Caitlin and Trin updates

Sent Cait for testing at DAS for dyslexia. The assessment covered reading fluency, literacy levels and cognitive abilities.

Turns out that despite the letter reversals, the lack of interest in reading etc, that she is not dyslexic after all. In terms of cognitive abilities, she scored very well and has an IQ higher than Isaac's, in the High Average range, just a notch shy of the Superior range. So that was a pleasant surprise.

There are red flags though. While she scored within the average bandset for phonological awareness and working memory, she scored very highly for others eg verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills and abilities. The differential gap between the high scores and the low average scores does throw up a warning that these would need to be addressed. For now she is coping well, but the psychologist warned that as the work got harder and working memory is more in demand, then she might start to struggle. She recommended strategies to help develop her working memory and phono awareness - games, websites etc.

We will get the detailed report in 6 weeks. But so far, this is good news for us. On the not-so-good side, this means we can't seek exemption for Chinese! But given her cognitive abilities and the fact that she scored higher than Isaac in phono awareness (Isaac scored in the significantly clinically poor range) we think she might just be able to manage better in the language - with enough help of course.

The Berries class seems to be helping a bit. She is taking the Higher Chinese P1 class and seems to be okay, and because this is at a higher level than what she takes in school, it helps I suppose.

This has been a week of psychological testing and evaluation. First Isaac, then Cait and now Trin.

I brought Trin to KKH to see the paeds there after getting a referral from the polyclinic. The paed there agreed that Trin is significantly delayed in speech development and has referred her to speech therapy.

I was pleasantly surprised at the speed at which an appointment was given. She will start therapy on 3 July and will go for a hearing test next Tuesday. The hearing test is given as a routine to rule out any anomaly - the doctor said some children may not have hearing loss but may not be able to hear certain pitches and sounds which then hampers their ability to say those sounds and form words appropriately.

Given Isaac's past experience at KKH, I was doubtful that she would be given an early slot, at least not one this early. So I was really happy to hear that she's got one starting in two weeks - I was hoping for one within 3 months! Hopefully she will pick up faster after this.