UPDATE: Decision Pretty Much Made..................School readiness question...LONG

[o_mom]

This is another issue I struggle with. No one has told me that my DS has global delays that would warrant this. NO ONE. OT says another year of therapy will most likely be it for him to catch up. I'm also not sure how valid the ADHD diagnosis is (done at KKI by a nurse practitioner who saw DS for 1.5 hours and did some "testing"). I sort of feel like the whole redshirting thing has gotten out of hand. I also feel like the privates sort of make it so that it's very hard to leave and go back into public (helps their bottom line that way). Then I see DS who, like I said, is immature for his age. His bday is Thanksgiving which is basically 1 week shy of 3 months over the 9/1 cutoff here. He has emotional immaturity (will go into tantrum mode at home--never at school. likes to play games instead of listening to what needs to be done--again at home and never at school). He also has friends his age and friends a year younger who he gets along with. There are also kids his age who are way ahead of him with respect to maturity.

I do think that you shouldn't discount the benefit of peer models in helping him mature in those areas he lags. I said before in the other thread that my DS who is on the older side of the age range in 1st tends to drift down to the lowest allowed level of behavior. That means that behavior I think he should be beyond is allowed because he has kids 12 months younger in the class with him - the teachers don't want to have a double-standard of letting the younger kids do something that the older ones can't (ETA: which I understand and we deal with it because that's the way the birthdays fall ). Being with kids who are older and more mature gives him good models to follow and we see much better behavior and choices. It sometimes makes me wish his birthday was a few weeks earlier.

Putting your DS in a K class may just give him a pass on his behavior and not give him a good model of the level he should be at. And FWIW, my DS1 stil has tantrums at home and tries to get out of work by goofing off and being silly (he does this at school, even) and he is over a year older than your DS. That your DS doesn't show these at school is a good sign, IMO.

[Pepper]

We haven't been through this just yet (DS1 is almost 5), so you can take my advice with a grain of salt (or the whole shaker) :-). After reading through this thread, it seems like public 1st is a good option . If you don't have to pay private tuition, presumably you will have extra $$ to cover any additional private therapy for the year.

I think it's odd that the private schools are tellingyou to hold him back again, too. FWIW, we're in the public preschool, which I've been very happy with. DS1 doesn't have a full "diagnosis" yet but he's SPD (we do private OT), impulsive, hyperactive and probably ADD as well. He currently gets speech, play therapy, and an OT consult at school, and we have a behaviorist who comes to visit at home every other week. At our last IEP meeting, I asked what the kindergarten classes were like and how they thought DS1 would do? They told me that he'll be in the behavioral management class, which is very small - 6 kids, 1 teacher and 2 aides. Hopefully he'll progress enough that he can be in a regular 1st grade classroom.

I know our district does a lot of placement testing for kids when they start K, I think the first few days of school are spent on figuring out where they're at. I think DS1 is smart enough, but his behavior really gets in the way of his ability to participate in a class. His preschool teacher has a dual certification in special ed; after the last IEP she pulled me aside and told me that I shouldn't worry - she's seen lots of kids who had much bigger behavioral challenges than DS1, and they all got it together by 1st grade. (Whcih made me feel a lot better!).

Anyway, my point is saying all of this, is that no one has even suggested that I should keep DS1 back in preschool for another year. Maybe it's because our district has the $$ to pay for services, or maybe it's because DS1 is at the extreme end of the scale! Anyway, if your public school is willing to give your DS the services he needs, I think it's worth trying them out. If things aren't working for him you can make a case for new/additional services.

HTH

[Gena]

This brings up something that has been bothering me about the whole situation. To me, the goal of therapy/therapeutic placement should be to catch him up to his peers. They seem to be taking almost the 'easy' way out of just letting him stay behind. If he were within a month or two of the cutoff and could go either way, I think that would be one thing, but to be 6-9 months older than the other kids should not be a consideration unless they have very specific, objective measures that show he is globally delayed by that much AND that he cannot catch up even with support and therapy. I cannot understand a school saying that their goal is to bring him up to a level a year below his age.

I agree with this.

To me, the question of whether or not it would benefit a child to be held back depends on whether the child has a delay or a disorder.

