Update on Jacob

I know I have blogged before about some developmental issues/delays that Jacob had. He went to Kindergarten much to my dismay this year. Because of his late birthday (Sept 2) I didn't want him to go to kindergarten this year for maturity reasons alone. He was 4 when he started kindergarten. In my opinion that's just too young. Kindergarten isn't what it was when we were young. I remember playing, having books read to us, singing, and maybe a little bit of learning to read thrown in. They are full blown doing math problems I probably didn't do until 1st grade. I know every parent struggles with their baby going to kindergarten but mine was for different reasons. However, due to needing speech and occupational therapy he didn't qualify for k-readiness. His only option, other than staying home for a year with no services, was to go to kindergarten.

Even though I love his school and teacher, this year has been a mess. You could tell all year he wasn't ready. There were times when he would get lost just going from his class to the gym where he would be picked up from school. Bless his heart.

When a child recieves services through the school they have to be re-evaluated every 3 years to make sure they still quailfy. This year was that third year. The results of that eval showed that Jacob is totally in the normal or average level in language. This is such a blessing because since he was 2 he has been a year behind in his language and this year alone he got completely caught up. So this year wasn't in vain. It was acutally pretty benefical for him. The team all agreed that he would benefit from repeating kindergarten for maturity reasons alone. Academically he could be promoted to first grade. Which if you think about it is pretty cool. That means he gets to have a year to mature. He'll be more on the level with these kids. He'll be older than all of them with 2 years down at Barfield, including preschool. And we know that he has the knowledge of everything in kindergarten so that won't be a struggle. He gets to have this year of kindergarten without the need of any services. Which is what our goal was all along.

I'm so proud of the progress that little boy made between his language, and behavior. He's had some kind of service for 3 1/2 years and won't need them anymore. Its quite possible that he may never know that he needed them in the first place since he was so young. And that my friends, is the goal of early intervention. There were some people who told me that he didn't really need speech therapy, that all boys talk late, yada yada. With all the hard work on his part, he got completely caught up so that he can go to kindergarten with no services. Hallelujah!