Highly sensitive person

Dr.T

Dear ALAL,

Will get back to you later next week. Weekend+Mon is my busiest time of the week...Sorry about that. :-|

ALAL

Dr T,
thank you for you to take the trouble to write the  interim reply. as a psychologist, you are really taking care of others' feeling.

Dr.T

Dear ALAL,

Lacking of self-confidence seldom is a reason for inattentiveness and don't put too much blame onto yourself for not praising your boy "big" enough.

Our attention fleets when we do not have a clue what is going on around us and that might be the reason for your son's not paying attention in class. It appears that with regular feedback he can perform better and that exactly is how behaviour program works. Positive reinforcement after target behaviour will certainly lead to more target behaviour. Just the teacher needs to do this consciously.

Schools that relying too much on self-control might not be too suitable for your son. He might need one that provides some kind of structure and some of the so-called traditional schools might not be a bad choice afterall, as long as they don't emphasize on meaningless repetitive copying and writing.

I think CAC will (and should) arrange a pre-primary assessment for your boy and you can decide which school is more suitable for him with the results.

ALAL

Dr T

My son will have the CAC assessment next Tue, but hearsay that the psychologist in my CAC centre don't give much suggestion on choice of school for kids.

Come back to you if there is further questions. Thanks a lot.

ALAL

Dr T,
My son ( 5 yrs 2 months) has undergone the CAC assessment today.

It is an unhappy  experience for me. The CP is very cool. She has no comment on schooling. She has not explained what she has done in the assessment and what is the items in the test because it is already 6:30 pm when finished.

She did not require my son to write small alphabet. But my son has problem in writing correct small alphabet. And she did not require my son to dictate english word, which my son can hardly dictate.

She said there is no way to improve IQ, which is quite stable. Her advice on attention deficiency is very general, just keep on praising. Her advice on bad memory, just use multi-sensory method.

Dr T, you have any comment?

(It is really exhausting to 'fight with' the government expert)

Dr.T

Dear  ALAL,

I serious wonder whether the CP gave your child a full HK-WISC   There should be 10 basic subtests with 5 on each area (verbal/performance). The range of the score is quite large and it's unusual (at least for me) to report it this way.

Anyway it appears that eye-hand coordination is the major obstacle in learning. A school with less emphasis on repetitive copying and writing would be a wise choice.

I would suggest further OT training if possible. Just wonder why CAC does not offer you any OT follow up? BTW, I just have a parent told me that her son was trained by the OT at the hospital (psychiatric dept though). May be you can also ask someone to write you a referral for this service.

ALAL

Dr T,
Thank you for your concern.

My son is studying in integrated seats in nusery, with specialist coming to school every 3 months (but not helpful at  all).

My son is receiving OT group training (mainly writing) in Kln Hospital for 1.5 months already. (the cp does not know) I also brought my son for SI training in North Point once. It is OK, but very far to my home.

I have mentioned that I have registered a project-approach school for my son. That school don't have dictation and very few writing homework. But I guess the mode of lesson is less structure.

I have a chance to talk to a p1 teacher of that school last week. She said hopefully their own-designed teaching material will attract more attention from my son. And they will not just stay in classroom to learn, will change room and have outing, less boring type of teaching.

Which criteria should I put as the first priority in choosing school ?: my son's  attention deficit problem or hand-eye coordination problem?

Actually I cannot find a school with structure mode of teaching but no dictation or writing.

Thanks.

Dr.T

Dear ALAL,

I'd say a school with less meaningless writing requirement, just like the one your child is now enrolled, should be OK for him. As long as he enjoys going to school then his attention problem will be easier to handle.

Good to hear that he also has regular OT training.

ALAL

Thanks Dr T,
don't want to drag you for so long. Good night.

Dr.T

Dear ALAL,

One thing just comes to my mind is that if there's a counsellor in the future school it'd be worthwhile to talk to him/her about your boy's inattentiveness. A well-designed behaviour programme, with the cooperation of the class teacher, is priceless.

Not to worry as I'm still wide awake searching information for other project...

mrsphcheung

Dear Dr. T and ALAL,
My personal experience is very similar to ALAL.  My son is 4 1/2.  He was assessed by the CAC at the age of 3 and 10.  He was diagnosed as developmental delay.  However, the doctor said that my son got 88 in the Griffith test (91 for a normal child) and recommented that 6 individual ST should be given to him (the service was stopped as he was enrolled by a child care centre with inclusive programme).  No OT was given to him.  My son is having private ST right now.  In fact, my son has hand-eye co-ordination problem, though not very serious.  My son cannot write very well.  It is very ironical that the OT of his current school just says that my son is O.K..  The mother is too nervous.  Nobody knows my son better than me!  My son is attending the OT of Heep Hong right now.  My son's OT assessment report is quite similar to ALAL.  I think that parents must fight for the interest of their children all the time.  Be proactive.  Never just rely on those specialists, esp from the government.  

Dr.T

Dear mrsphcheung,

If there's OT in your son's school then most likely it's a special school. May be comparing with his classmates your son can do quite a lot already and that's why the OT thought he's OK.

I think with a more stimulating environment (assuming my guess that he's now in special school is right), your son should do better. My years of teaching experience in special schools told me that, well, you cannot expect too much from them if your kids are relatively smarter than the others :-| IEP is only lip service and only applied to, mostly, autistic kids.

Just wonder which IQ test was given to him at age 10. Griffith can only be considered as a test of general development but never a proper IQ test. Also it's for very young kids only.

mrsphcheung

Dear Dr. T,
My son is in a NORMAL child care centre which offers inclusive programme for less able children.  The OT just visits his school once every two to three months.  Only children with severe need will be trained.  So you can imagine how scarce the service is.