If the child has a delay, that means that the child is following normal development, just at a slower pace. The delayed child can benefit from some extra services to help him/her get through a particularly troublesome phase, but overall the child is expected to catch up to his/her peers with minimal extra help. This is the child who can do really well with an extra year.

However, the child has a disorder, that means that he/she is following a different developmental path. Extra time is not going to change that path; more serious intervention is needed. That could mean special services, cognative behavioral therapy, medication, diet changes, special educational techniques, or a combination of these. The goal of these interventions should be to allow the child to function in an environment with his/her peers, not with children who are markedly younger.

Since there is no evidence of global delay and there is evidence of a disorder, I think you should give serious thought to placing your child in an age-appropriate classroom.

[mytwosons]

There is no way I would hold him back again.

I really like how our district presented school readiness. They gave parents a list of skills kids should be working on over the summer and then told the parents not to worry if their child couldn't do something by the end of summer. The school would work with the kids, meet them where they were at and provide appropriate supports.

I think you should place him in public 1st and then make sure the school provides him with the supports he needs.

I don't think it will be a big deal for him to be one year older than a lot of kids. But, if he is 9 in second grade, I can imagine other kids remarking on it. One of DS's friends has ADHD and is very immature. He was held back one year and some of the kids in his class have remarked upon his age and behavior. (e.g. He is older than us. Why doesn't he know better?) There are other kids in the class w/similar behaviors but they seem to fly under the radar of the other kids because they aren't older.

[elliput]

However, the child has a disorder, that means that he/she is following a different developmental path. Extra time is not going to change that path; more serious intervention is needed. That could mean special services, cognative behavioral therapy, medication, diet changes, special educational techniques, or a combination of these. The goal of these interventions should be to allow the child to function in an environment with his/her peers, not with children who are markedly younger.

Since there is no evidence of global delay and there is evidence of a disorder, I think you should give serious thought to placing your child in an age-appropriate classroom.

From my own experience- DD is very immature compared to her peers, however, she is also very intelligent (knew all of the K sight words and 80% of the 1st grade sight words before the fall parent/teacher conference). Holding her back due to social immaturity would have been a huge disservice to her. IMO, she needs to have age appropriate behavior modeled so that she can learn it. It does take longer for her to internalize the behaviors, but once she has it down, she uses it.

[HIU8]

My issue is that DS is immature AND his processing speed is slow AND he refuses to read (he can but he refuses to open a book for anyone). Plus, he still gets his days of the week mixed up (months mixed up) etc... Add to that he forgot the site words he knew. He forgot literally forgot the in at and words such as those. I would get him tutoring over the summer b/c no way could he make it if I didn't. I'm really on the fence still. I'm waiting for the public school to call me back with a date I can go and observe (hopefully next week). I will call again tomorrow about it.

[pinkmomagain]

My issue is that DS is immature AND his processing speed is slow AND he refuses to read (he can but he refuses to open a book for anyone). Plus, he still gets his days of the week mixed up (months mixed up) etc... Add to that he forgot the site words he knew. He forgot literally forgot the in at and words such as those. I would get him tutoring over the summer b/c no way could he make it if I didn't. I'm really on the fence still. I'm waiting for the public school to call me back with a date I can go and observe (hopefully next week). I will call again tomorrow about it.

I wonder if anyone has given you any feedback about whether or not some of his academic performance issues are anxiety-based? In other words, are his recall problems (and refusal to read) due to being anxious? I'm not at all professional and don't know how strong a possibility it could be, but when my dd2 was younger she had alot of recall issues, conversational/social issues, had a hard time with novel (new) tasks....and as we went through it with her (and looking back) it really all seems to have been anxiety-based. She still has some issues with this...

[HIU8]

We are seeing a therapist in a few weeks about anxiety issues that DS has. I will definitely ask if the slow processing et al could be linked to anxiety.

[KrisM]

I don't have a lot to add, but I will say my DS throws tantrums at home still. He cries at a lot of things. He doesn't do any of that at school. In kindergarten, he learned to read, but wouldn't. Now in 1st, he reads almost every day by choice. I'm not sure he's a lot different than your son in a lot of ways and he is doing fine at 1st grade.

[traciann]

Other than observing a classroom, have you met with the public school to discuss your son's situation? Do they have any suggestions on the best fit for him?