Year End Report

We recently had a meeting with Drew's teacher to discuss his performance this year. Overall, we were really pleased with his evaluation.

Strengths:
Drew has strong parental support.
He is a bright chlid who learns quickly and easily.
He has good pre-reading skills.

Weaknesses:
Although he does not qualify for OT services, Drew tends to have fine motor weakness.
Drew needs extra time to search for vocabulary that he wishes to use in conversation.
Drew can be impulsive at times.

Overall, Drew has had an outstanding year of preschool. Drew achieved all of his IEP speech objectives at or above the state criteria level. Drew has made good progress on his auditory skills, and can discriminate between nasal and non-nasal consonants in the beginning position of the word. He can follow directions through audition only using four critical elements. Drew can recognize and name all of the letters of the alphabet. He can now write 24 letters (he has difficulty with K and Y - his teacher felt that his capital Y looked more like a lower case y). Drew can answer 'where', 'when' and 'what' questions after listening to a story.

I think the thing I most notice about Drew is his interest in doing things that are 'school' related. Last year, the boy only wanted to run around with a basketball in his hands, dribbling and shooting hoops. This year, he actually enjoys writing, reading and drawing pictures. On more than one occasion I have found him coloring, on his own, where he actually had to get the supplies out of the closet by himself and started making a picture himself. Drew can write his first and last name quite well now, and he is doing much better with drawing pictures that actually resemble a story or person.

Due to his age, Drew will have one more year of preschool before beginning Kindergarten in 2012.

T-Ball Helmets, Meet Cochlear Implants

Drew's t-ball season is in full swing, and our quest to find a batting helmet that will work with his cochlear implants has finally ended! It was very difficult to find a helmet that would not knock Drew's processors off while being put on his head, and with all of the padding in the helmet, it is next to impossible to adjust his processors after the helmet is on (as I typically do with a baseball cap).

After a long shopping trip to our neighborhood Dick's Sporting Goods Store, we found the Adidas Incite Batting helmet, complete with an adjustable dial! This way, we can make the helmet area wider while physically putting the helmet over Drew's processors, and then can tighten the helmet once it is on. This helmet, in conjunction with an Under Armor Skull Cap seemed to do the trick for Drew's game this past weekend.

Thank goodness! If this past weekends excitement is any indication, this boy is gonna be playing ball for years!