I was thinking the same thing. I just had my very first PT conference, with my 3.5 year-old’s preschool teacher. I think that generally speaking, my kid is reasonably bright and pretty much where she is supposed to be socially. But God knows, she is not perfect, and neither am I, so after the “we really like C., she’s a good kid and seems to be getting along well in preschool,” I expected to hear where there are areas to work on. Not necessarily earth-shattering ones…she’s having a separation problem right now, for instance…how can I help her with that? Sometimes, she gets overly frustrated when she can’t have her way…what’s the best way to teach her to deal? If there was something larger that I might have missed, I certainly would want to hear that, too. Otherwise, what’s the point of having the conferences in the first place?
I find it FRUSTRATING when these conferences are just “he’s a great kid” or “she is so smart.” I want “Your darling angel has some issues paying attention in class - they aren’t terribly worrisome, but if you could work a little with her at home on paying attention - I’ve copied these games for you that will help develop her attention span.” Or “Your pumpkin is very well liked by the other kids in class, but he does tend to be a follower and sometimes makes poor choices in friends. You may want to be careful of what friendships you nurture.” I expect that there is room for improvement, and I want to leave conferences with a tangible path.
That’s exactly right…you need to work together with the teachers for the benefit of the child. No child is without help of some kind or another, in certain areas or another, even at pre-school age, and the teachers, who are there to observe them in these social situations, are the ones most able to make assessments in that area…why not embrace the opportunity to gain insights into your child?
Truly.
I agree with you as it pertains to school. But I guess I was on another wave altogether because we didn’t have regularly scheduled parent teacher conferences when my kids were 2.5, so in nursery school. They also didn’t have report cards or educational goals to meet, either. Back then I was in the States so it isn’t even the cultural gap.
It would be my hope that most 2.5 year olds are not having problems that need to be addressed in regular p/t conferences in nursery school. But evidently that’s not so. Honestly, I think it would worry me very much if a nursery/day care was scheduling regular parent teacher conferences. But possibly I am, er, on the casual side in these matters.
To repeat a little – for kids of 2.5? Really? Shouldn’t we wait until they are actually choosing friends before we talk about their choices in friends?
I don’t think Dangerosa or WhyNot were necessarily talking only about preschool conferences. My example was targeted towards that age group, because that’s the age kid I have, but the principle applies all the way through. At my daughter’s age, the problems might be the ones I mentioned, but they have older kids who might be having different types of problems. The point is that the PT conferences are supposed to be helpful. And, autism does start presenting itself around preschool age, so it’s not irrelevant to look for warning signs even at age 3 or so.
I am missing the curve, then. So your nursery/day care does have regularly scheduled p/t conferences for 2 year olds? I mean, as opposed to casual before-and-after conversations or meetings by appointment made by either parent or teacher?
I am genuinely curious, because I never heard of this outside of an academic preschool. And the academic preschools I saw gave me the heebie jeebies.
I am now not in the US, and they start regular p/t conferences at Kindy level. But since not much is expected here in the way of content based learning at that level, all they talk about is developmental in nature.
My preschool starts at age 3, so I don’t know what the typical protocol is for 2 year olds. My school does a semi-formal conference once a “semester.” It is not what you would call an “academic” preschool by any stretch…it’s a very typical daycare/preschool, and they told us specifically that they do not have educational goals, but that they are interested in developmental issue relevant to 3 & 4-year-olds. A lot of these issues seem to center around socialization, vs. academic goals. The conversation I had with her teacher centered more around what she likes to do all day, which activities she enjoys more than others, how she gets along with the other kids, if she is following directions (at least, as much as is normally expected of a 3-year-old), whether she participates in group activites like rug time, etc.
I was speaking to my own children’s conference - they are now eight and nine.
But at 2.5, if my children needed attention or work in an area, yes. We had my son screened for speech at that age.
My daycare had regular conferences starting at about a year. And yes, if your child was showing signs of delay (i.e. the speech thing) or behavioral issues that weren’t worth mentioning pre-conference, they brought them up then. I seem to recall they had some developmental screening tool they used - for instance the “average” one year old would be walking, at your child was evaluated based on that having achieved that developmental milestone. I had my own kids in a non-acedemic Kindercare. Not a bad daycare, but not Ivy Prep, either.
By two and a half, it was color recognition, shape recognition, ability to follow directions, etc.
Most that I’ve heard of do. My daughter’s not in preschool at the moment - her playgroup was therapeutic in nature, although play-oriented in design, so it was certainly expected that I get frequent informal and biannual formal written reports, 'cause the State wants to know where their money is going.
It might be because here in Chicago, we hear and see a LOT about Head Start and other programs for low-income preschoolers and at the same time have a lot of affluent Baby Einstein pushers - so people around here are pretty interested in their wee ones academics from the get go. I agree it’s a bit much, but it’s what’s become the norm in my area. (And that’s one big reason why my daughter’s not in daycare/preschool yet - I want to give her a little more free time while I can.)
No, I’m not joking. What ulterior motive could the daycare have that would make sense?
Thing is, most of the signs of autism start to show themselves at about age 2 or so. I would have several questions to ask myself, if I were Andrew’s parent:
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Does he make eye contact with me or anyone else?
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Does he initiate eye contact with me or anyone else?
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Why is it so important to me that there be no question of testing him?
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What is best for Andrew, longterm?
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What do I do when Andrew is no longer cute as hell and yet still has these problems?*
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If Andrew is found to have a skin condition or vision problems, will I deny these as well?
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Why am I so hung up on labels?
I don’t think Spazurek deserves to be Pitted in the vicious way he has been, but he needs to ask himself some hard questions. And where is his wife in all of this? Disturbing.
