Thursday, February 17, 2011
A Job Has Been Posted
I am still rather in shock. I had been told that the district was hoping to hire a new school psych for next year, but I told myself to not get my hopes up. One of my supervisors has been keeping me up to date on the play by play of the committee he is on to structure the mod-severe program for next year and so I had heard the progression of the position being a .6, then full time, and then lastly a .4 position. I was holding my breath hoping there would be even a part time position and then yesterday I was told that the job had posted. I looked at it and it was a full time gig. WHAT THE HECK?! I am so confused, but excited non the less. Weird thing is that they are only posting the job for one week! I am uncertain why they are doing it so fast, and have a lot of conspiracy theories floating around in my head, but regardless my application will be in the pile by next Thursday. Now I just need to get a handle on my resume and secure some quick letters of reference. I am already nervous!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
First initial Mental Retardation IEP
Last week I had the IEP for a student I did an initial evaluation for mental retardation (mr) for. I was crazy uncomfortable before the meeting. I mean, how do you tell someone for the first time that there baby is different and has a mean sounding label applied to them? All morning long (well, after Mr. Z left the house) I rehearsed aloud, practicing what I would say during each of the components of the IEP. Then when I got to the office, Mr. P demonstrated for me how he would go about saying it - which was extremely helpful. The meeting ended up going as well as it could. The parents definitely blanched a bit in response to the MR label. But after seeing their faces we talked for a bit about what the label does and doesn't mean. They seemed shocked, but at the same time expressed that the diagnosis made sense to them as they could see that this child was very different than his younger sibling. We actually ended up talking more about his placement change in the following school year as we recommended that he be moved to the moderate-severe program that the school district is starting. All in all, I am happy with how it went. Although I wish I didn't have a reason to.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cute kids, sad kids, scared kids and sick kids
Since we returned from Christmas Break, it seems like things have been going full force. This week alone I worked on assessments for 6 kids! We are starting to refer some of the reading intervention non-responders for special education testing and then I've got a couple 3 years to do and a couple of parent requests for testing on top of that.
I've been doing a TON of testing with one little one who we are looking at for a possible learning disability. I think she is pretty cute, but I think I am the only one in the school who feels that way. She is very socially immature. As a 2nd grade student, she is behaviorally more like a kindergartner. She tends to crack me up though as you can tell she is used to getting her way at home and she believes she should be able to dictate or negotiate everything to fit her desire - this includes the testing setting. I used a sticker chart with her during testing because I wanted to keep her engaged - it worked. I also would end our testing time with 5-10 minutes of the two of us coloring together (I set a timer on the computer so she KNOWS when we are done). I swear though, she has fabulous negotiation skills. We would do a couple subtests and she would try, "hope about we do one more of these, then color?" And I would again have to remind her of the plan. LOL, I think she's pretty cute, and she obviously has some smarts in her too.
I am loading up on my viatmin c again as everyone seems sick. One of my counseling kids and one that I had been stalking in order to test where both sick this week. I have been trying to catch a 1st grade for a week and a half now and he finally showed up to school so I swooped in and pulled him to get his testing done. He was so sick. I tried to send him home but the poor little dude stole my heart and said, "I want to stay with you. I like spending time with you." so we did a little bit of work and then I sent him home. Poor baby.
I tried to meet with one of my counseling kiddos only to find out that she had been sent to the dental clinic for the morning. I knew my schedule was going to be extra tight this week so I figured I could just go check on her at the clinic and make sure she was having a good week and then pop out. I walk into the teachers lounge where the dental people were and see my little girl sitting in the waiting area. She avoids eye contact with me and is bouncing her foot up and down and looks completely freaked out. So I sit with her, and sit with her, and sit with her. She is only answering my attempts to get her to talk with one word answers so I am unsure if she even wants me there but I decide to stick with her. She ended up getting half way done then sent to lunch and told she needed to come back for more. So I walk with her to get her lunch and ask her if she wants me to stick around or leave and she finally speaks and says she wants me to stay. So stay I did. Poor pumpkin, I felt her pain.
