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Educational Decisions Private Schools and Special Programs |
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Public School/Mainstreaming
Private Schools and Special Programs She goes to a school for deaf children in a bilingual program, which is ASL. I truly believe that it's the ASL that has closed the gap for her. If she hadn't had the ASL foundation, her English would have been slower in coming. And both languages have flourished. When there's a word she can't pronounce well, and I can't understand, she's able to sign it to me. We are able to get through most communication situations. Right now he is kindergarten at a private school in a full day program. He wears an FM system. It has been difficult for the teacher to figure out how to work the microphone and put the boots on his hearing aids. There is a person in the town that goes out there once a month to make sure the system is being used right and I've had the teacher trained and retrained and retrained. We're getting there. Riley will start preschool in February. He is doing early intervention. He was at a school for the deaf and hard of hearing. He gets speech and language once a week from them and early intervention once a month. He has had everything and is doing very well because of it. Getting Her Into the Right School I know as she was getting toward three years old, we had a number of meetings set up where there were different people trying to figure out what the right thing was and they were making proposals about where she could go, and then maybe we could bring these different people together. These were people who knew this because she was unique; there were no other kids that were like her. So ultimately we were seeing what our options were. To go to the ideal school for her was a hurdle because of geographic distance. There were other programs around that were a little closer. There was a possibility of them creating a program within the district itself. So there were all these things flying around, but when push came to shove at the end of the day, I think they realized that it was going to be too difficult to try to create this program from scratch. I really pushed to say, “We want her to go to the best school to meet her needs. We know it's going to cost you a fortune to transport her, so we'll drive, we'll take care of the transportation. We eventually had to go to the director of special ed for the district, and I said, “Look, get her into the school, and we'll drive her.” She said, “You're going to drive?” and we said “yup.” Fine, that was enough. Public School/Mainstreaming Mainstreamed With an FM System She is mainstreamed. She wears her implants and does everything with the class. She graduated from speech therapy and doesn't have that anymore. She still has pull out time to catch up with school work or for enrichment, depending on where she is in her subjects. She loves it and she's doing great. She has a new FM so hopefully she'll get a little more sound in both ears. She's always been mainstreamed. She was in an integrated preschool program so that half the kids had other issues, not necessarily hearing loss, and half the kids were “typically developing” kids. When she first started kindergarten her language still was significantly delayed. Her hearing loss wasn't identified until she was one. She just missed the newborn screening. Mainstreamed With Accommodations She's doing very well at school. She's in a mainstream classroom and we've made accommodations. She has an FM system. She has acoustic tiles and carpeting on the floor. So that all helps. This year, she has a male teacher. His voice, he's in theater and his voice projects so nicely that I've noticed a difference from last year and her fatigue level when she comes home from school this year. You don't realize how hard they're working to listen all day long. Evan and Tom are both at regular school. They each have interpreters. They rely on them a lot. Public School With a Language Facilitator We really wanted him to go to the local public school. They were willing to hire a language facilitator who also had knowledge of sign language. They were also willing to contract out for speech and language therapy with somebody who had experience with deaf and hard of hearing children. So we were very fortunate. Separate and Integrated Classrooms The classroom has eleven children with special needs. They integrate for music, gym, and cafeteria. She does stuff with the whole school too, so they all know her. As I look back, I remember when she was three: she potty trained late and she couldn't focus, I was freaking out! And now to think that she's taking the bus and going to our local school; she's come a long way! |
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. Updated: December 23, 2007 |
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