*or not–but the point is, we’ll never know because a trained professional will not be allowed to look at him.
What eleanorigby said very eloquently, and …
Eye contact, which she mentioned, is important for a curious reason.
From our earliest months, we use our eyes to probe the emotional states of the people around us. Is Mom happy? Is Dad angry? We learn to look at people’s faces, and to observe their gestures and postures. We respond to their faces - when they look happy, we tend to get happier. When they look angry, we get scared.
There seems to be some fundamental part of the brain that lets us make the link between what we see when we look at someone’s face, and the emotional state that face represents. Some part of the brain makes the connection that “vertical furrows between eyebrows” means the person is concerned or inquisitive.
Two kids who grew up around me, my nephew and the son of a close friend, were born with defects to the part of the brain that (among other things) makes the connection between furrowed brows and concern. In the mild form, this is called Asperger’s syndrome, and in its extreme form, autism.
Both my short friends had difficulty in this way. One was both in 1971, however, and the other in 1992. And in 1971, no one knew about this kind of difficulty, it was not identified.
My nephew was much luckier. His mom, and the whole family, knew about his condition from about age 3, and gave him extra support … “See, your Grandma is smiling! When the corners of her mouth turn up like that, you can tell, she’s happy to see you. She has a happy smile.”, that kind of thing. We understood his laser-like focus on a single subject (in his case dinosaurs) as a part of his condition and of him. And we got a young volunteer to accompany him around grade school, to explain to him what the kids were doing, and what that meant, and how to tell from looking what is going on.
It’s all bound up in eye contact, the human interaction we have hundreds of times daily and think nothing of. But since people with the condition have trouble reading faces, eye contact is scary to them.
My point in all this is I lived close to two kids with Aspergers for some years each, I watched them grow up. One got assistance, the other didn’t. Based on results and my experience, I vote for assistance.
Only way to find out is to test. Doesn’t bind you to anything. It could be nothing at all. Or it just might explain some things. Either way, it can only help Andrew.
My only suggestion is to combine it with a complete physical examination. Same principles apply. It is your choice what to do with any information obtained. You can believe it, disbelieve it, or get a second opinion if concerned (recommended).
My very best wishes go with you,
w.
My youngest twin had hypoxic damage at birth. not possible to test at the cellular level what tne damage is. the condition is explained as Apraxia.
Our pediatrician, who resuccitated here in the delivery room, has kept a special eye on her. he left china for 9 months, and on the first check up after his return the #1 thing he checkded for was eye contact. And he noted that in the 9 months Serena was now initiating eye contact at age 3.
we are going to do early intervention testing this summer in the US. the hypoxic damage likely explains her issues, but the testing in addition to ruling out autism should provide some coping strategies.
as other posters have more eloquently put it - spazurek should get a second opinion as to whether there maybe a problem. getting this one wrong is not good for his son.
I tried very hard not to post in this particular thread, but after quite a few of you who ranted on how Spazurek is not being a good parent, let me point out that he is human just like the rest of us. If something traumatic happens that will affect his life (notably secondary to his own son’s life), as with any other human being, there is a period of processing the information presented to him, weed out fiction from fact, accept the reality for what it is, and then plan contingencies for the future. Sounds like a typical plan of action for any concern…medical, emotional, financial…right? RIGHT. He decides to voice his concerns as a parent (who probably hasn’t been hit with something this hard in his young parenthood) to some strangers who claim that ignorance is not a good thing. He lays it all out there TWO DAYS after an unqualified person drops a bomb on him about their son, and it takes less than 10 fucking hours for someone to criticize his thought process which hasn’t been totally played out yet, and others to pile on that he’s harming his son for not reacting with split-second precision…
GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES, YOU SELF RIGHTEOUS SHIT HEADS!
His son is not facing a blood clot in his brain, otherwise, I bet Spazurek would start making split second decisions. Instead, he is still in the initial stages of verifying something that he may fear is true, but wishes it wasn’t…I bet that has happened to virtually all of us here during our lifetimes. Give this guy some time to focus on his thoughts and fears, accept the givens, and then plan the best way he knows how for his son. Spazurek can’t help his son until he is confident in himself on how/when/where/why to treat him. He’s not doing it “fast enough” for you? TOUGH SHIT. I have faith that he won’t just be knee-jerking his way through life with his son, because that ain’t gonna help the kid in the least bit, either.
Of course, I applaud those who can see the forest for the trees…most notably, unconventional, who’s ironically been the most conventional here on this particular thread, and a few other posters. Autism is nowhere near comparable to having an eye defect. The test given for your eyes are much more accurate and precise, and easier to correct when a defect is found. Not true with autism or anything else that falls on the spectrum. Testing can only bring some if any certainy which could change depending on many factors…the child’s demeanor that day, whether the test is auditory or visual…or both, the evaluator, even the size of the office that he’s being tested in makes a difference (as in the case of my son). Those are just of a few factors that can make a difference in an accurate diagnosis from an inaccurate diagnosis. Testing a 2.5 year old kid MIGHT be helpful, but it’s not anywhere near a certain diagnosis that would be ascertained by an older test subject. I understand Spazurek’s concern in this regard, because we were in that same exact spot 4 years ago. Searching for a label at that point in time was useless to us because we couldn’t rely on it enough to make decisions based on it. Instead we identified other things that were more apparent to us such as auditory and speech/language issues and got therapy for our son in that regard. It’s helped, even without the label.
As for those who got caught up in other bits of his post, just look at the meat of the post…his son’s issues, not the other fluff that went with it.
I considered making a pit of my own of this thread, but I think a pit of a pit is not conducive for what should really should happen here…give Spazurek some time and space to seek some friendly advice and to sort it all out at his pace…I bet any of you would want the same courtesy, no?