cognitive abilities

[Guest guest]

Michele

You ask if it's frustrating knowing Caitlyn is smarter than she actually

seems. Though I am immensely grateful for her strengths, it is very

frustrating, because she fools people. Educators and therapists see how

verbal she is and assume she is high functioning. Yet she has such severe

auditory and visual processing problems that she really needs a lot of

support in a classroom or it all goes over her head. Plus, they don't

realize that her fine motor and self-help skills are so bad until after they

get to know her awhile. They just assume she doesn't want to do it. By the

time they realize that she's unable to do it, they've moved on and we're

breaking in a new teacher or therapist.

Picking school placements has been especially hard. Because she's so verbal

educators want to place her with typical kids. Yet with her processing

problems and sensory integration problems, it's too overwhelming and she's

unable to take anything in. Plus she gets trampled because typical 3-5 year

olds are so active and there's Caitlyn unaware of safety issues and low tone

and balance problems. No wonder she cries whenever she's around peers.

She's been knocked down so many times!

This means we can't take her to the park or to other places with kids

because she just has a meltdown. She doesn't enjoy anything other than

being alone or being surrounded by adults. It's getting worse instead of

better, as all our attempts to work on this result in her becoming more

upset about it.

I hate to complain because she's doing so well and we're so happy for this.

But it's frustrating because she doesn't seem to fit in anywhere.

Jeanne

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