Some Speech Concerns For Ryan

So what were my actual concerns about Ryan?  I had questions about the testing done by the speech pathologist.  What level vocabulary did she test?  Same with the comprehension passage.  Were these tests at Ryan's grade level or peer level?  The speech pathologist didn't answer.  Mental note to self to get answers at the IEP meeting.

Ryan had been working on comprehension and building vocabulary, which seems to have vastly improved.  He had been working conversation skills as well, but these seem lacking to me.  The pathologist pointed out that Ryan has enough conversation skills to get him through his classes.  His grades, overall, were very good.  She also told me that she was having to search for goals for Ryan.  It was SO OBVIOUS that Ryan didn't need speech anymore.

Well--reality states otherwise.

I had tried to tell her that Ryan almost failed his math class due to his lack of communication, specifically not being able to ask for help.  She countered that kids tend to not do so well in higher levels of math.  I responded that Ryan was always in mainstream, regular math classes.   This became a verbal jousting match.

At the beginning of the school year Ryan, Mike, and I agreed to let Ryan be independent--to see if he could handle the responsibilities and communications by himself.  The lack of communication with his math teacher indicated that Ryan still needs help in initiating a conversation.  In this case, Ryan couldn't ask for help because he didn't understand where he was confused.  The result was placing Ryan in a resource (special ed) math class for this coming semester.  HIS LACK OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IS HAMPERING his academic success.

On Monday Ryan and I were discussing classes for college.  We searched for writing classes as that seems to be his only interest to date.  He immediately changed the search criteria to include online classes only.  I asked why.  It took some time, but he finally said that he was scared to talk with people, that he was not ready to talk.  He felt he would make mistakes, and people wouldn't understand him.  Ryan still NEEDS COMMUNICATION help.

I also thought about Ryan's other classes.  Over half of his classes were resource classes.  If he didn't require further speech services in school, shouldn't that mean that he could handle mainstream classes as a precursor to handling life outside of school?  I had grave concerns that what testing Ryan may have done in a controlled environment may not be indicative of what is reality for Ryan.

Conclusion:  Ryan needs help in speech still.