Expressive language

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The writer with the 2 year old. Where did your child attend?

He is at the Merit School of Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kts is a great school! We had a wonderful experience with the preschool. I don't know why anyone would say they are horrible!!

Agree. Without in anyway seeking to invalidate others' competing perspectives, KTS helped our child enormously and it always pains me a little when I read the posts of some of KTS's detractors here. Which again, is not to disrespect their perspectives at all.

But KTS provided us with a lifeline when we were in desperate need of one. We had been in a mainstream pre-school and had not previously grasped our DC's challenges. They basically made it clear that they didn't think we should return, whereupon we went through a really painful process of trying to find a school that wanted DC. We were absolutely beside ourselves -- no one seemed to want DC and we couldn't understand why. DC was bright, positive, enthusiastic about school and learning, and had no disruptive behavioral or sensory issues. What DC needed was help with social thinking and language processing -- play skills, joint attention, incorporating others' ideas into play, collaborative skills, reading others' emotions and inferring thoughts, and expressive language. There were all sorts of schools (Maddux) who said they were there to help bright, well-regulated kids who needed help on these skills but we couldn't even get them to look at DC or to explain why they didn't think they could help. Just vague language like, "Not sure that we have what is needed to help this child."

KTS stepped into this void and embraced DC. Welcomed, valued, and made school fun. Worked painstakingly on play skills -- we have memories of arduous sessions involving dyads or other small groups in which DC was supported in developing joint attention and other collaborative play skills. It took a while to come but it eventually did.

The other things KTS provided us were hugely valuable too -- the OT, the music opportunities, etc. And they were incredibly responsive to every concern we raised.

Of course there were downsides and concerns -- we were often concerned about whether our bright DC was being challenged enough academically, there was an occasional peer or two we worried about, and of course we were concerned about the SN label. By the end of three years there we knew it was time to move on.

From there we moved to a mainstream school where those hard-won social, conceptual, motor planning,and language-processing skills have been put to successful use. DC is now at the top of the class academically, a star performer, and popular socially. When someone helps your DC like that, you don't forget it.