My middle school kid threw me for a loop this week. He wasn't one I planned on testing, but I got to the site and heard my supervisor lamenting how she did not want to test him. She had interviewed him the day prior and he was off the walls ADHD. As she seemed like she had a lot of other things she needed to do and didn't particularly care to have to deal with the student I reminded her that she could make her intern do it :) So I took on the kid, not bothering to ask what the assessment was for (my assumption - since it was a middle schooler - was a three year re-eval for Specific Learning Disability). I gave the kid a wisc and he spoke a mile a minute, was very much in need of positive regard, and very unsure of himself. He cracked akward jokes throughout the testing and constantly wanted affirmation that he was doing ok. After the WISC was done we did the Beery VMI (which I haven't done in a YEAR!) followed by the BASC self report. This is where things really got depressing. The kidlet read some of the things outloud and some I helped him on and in the process it became pretty clear that he was a very depressed little boy, he had no friends and believed everyone hated him. He then got to the questions about hearing voices and shared with me that he did. I asked what the voices said to him and he looked down at his hands and said that they told him that he should end it as things would be better if he was gone. This of course led to me asking him if he had ever thought about listening to them and he shared with me that he had previously had two suicide attempts, but he currently did not have a plan/intention to hurt himself. Through some questioning on my part, he was able to list a couple reasons why he wouldn't want to hurt himself and we made a plan as to how he could get in contact with me or my supervisor if he needed to talk. *Yikes* poor kid! Such a sad little one, he's had such a hard life, full of pain and abandonment. :( Needless to say, once I found out why I was assessing him it all clicked: Emotional Disturbance
I've been doing a TON of testing with one little one who we are looking at for a possible learning disability. I think she is pretty cute, but I think I am the only one in the school who feels that way. She is very socially immature. As a 2nd grade student, she is behaviorally more like a kindergartner. She tends to crack me up though as you can tell she is used to getting her way at home and she believes she should be able to dictate or negotiate everything to fit her desire - this includes the testing setting. I used a sticker chart with her during testing because I wanted to keep her engaged - it worked. I also would end our testing time with 5-10 minutes of the two of us coloring together (I set a timer on the computer so she KNOWS when we are done). I swear though, she has fabulous negotiation skills. We would do a couple subtests and she would try, "hope about we do one more of these, then color?" And I would again have to remind her of the plan. LOL, I think she's pretty cute, and she obviously has some smarts in her too.
I am loading up on my viatmin c again as everyone seems sick. One of my counseling kids and one that I had been stalking in order to test where both sick this week. I have been trying to catch a 1st grade for a week and a half now and he finally showed up to school so I swooped in and pulled him to get his testing done. He was so sick. I tried to send him home but the poor little dude stole my heart and said, "I want to stay with you. I like spending time with you." so we did a little bit of work and then I sent him home. Poor baby.
I tried to meet with one of my counseling kiddos only to find out that she had been sent to the dental clinic for the morning. I knew my schedule was going to be extra tight this week so I figured I could just go check on her at the clinic and make sure she was having a good week and then pop out. I walk into the teachers lounge where the dental people were and see my little girl sitting in the waiting area. She avoids eye contact with me and is bouncing her foot up and down and looks completely freaked out. So I sit with her, and sit with her, and sit with her. She is only answering my attempts to get her to talk with one word answers so I am unsure if she even wants me there but I decide to stick with her. She ended up getting half way done then sent to lunch and told she needed to come back for more. So I walk with her to get her lunch and ask her if she wants me to stick around or leave and she finally speaks and says she wants me to stay. So stay I did. Poor pumpkin, I felt her pain.
My middle school kid threw me for a loop this week. He wasn't one I planned on testing, but I got to the site and heard my supervisor lamenting how she did not want to test him. She had interviewed him the day prior and he was off the walls ADHD. As she seemed like she had a lot of other things she needed to do and didn't particularly care to have to deal with the student I reminded her that she could make her intern do it :) So I took on the kid, not bothering to ask what the assessment was for (my assumption - since it was a middle schooler - was a three year re-eval for Specific Learning Disability). I gave the kid a wisc and he spoke a mile a minute, was very much in need of positive regard, and very unsure of himself. He cracked akward jokes throughout the testing and constantly wanted affirmation that he was doing ok. After the WISC was done we did the Beery VMI (which I haven't done in a YEAR!) followed by the BASC self report. This is where things really got depressing. The kidlet read some of the things outloud and some I helped him on and in the process it became pretty clear that he was a very depressed little boy, he had no friends and believed everyone hated him. He then got to the questions about hearing voices and shared with me that he did. I asked what the voices said to him and he looked down at his hands and said that they told him that he should end it as things would be better if he was gone. This of course led to me asking him if he had ever thought about listening to them and he shared with me that he had previously had two suicide attempts, but he currently did not have a plan/intention to hurt himself. Through some questioning on my part, he was able to list a couple reasons why he wouldn't want to hurt himself and we made a plan as to how he could get in contact with me or my supervisor if he needed to talk. *Yikes* poor kid! Such a sad little one, he's had such a hard life, full of pain and abandonment. :( Needless to say, once I found out why I was assessing him it all clicked: Emotional Disturbance
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