Does the IQ of a child change when he grows up?  I heard from some parents that their children's IQ score in the W. test varies in different attempts.

My child always asks questions, mainly what and why questions.  He will not stop asking you the question unless he feels satisfied with your answer.  He is very curious about his surroundings.  I know that some normal children seldom ask questions.  Does the IQ of a child relate to whether he asks questions or not / he is curious about his surroundings or not?

I am very grateful to you for answering my questions.  It is very kind of you to spend your precious time to help parents here.

Dr.T

Dear mrsphcheung,

No wonder the OT said your child is OK. Just my apology for mistaking your child studies in a special school

There bounds to be changes when a child takes Wechsler more than once and it's rather impossible to get the same score everytime. But the profile will be more or less the same. For example, if a child scored only 6 on Coding (the symbol-copying task) but within Average range (8-12) among the other subtests, even with intensive training this particular task will still be his relative weakness. He might get 8 or even 9 when he is tested for the second time but this subtest will still be lower than the others.

HayBMum

Hi all mum and Dr T,

I was unhappy today with the attitude of my son's teacher.  Don't think that the SCC (even hxxp hxxg) is always good for child with special need.  It all depends on the quality of the teachers.  The story was that:  my son's teacher told me that my son cried serveral times a day recently without any reason.  She just urged me to pay attention whether my son was sick or not.  From my observation, my son behaved normally at home and no sign for sickness.  As far as I know my son, he would not cry without reason.  There must be something made him feel worry or unhappy. I therefore turned back to the school and kept on asking the details, e.g. when, where, under what circumstances, etc.  Finally,the teacher said that there was new teacher came to observe the class and another therapist tried to force my son to do some tasks that he did not want to do so.  Oh, my god! They should have good experience to deal with child with special need, especially autistic child.  I don't know whether my son is a highly sensitive person or not.  He need to take some time to cope with changes.  He hates people, other than family members, to touch his body.     Once he registered you as "not pleasant" to him, he will cry whenever he see you.  He has quite good memory on this kind of things!  His private OT said that my son is the only one who took more than 3 months to get along with her just because she had forced my son to swing before.  He kept this unpleasant memory long.

Dr T, any recommendation to train my son to adopt new people easier?

Haybmum

Dr.T

Dear HayBMum,

Thank you for sharing with us your kid's unfortunate event.

I must admit that I don't have a quick fix for that as time is an important factor. I'll try to follow the child's usual daily routine and then find "gap" to fit myself in. Yes it'll take a long time. Kids with autism often throw temper tantrum for no apparent reason and Heep Hong teachers should know better than that.

But as an ex-staff of Heep Hong I must say that they work under enormous pressure as their boss is a bit mad. May be they tried to train the new teacher in a short time and that caused the problem. They used to have very high staff turnover rate, especially professional staff. But nowadays as the job market is not as good as before, most people are afraid to be fired or contract not renewed. Then it'll be kids and parents who suffer:cry:

My mottos are 到處楊梅一樣花/天下烏鴉一樣黑... Bit sad but true

ALAL

Dr T,
Seems you need not sleep. Take care.

I have tried to contact the social worker of my target school, only that she is on long vacation.
But I think a special programe for my son seems so luxious for normal school, esp my son don't have the support of education department, as decided by the cp in assessment centre.

Hardly can I express my thank to you in words.! I would try to ask the other mums about your identity, which I don't know yet. Anyone know pl pm me. thanks.

XXXX

'I think that parents must fight for the interest of their children all the time. Be proactive' - very true, esp for marginal kid.

'IEP is only lip service' - IEP means inclusive education programme? I am in one of this nursery and I wish I hear this comment before I put my son into the nursery.

I know one HXX HXX SCC have some complaints from parents.

.

Dr.T

Dear ALAL,

'IEP is only lip service' - IEP means inclusive education programme? I am in one of this nursery and I wish I hear this comment before I put my son into the nursery.

I know one HXX HXX SCC have some complaints from parents.

.

IEP stands for Individualized Education Programme. Supposingly all kids with special needs should have one. When I worked as a teacher for autistic children in London I needed to discuss with the parents half-yearly. In HK because of shortage of manpower only kids included in the integrated programme, or all kids in EETC/ICCC (or their KG equivalent) will have one, at least in Heep Hong. No such thing in special school except autistic kids, but that only limited to, yes, kids with autism. That's why they used the term "autistic features" so freely. With the label you can argue for more resources from the EMB.

Regarding Heep Hong, I suppose all schools/organizations have their friends and foes. Just "You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time. "(After Lincoln) :wink:

mrsphcheung

Dear all (esp. HayBMum),
I am very unhappy to hear the sad experience of HayBMum.  HayBMum, do you think of changing the school?  If the situation is really very bad, it may be a way out.  My son's teacher tells me that special child care centre is easier to get enrolled than normal child care centre with "I" programme.  Never give up!!!

"Don't think that the SCC (even hxxp hxxg) is always good for child with special need. It all depends on the quality of the teachers."    We strongly need high quality teachers to educate our children, not just at pre-school level, but at primary, secondary as well as tertiary level.  The LOVE and CARE of a teacher is much more important than her/his excellent academic qualification.  Being parents of less able children, we often need all sorts of supports from the school.

mrsphcheung

Dear all,
I really want to know the real identity of Dr. T.  Maybe, I will visit him or recommend other parents to visit him in times of need.  It is really very hard to find a reliable educational psychologist to help our poor children.  CAN ANYONE WHO KNOWS THE SECRET PM TO ME?  Thanks a lot.   :