My daughter’s kindergarten teacher diagnosed my daughter with ADHD and told me that I really should medicate her. My first reaction was explain Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID).
My sensory seeking daughter received SID diagnosis (and occupational therapy) about 6 months before she started kindergarten. The therapy had helped her but she still had a ways to go.
The teacher thought that I made SID up. Very weird…. I didn’t know how to handle this reaction. So I blew off her ADHD concerns. SID and ADHD can look very similar.
I have since discovered that many elementary teachers haven’t heard of SID. (And to be fair, I have never heard of SID before I started reading about adoption.) And the teachers that did know what SID was….. Many of them thought SID only happened in children with autism. So I would explain, “Yes, SID is on the autism spectrum, but it doesn’t mean Natasha has autism.”
My daughter due to “school system budget short falls” had 4 different kindergarten teachers that year. I never understood why budget issues caused this teacher shuffle.
And she had a 30 children to 1 teacher ratio. Maximum, it is suppose to be 25 children to 1 teacher.
A noisy, crowded classroom with frequent teacher changes…… no wonder my daughter had problems learning her letters or sitting still. There was too much stimulation going on. She started having stomach aches and didn’t want to go to school. Once the school called me to pick up my sick daughter. She had been throwing up. I took her home and after talking with her (and checked for a fever) figured out she was throwing up from the stress. My poor baby……..
I asked the school system’s special education for help….. for testing.
I sent my daughter’s occupational therapist evaluation to the special education program. Based on the evaluation they turned her down for any assistance because her SID wasn’t severe enough.
I asked for them to test for learning disabilities (LD). I knew there was something off… I just didn’t know how to describe her issues. Special Education informed me that they couldn’t test for LD until a child was 8 years old.
My daughter didn’t learn very much this school year. And I really wondered what my next step would be. Repeat kindergarten or get into a different school?
The only reason she was going to this school was it was close to her child care. Transfers were easy to get for elementary school children. I had some research to do.
Medication, ADHD and Dyslexia
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Lessons Learned