Reply to Getting better at not taking the judgment of clinicians and others to heart

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Reply to "Getting better at not taking the judgment of clinicians and others to heart"

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[quote=Anonymous]
OP - I think you have a good balanced outlook as one has to consider the context in which advice - even professional is being given.  Also I will say that in evaluations there can also be a bias or even personal history of a clinician or teacher which impacts's one's view of a SN child.  When our daughter was first going to be identified back then at age 5, the male psychologist I knew had probably then an early teen, severely ID son who also ha physical limitations and used a wheelchair.  Because I was more concerned with having an evaluation done in a setting she was familiar with - where we had been going for speech therapy for two years by then, I had had private testing done ahead of time, but did nto say so.

In any case he never came to meet her beforehand, chose a room with no AC, and basically said when I went to pick her up at preschool that afternoon to the teacher, "Mother thinks she's educable!"  Fortunately, for all concerned she had not been cooperative in such a setting so the school division accepted the private results from the local well regarded children's developmental clinic.   Beyond the poor testing conditions, lack of prior introduction, I firmly believed it was his "preconceived ideas" about what a youn child with Down syndrome could or could not do.  She did test at that time in the low educable range and was in the EMR class k-9th grade when we moved towards a more vocational structured program.  **Today she could read just about all of this posting, though not understand the technical terminology.  Our daughter was actually the first student even in a mostly self-contained program to demonstrate that one with DS could learn to read, write (basic skills) and do very well with basic functional math skills:  time, calendar, money, rounding up.  Today there is actually a high school student with DS trying to get a modified standard diploma, and I believe it is because the experience of having students before her demonstrating - beyond the IQ score - skills in certain areas such as language arts that expectations have been raised and opportunities given.

So yes always consider the framework in which advice,  helpful suggestions , compliments or criticism is shared.  You do not always have to feel you need to educate, and, of course, there will be times when you will feel down that others do not know the hard work and progress actually made.  I have found that I could actually be of assistance to younger teachers, case managers in certain ways by suggesting things that worked for us and telling them of resources online and in our community so keep that in mind, too.

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