has surround sound equipment used in his classroom. She told us not to move out of the district, because most parents have to fight their schools to get the services and equipment their kids need. Also, by working with the speech pathologist during the week, Seth's grades and maturity have improved. He is above where he needs to be in reading and has all the foundations down solid for first grade. Next year he will be expected to work more independently and perform more complicated tasks, so we will see how his therapy and growth will help him as he struggles through it. I am extremely relieved with the findings. At the middle of the school year Dave and I were questioning our decision to put him in Kindergarden this year instead of waiting until next, and were considering holding him back and having him repeat Kindergarden. Now, we are looking forward to First Grade and I am happy that I am not taking classes this summer so I can do some summer homeschooling to give him a head start.