Article By: The Press
When my son James was two years old, he still did not talk. His daycare provider did an assessment, and strongly suggested he needed speech services. I showed the assessment to a speech teacher I knew well, and she agreed. James’ father disagreed. But he did not object to treatment, and so James received speech and occupational therapy from the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. In about eight months, he was talking and otherwise improving, and it was determined he had met his goals, so services stopped.
Eighteen months later, his father and I were long since separated, and we were living in Lehigh County, and James was at another daycare. That daycare had what I considered to be an aggressive pre-K curriculum. Again it was suggested he needed services. This time I declined, and moved him to a daycare with a less aggressive curriculum. He did very well there.
In hindsight, maybe I should have pursued more services. My life was also at rock bottom, and I can’t say how that affected my decision. Over the course of a year, we lived in three different counties. I drove three different cars. We were in a car accident.
When the dust settled, we were in Bethlehem, and finally achieved a small sense of stability.
Several months later, James started kindergarten. He has a late summer birthday, so was relatively young. The school district felt starting summer school before kindergarten would be helpful to James. He did well in summer school.
Then the regular school year started, and his school day was made longer, in part because the school day was a little longer, and also he was in before care. It did not go well.
Thankfully, we were able to get him evaluated quickly, and it was determined he has ADHD. He was given a TSS (that stands for one-on-one Theraputic Support Staff) behavioral support and occupational therapy. After some time, he began to thrive.
Now he is in first grade. And then, Coronavirus happened.
James is now doing schoolwork at home. He does not have his TSS, so Erick [his brother] or I need to sit with him and work with him when he does his schoolwork. It’s a work in progress. He has had some regression in behavior, (mostly whining, crying like a toddler, defiance and refusal to follow directions, tantrums and neediness) and my primary concern now is managing that. The regression caught me by surprise. We have been through so much, and I didn’t consider the impact of his having to stay home all the time would have on his behavior. The regression hit most strongly the week I started working my day job online. It’s been several weeks now, and he has had time to adjust. And he sees his behavior specialist and his occupational therapist on Zoom, weekly. All in all, he is doing better.
My worry now is what happens when school starts meeting in the school building again. Will he be happy to go back? Or will it be another difficult change? What if there is a subsequent closure?
Time will tell.