Further into the baffle

So I've been thinking about Julia all day today. Reading and writing about possibilities. Mulling. Thinking about what I saw in the classroom today. Thinking about Julia's clay work which she does at home compared to anything she produces at school. Thinking about how much Julia's teacher cares about her and how fortunate we are to have a school who wants to work with us. Thinking about how far that child has come. But what to do about next school year.

And then, after school we went to speech therapy and Kimberly started testing Julia's speech and language. Compared to 16 months ago, when her then-speech therapist gave her a similar test, Julia was incredible. Julia participated!

That was the first incredible thing.

16 months ago, Julia wanted no part of testing and nothing could persuade her otherwise. There is still some of this feeling lurking around in that little head. She will do the testing because she likes Kimberly and because Julia trusts her enough to do what she says, but as soon as the test got boring and the end was not immediately in sight, Julia does not make an extra effort to perform well. And she still does not get the concept of a test -- you know, care very much about getting all the answers right for that good mark or to please someone. I can't remember not knowing what tests were.

The test the Kimberly administered is for kids 2-7. She gave this one to Julia because she felt that Julia could not do the more age appropriate test which included reading and answering more complicated questions. We are still working hard on Why. This test depended on Julia listening and understanding questions read to her and then pointing to pictures which represented the answers. Julia put the best effort I've seen her do. She answered a good deal of the questions correctly although at times she was bored and ramdomly pointed without any idea of what the question was. I could see that glaze come over her face. And some things she still cannot do, like counting, without a very explicit direction. Some things she just doesn't know, like that past tense of various verbs.

Whatever the result of the test, it will only be partially correct -- it is the correct measurement of Julia's willingness and ability to take a test.

One thing that Kimberly pointed out -- when Julia was pointing out the answers to Kimberly's questions, she jabbed at the correct answer which at times was difficult to catch. I commented that a less sympathic tester would have missed much more. Kimberly said that Julia's pointing behavior was autistic like. She explained the Julia did not try to help Kimberly "read" her answer -- this was a lack of empathy.

This is the first time that someone has teased out a simple behavior and given me some reason. Now, what of her behavior is trauma?

So much thinking today and the answer may have risen to the top. I am considering keeping Julia home from any camp this summer. We have been working well together and we could do some of that. And we could have fun. Just a thought right now. We could be a full time family.