Week Three

The Morris family does accept the Adam’s offer to pay for respite care and behavioral therapy while Jody’s health condition is being dealt with.

Kaylee’s behavior seems to be improving , although no one would ever deny she is a handful. She regularly attends Cognitive Behavior Therapy. The therapist recruited the help of Kaylee’s family and teachers in coming up with a good profile of Katie’s strengths and weaknesses. Together they put together a plan to cope with and manage Kaylee’s behavior according to her individual strengths. They have found that soft environment music seems to help keep Kaylee calm or settle down after one of her tantrums. They also came up with a few simple rules for Kaylee to focus on, which will change, as she gets older and her behavior changes. Every rule must be enforced the same way, with the same negative or positive consequences. This helps to give Kaylee clear guidance and establish a pattern of behavior. They have also found that having a schedule laid out that Katie can understand helps keep Katie calm as well. Kaylee’s  calendar or schedule is comprised of pictures showing what tasks she needs to do in what order. Not only are her tasks listed on there, but her rewards and break time are there as well.  Everyone in Katie’s home and school life is keeping a journal of Kaylee’s tantrums that logs when the tantrum took place, what was the cause and how long it lasted. This helps point out any specific triggers or possible consistencies that can be minded and controlled in the future.

Now that Kaylee has been diagnosed with a dual receptive/ expressive language disorder and has ben seeing an SLP regularly, she has been making obvious progress in her communication skills. She can speak more complex sentences and by third grade she is mostly intelligible. She now sees the SLP three times a week during the school day. Kaylee seems to enjoy going to speech class because of the amount of attention she received while there. In second grade she was excited that during her trip to the Audiologist, she was told that she was old enough to pick the colors for some of the pieces of her hearing aids. When her speech had improved enough in third grade she used her hearing aid as her show and tell and could get through the basics of describing it to the class.

As far as academics, Kaylee is behind but through a lot of hard work and she is slowly but surely improving. In second grade she started to really take an interest in learning how to read. Kaylee loves animals so her teachers focus on picking out book about animals. By the end of second grade Katie’s reading level ( level at which she can read 90% of the words) is that of preschool to kindergarten. As long as her teachers pick up books that are short and hold her interest, Kaylee enjoys her reading lessons. The teachers use as many of the suggestions from Kaylee’s behavioral therapy as possible during her school day, in order to keep her focused and productive. The most useful tool so far has been her picture board calendar that now not only has pictures but brief one to two word descriptions below them. In third grade her reading level is that of the lower end of a high kindergarten or low first grade.

Kaylee is still a small child for her age and her coordination is not on the same level as the other kids her age. In third grade, her paternal grandparents decided to pay for her to take pottery class geared towards kids with special needs. Kaylee loves it! Working with the clay gives her productive sensory stimulation. They have electric special pottery wheels that are easy to control so Kaylee gets to creatively express herself without being worn out or needing much coordination. This also gives Kaylee something to work on her attention span and cope with her energy levels in a productive manner.

Trish seems to be coping much better now that she has sought intensive therapy. She has joined two support groups. One is for mothers of disabled children and the other is for people battling depression. All of this seems to be helping her cope. As a result Trish is not only taking a much bigger role in raising her child but has begun to able to focus on enjoying the seemingly small triumphs in their lives.

With all of the behavior therapy, management strategies and new activity Kaylee’s behavior is much more manageable. When she was seven the doctor’s switched her from Tenex to Intuniv, a more long-term medication for ADHD. After reading many articles and hearing all the controversy over medicating ADHD, Kaylee’s parents and grandparents are worried. They are beginning to wonder if Kaylee could manage without medication, with all of the new resources and behavior management strategies they have now and are continuing to learn. Some say medication is key, medication should only be a temporary crutch until there is a more permanent solution achieved through other means, and then there are others that’s say there should be a constant balance.

Decision Point: Does Kaylee’s family try taking her off the medication (under the doctor’s supervision) and try to manage her with the sole use of management techniques and therapies?

Questions:

1.     What are some other activities that may be well suited for Kaylee?

2.     What are some possible long-term effects of ADHD medication?

3.     What are some companies that produce books with a low reading level but age appropriate topics for older elementary/ middle school/ high school ages?