We waited anxiously to hear back from the school psychologist. They had been testing our oldest for 3 weeks now and I was on edge.What if they told me we were crazy and he really wasn't that smart? What if they told me he had more problems because of his Asperger's? I just wished they would tell me something. Anything!
I impatiently emailed the psychologist asking how much longer until we knew anything and if she could give me any clue as what he was showing. This is what her email said back:
"His achievement scores are all in the Superior to Very Superior range. Cognitively, he is more of a puzzle. His verbal index is in the Very Superior range (standard score 136) as well as his perceptual reasoning skills (standard score 135). His holes are in his Working Memory and his Processing Speed, which are both in the average range when compared to boys his age, but he is not an average boy!! We need to take these skills into consideration as we plan his programming. You have a boy who is operating in the 96-99th %ile. That is not going to change - that is his hard drive. We need to individualize his education just as we do the kids on the other end of the spectrum - the very low children. I am working on his report and researching some interventions this weekend. I have also contacted the education dept at the university."
OK, so I was relieved that they didn't think he was dumb or anything and we were just pushy parents, but really, I still didn't understand all her talk about levels and processing and what not. She scheduled a meeting for us, the Principal, the district gifted coordinator, and herself. Of course I was a little nervous of this being I would be meeting with the coordinator of the gifted program whom I had recently pulled my boys out of her program. I hoped she was not angry with us.
My husband and I met the next day and the meeting was astonishing. We all sat around a table while the school psychologist told us that he was "1 in 300,000 kids" to be at the level he was intellectually. She showed us charts and graphs and numbers here and there that compared him to that of a 25 year old adult. She showed his level as compared to his classmates where he stretched far far ahead of his peers. Really, we sat there almost in awe thinking, "Are you sure? He's just a kid."
And then, I was surprised by what recommendations they had.
They did not recommend he skip 4th grade. They said he was so smart that he had the ability to master any subject matter presented to him rather quickly. They said if they skipped him grades it would do no good because he would just need to be skipped again and again and again.
They said rather than skipping him, they would like to accommodate him in the following ways:
1-allow him to take certain subjects in the higher grades but keep him based in his own grade
2-give him access to his own personal computer where he can research info on his own
3-allow him separate projects and possibilities of creating power point presentations to his class
4-give him alternate assignments to allow him to go more in depth on interesting topics
and then one extra help for his Asperger's:
5-have him meet in a peer group with the psychologist once weekly to work on social skills
So, here we were, entering a new set up for our 9 year old. It was so funny almost to think it had taken us so long for anyone to really want to match his full potential. Yes, the gifted program was great, but even then it didn't quite fit him. I wonder why we pulled him out of this school in the first place. This school seemed to be doing so much and they really really wanted to help him succeed. Not just succeed, but live to his fullest possibilities.
It was almost like we were the parents of some kind of celebrity. It was just weird sitting there with all these important people telling us how wonderful our son was. Sure, we knew he was smart, but they were making us feel as if we were important members of society like related to the President or something.
Sad, that is that every parent isn't treated this way no matter what. Not that we were ever treated badly before, but this was just so different. We were really impressed with the way they seemed to care so much.
So, here we were, ready to start a new path for our oldest. He was destined for great things they told us. We would soon see.
