Sylvan Results. More questions/few answers.

[Shari]

So, we took wee difficult child and easy child 2 to Sylvan for testing. Was my mom's idea...she thought it would be good to take wee difficult child and give him a head start on reading.
***
His report card at the end of the year was mediocre. He attends private school, and, while he's slightly behind by their standards, they felt he was ahead of public school standards. We felt the same.
***
Two things raise big red flags for me with the Sylvan evaluation.
***
1) The lady that tested him has never met him. He was not having a particularly bad day, but it also was not one of his really great days, either. He was pretty much standard fare on that day. This woman kept him in a room, alone, visible thru a window, and engaged for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Not a single one of the "professionals" that have ever evaluated him have been able to do that. They have never gotten more than 30 minutes out of him.
***
2) Per there evaluation, he's below a kindergarten level on all subjects.
***
I realize Sylvan isn't the end-all of tutoring facilities and they may or may not be "on" with their testing and recommendations, but I have several friends with kids, some with learning disabilities, who have had great success with our local facilities. That aside, I do think their testing has some merit, and have to consider the fact that wee difficult child is WAY behind academically already.
***
My other big concern is, if a woman who is a good teacher can engage difficult child for 2 and a half hours before she loses him, just how valid are all of these evaluations we've had done with "professionals" who bribe difficult child to keep him marginally engaged for 30 minutes, max, then lose him? Know what I mean??

 

[totoro]

Interesting... We have thought about one of these centers for K. As an add on to keep her up to date with the one on one.
We asked Dr. Mani Pavuluri, whose book just came out!!!, and she was very into the idea of Kumon or Sylvan Centers. Especially when the SD was not helping your child that much.
Are you going to bring him there on a regular basis?
I would be interested to hear how it is? We have a bunch of Kumon's in Tucson and we work on Kumon books nightly. K loves them. She would fight her school homework but work on her Kumon book!
Interesting thought as far as the testing, what are the credentials for the people in the centers?

 

[BusynMember]

Kids with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified test all over the board, but usually need help in school to keep up. in my opinion a private school (which we tried too) is less effective for kids on the spectrum than public schools. They don't offer any help, and kids on the spectrum need help on many levels, social skills/speech/academics...JMO

 

[Shari]

If I can figure out the logistics of it, yes, I plan to take him. Even if he goes every day, tho, they estimate it will take over a year to catch him up to the kindergarten level. The lady testing him was a former Special Education teacher with a lot of experience trained in Sylvan's teaching methods, also.

MWM - I think you picked up on my concern...I need to update my profile, but he currently doesn't have a spectrum diagnosis from the MD's. The dev pediatrician's current diagnosis is severe ADHD and disordered attachment. The mental health team have a diagnosis of BiPolar (BP)/not otherwise specified, disordered attachment, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). Currently the way our team is set up, tho, without the MD's buy-in on the diagnosis'es, he is not eligible for help for spectrum disorders because MD argues he's not on the spectrum.

I'm just really curious, tho, how a kid who is so drastically ADHD that the doctors can't even get a clear evaluation due to his hyperactivity (they blame literally every aspect of his behavior on his hyperactivity), can be ENGAGED in schoolwork that he does not like by a teacher that doesn't know him for 2 and a half solid hours.

Now I'll go change my profile.

 

[totoro]

You know some of K's doctor's feel she does not have ADHD. That it is just her Mood Disorder making her hyper because at times she can be fully engaged. When she is stable she can be calm and stay still. Right now she is not stable, she has a hard time being still. But even though, when she is up, she is hyper, when she is down, not hyper...
SO I question her ADHD at times.
I don't know if your difficult child has BiPolar (BP) but there might be other things at play here? Kids on the Spectrum I am sure when calm and not so anxious probably can focus more and be engaged. Maybe the Sylvan lady had something that just clicked with him?
I know K does worse with certain lighting, more kids around, more noise, just different settings... windows, too many, loud a/c.
K's kindergarten teacher was not good with her, but her speech teacher was... and the rooms were completely different. I think this would affect and special needs child.

 

[BusynMember]

Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is pervasive development disorder. How can they say he's not on the spectrum????
If I were you, I'd see a neuropsychologist for him. If you already have, well, I'd get another one's opinion. Most spectrum kids are diagnosed with ADHD first. There are so many similarities that some believe that ADHD will eventually be considered part of the spectrum. I would want those interventions. If your son is very disabled by whatever-it-is, I'd want spectrum interventions yesterday. We got them before we got the diagnosis. It just took a lot of fighting and hard work.
Good luck.

 

[Wonderful Family]

I've never used Sylvan, but wouldn't be surprised if what you had was a "great" teacher. We've used tutors every year until this past one for difficult child.

Maybe we just got lucky; but our tutors were always women staying home with kids looking to do a little work that they enjoy; but wanted to stay home for a few years with infants/toddlers. A couple were even Special Education/Behavior Ed specialists. We did not use special services to look for them.