Hi. My adopted son who is 5 years has been assessed (yesterday) by a school behaviour support assessor as having social and emotional development delay. essentially, even though he is learning well and is evidently very bright meeting (and surpassing) the academic expectations for foundation level learning, his play, understanding and reactions to circumstances and interactions with other children are in the realms of a 2-3 year old.
He was premature and had speech delay, which we had thought was due to a tongue tie but this may have been coincidental.
while it provides some relief and explanation about the difficulties he is having at school and at home with his behaviour and choices he makes, its also worrying and throws up all sorts of questions - how do we help him, will he 'catch up' and how, is it something we did wrong or didn't do and how do we fix that? feeling bad about having worked with him in a way that says 'come on you're not a baby any more, 5 year old can do this stuff', when actually in some areas, no he cant.
There is no talk or mension of any defined disorders - I had thought ADD or an autism spectrum issue, dyspraxia etc. when trying to fathom why he was unable to sit down and join in, participate for more than a few minutes in a task, throw tantrums when tasks he is enjoying come to an end, being unaware of his surroundings and others near him to the extent that he bumps into things and people while doing his own merry thing instead of what the rest of the class is doing, why he is not conserned that he is not doing the same things as the rest of the class, no thought about consequences for things he 's about to do no matter how many times he hurts himself or gets told off if its something he should not be doing, is not picking up on other's emotional or behaviour cues or copying peer behaviour etc.
So just looking for some input about what to expect now. Interested in any experiences with children with this kind of difficulty.
would appreciate any help...very worried mum.
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13 replies
TICKLETUMBLE · 01/05/2012 07:25
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