Daisy has just started homeschooling.Daisy is sensitive,funny,kind, generous,and exists mostly in another fluffier dimension inhabited mostly by talking cats and strange vehicles made from egg boxes.
Her reports were always good, her progress always reported as being, working towards where she should be,she was popular,happy and socially fulfilled beyond her years. Often I would be told Daisy is....well just Daisy.This I understood. The thing I couldn't understand was that she wouldn't or couldn't read.Whilst the other kids were trotting happily home with their reading books. Daisy would always hide hers,there was at first reluctance, then tears, then fear. I was encouraged to persevere, that it would improve and knowing no better I did. Instead it got worse,so much so that she would cower under her bed at the mention of reading, nothing helped.
There were meetings in the early days,so many meetings. I tried hard to accomplish the daily suggested reading and also "to attach importance to reading whilst not trying to teach it" It seldom worked I remember vividly days passing before being able to sign off on a reading book to exchange it. Everyday was hellish. I was somewhat reassured that the PM bench marking tests were normal,although it would be a year before i learned in Daisys case this meant nothing. A year went by unnoticed before Daisy moved into grade one and Houston received the message there was a problem.
I was told not to worry this transitioning could take between two weeks and a year. Then about two months later we started aboard the carousel. We perhaps needed a Optometrist? ($140)...we found him, he said yes there was a problem with her vision..but there was more,he suggested a Behavioral Optometrist ($180) we found her. She said, yes there was a visual processing disorder,but she could help and sell us a great programme ($560) but because Daisy had indications of a more severe Auditory processing disorder that would have to be addressed first..... So onwards to Audiologist ($120), who referred to specialist audiologist ($165)... who found an Auditory processing disorder...that could be helped by buying another programme ($1200)....but he would like an OT assessment ($130). The OT was helpful and I was even able to save some money by doing the Paed Physio assessment he recommended myself,($0) Huzzah!.
The very expensive Paediatrician ($250) could only do limited assessments due to there scope of practice, but could refer me on to a great specialist Paediatrician ($350) .Thankfully this lady already knew a great speech therapist ($120) (with only a 7 month waiting list)... who then suggested I screen for dyslexia ($850) (9 month wait list).In the meantime to formulate a good IEP The school would require a psych assessment which i could wait three months.I chose to access a cancellation list privately to get things moving..The psych ($225) needed two assessments to really get to grips with the problem,her report ($350) suggested another specialist psych ($700) and a course of speech therapy ($90x8),It was also suggested that a Natropath,Craniosacral therapist,and Primary movement therapist be involved.At this point we had run out of money...but my relationship with my GP was now on first name terms due to returning each time for a new referral (Hi Juliet!)
Educationally the recommendations from the Psych were easier.I needed an Multi Sensory Language Approach that was rich in phonemic awareness,that was taught in a direct explicit way, cumulative,and structured.I was lucky I knew my school had this but for the extra tuition also I found myriads of educational cure all programmes for that extra input, but under deeper scrutiny, only one tutor in the whole of WA that fitted the bill.($70 per hour 2-3 sessions a week)
She was so swamped she could offer me only one session in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, my school had already informed me that external tutors were not allowed on the schools premises during the school day,so that was out..but she also suggested that I get her visual processing tested again as nearly a year had elapsed.
BIG LIGHT BULB MOMENT!!!!!!
I could pay many people to tell me how broken Daisy was.....
I could haul Daisy around to an infinite amounts of specialists until she became so used to "being special" that somewhere she would resign herself to always being on the fringe of normality and feel that is where she should stay.(intellectual apartheid)
I could own my own fear at the lack of control this situation put me in,that yes life would be harder and would require me to up the ante and embrace the helplessness and angst full on and turn my focus back to Daisy and what she might need.
I could learn how to support those needs and find support for me.
It would be another 15 months of working on me, before I understood what she needed and why it wasn't working.
I still crash and burn,sometime daily but thats ok . I have learned one important lesson.There is never just, one way,one opinion,one answer.The answers are sometimes not as important as the questions.So be more engaged and curious with the questions instead.
