Miss Kat saw the audiologist last week. Her MAP changed very little, so he wants to go to appointments every 6 months instead of 3 months....I remain unconvinced. Her audiogram was very good, she is hearing at 20-25 db across all frequencies. Her speech recognition threshold (not awareness, recognition. He tested her with 5 cards, and she has to point to the right SPONDEE word that he said) was at, get this, 20 db!!! She can understand speech at 20 db....ummm....she is DEAF!!! What a crazy world!
She also took the WIPI sentence test. She scored 20 out of 25, but several were not "hearing issues" but instead vocabulary holes. I found out that Miss Kat does not know the word pan....I guess I don't cook enough!
Also, next Monday we are having another IEP meeting for Miss Kat. Her "experimental period" in the oral class is over AND she met all her goals that we wrote in September. We are writing up new goals, and she is staying in her class. She is doing very well, her spoken language is exploding and her literacy is really taking off too. We still use ASL in our home, we attend a Deaf/ASL church and she still is great friends with her Deaf buddies, and we are active in the Deaf community, but right now, this is right place for her schooling.
Her IEP goals are not finalized but they will look something like this:
1. Katrina will use Sentence Pattern II (i.e. The boy walked the dog), Sentence Pattern III( The boy is funny), Sentence Pattern IV(The boy is on the table), Sentence Pattern V (This is my mom) in 4 out of 5 opportunities in spontaneous conversation, as recorded in at least two monthly language samples.
***These sentence patterns require Katrina to use the copula be, such as, is, am, are. Having these patterns down, also requires her to use ing, as well as prepositional phrases, adverbs, adjectives. ***
2. Katrina will use basic What, Where, Why, and How question forms in 3 out of 5 opportunities in spontaneous conversation, as recorded in at least two monthly language samples.
*** What we want to see Katrina do with her Wh questions is use : How many/much? What the boy eat?, How you do that?, Why not?, What for? Where is she running to? Who is Jon pushing? Questions are key to pragmatics/socialization. We want her to be able to converse in spoken language naturally with friends and family.***
3. Katrina will use the following adverbs-place in prepositional phrases, at, into, to, up, on, above, down, out, over, under, in 3 out of 5 opportunities in spontaneous conversation, as recorded in at least two monthly language samples.
***Having these adverbs of place will insure Katrina's ability to use the Sentence Patterns above, having a solid foundation of the 5 sentence patterns is key to spoken language fluency***
Listening
1. Katrina will answer What happened?, How many?, Where and Who questions in 3 out of 5 attempts, in each of 6 consecutive sessions.
***Not only do we want Katrina to ask these questions, but it is most important that she understands these questions in social situations, but during instruction. An example of how that would be tested is have her read a leveled reading book to the teacher, and then answer Wh questions afterwards.***
2. Katrina will sequence 3 critical elements/events from a story in 4 out of 5 attempts, in each of 6 consecutive individual tutoring sessions.
***This goes right with our goal of sequencing a four part picture story. The reason to have three? During reading we are continually going over comprehension, one way we do that is ask what happened first, middle and last. We will cut out pictures from the story have the page numbers unseen, and mix the pictures up, and then ask students to show us what happened first, middle and last. This helps them comprehend, and understand sequential order, as well as auditory memory. ***
3. Katrina will answer simple riddles in 4 out of 5 attempts, in each of 6 consecutive individual tutoring sessions.
***How we will test this, there will be 4-6 items on the table, items that have nothing in common, we will say some similar to "Katrina show me the item that eats bananas and has brown fur" one of those items will obviously be a monkey...before she will reach for it we will ask her to repeat what she is looking for. In that exercise, she will had to of listened for descriptions and functions, as well as identify the object we are talking about***
4. Katrina will repeat a 6-7 word sentences in 4 out of 5 attempts, in each of 6 consecutive individual tutoring sessions.
***Having Katrina successfully repeat a 6-7 word sentence really works on her auditory memory, as well as her articulation. We need to work on her articulation, to have strong articulation she needs to have the mechanics of oral language down. It is something that we are working on all the time, but we do not want to discourage her by focusing on the articulation of each work in her sentence excessively. We want her to feel confident in her ability to use the 5 Sentence Patterns we discussed earlier.***
I am FINALLY happy with some goals! Since the beginning of this whole journey, I have felt like professionals have aimed too low with Miss Kat's goals. Even when she was only 2, they would only write goals for the very next step. THAT IS NOT HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE!!! We are supposed to be writing goals for a YEAR! She should make tremendous progress in 12 months. We should be aiming for that, not just what happens next. So, I got out my AuSpLan book and wrote down what *I* thought would be appropriate goals. I showed the teacher and she agreed. Thank goodness for AuSpLan and it's timelines! If there are parents out there reading this, and you don't have this book, GO BUY IT!! Now, the school uses a different system (CASTLE) so the teacher had to explain how her goals met the same objectives as mine, but I think we have finally come together!
Also, Miss Kat did another spelling test, and this time she got them all right! Woo Hoo! My Deaf daughter is listening to the teacher and writing down all the words her teacher says, and spelling them correctly! Maybe no one is as impressed as me, but to me, this is INSANE!
