The Good News!

Yesterday's entry mentioned Jared's formal diagnosis to use for legal reasons. The actual reports held the detailed information. As I checked out his various test results, they were looking pretty decent. In fact, there were many of them above average.

On his Wechsler Individual Achievement Text, it held "grade based scores". In word reading, he's 1st grade. In numerical operations he's K:5 (that's halfway through his Kindergarten year). In math reasoning he's 1:0 (1st grade). In spelling he's K:5. In listening comprehension, he's PreK:5 (APD!!). In oral expression he's 6:5/age equivalent 12. Yes, you read that right! He's in the middle of 6th grade with his oral expression. In the tests, his oral language composite was "very superior".  In the tests, his verbal learning and listening was definitely below average. This doesn't surprise me, as he has APD. His hearing is fine, yet his listening is not.

So, you want to hear the good news? Dr. C. said that because his average is high, it will take less time to get that average up. In other words, if he has cognitive therapy, all his scores will go up quickly. The tests show that Jared has it in his head, but his hands don't process fast enough to get it onto paper quickly. She repeated how good his scores are and how she feels he will be able to excel faster than I thought. Do you want to know what her exact words were? (I wrote them down as I told her I had to quote her!)
"I expect him to grow out of all this."

What?! Are you kidding me? There's no known cure for APD. Is she giving me false hope? I asked her. She said, it will take a lot of work. He won't "grow out of it" if we don't do anything about it. We've got to teach him more left brained activities so it's stronger and he can create deductive reasoning, problem solving and manage his behavior. He has a major lack of ability to do left hemisphere things and cognitive therapy will teach each side of his brain to be strong in itself, but also communicate with the other side. It kind of sounds like what Grant Bishop did. It took a lot of work, but he ended up as valedictorian.

Even though she said that, I'm still not at the point where I can change my expectations of this disorder. I don't know if that makes me a "glass half empty gal" or if I've just read WAY too much about APD to believe it. However, I am starting my weekend, and the month of May, with an increase of HOPE.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)