The lengths to which some people will go...
I'm not a happy momma tonight.
I will say that I had a good time tonight, but it's not enough to wipe out my upset from the rest of the day.
The good news is that I took the kids, my mom, my youngest sister, and my photonics study partner (who is apparently not mad at me, just busy) to see the Harlem Globetrotters. We had a great time, and I realized how much I miss watching basketball. (Next year, we're getting season tickets to Bison b-ball games. Cuz I want to.)
We had a really great time, especially older son.
The bad news is (from least annoying to most):
1 - We're supposed to get five inches of snow tomorrow. This won't bother me if they cancel school tomorrow.
2 - Mike is sick, so he couldn't come with us tonight.
3 - Stupid kitty is having problems again. Any time we start letting her out of the kennel for more than a few hours at a time, she starts going outside the box. I think we're going to have to give her back to the humane society and tell her she needs a home with no other cats and no kids.
4 - This one was the kicker. I got the psychologist report from the school. I'm flabbergasted. There are three categories in which he must have recognized impairments to qualify for a diagnosis of educational autism. I agree he has problems with category #1, which is social interaction. However, she went from stretching it to just plain misrepresenting results and lying in the other two categories. (I believe it's rather unethical to use an observation as evidence when the observation time took place *when he was in the middle of a hypoglycemic reaction* because he hadn't eaten his snack on time. Okay, maybe it's not unethical...unless you fail to mention that was what was happening!) As far as I know, there have been no other incidents of the irritability/anger since we got the hypoglycemia diagnosis.
I'm sorry, but anytime someone is having problems with low blood sugar, they are going to be angry and have a bad reaction to *anything*. This does not qualify as evidence of anything except that, since we now know he's hypoglycemic, he needs to eat more often!
Speaking of evidence, it's interesting how she got feedback from *two* teachers on his behavior, and even they can't agree on what the problems are. His social studies teacher says that he's got problems in language, when the English teacher doesn't. The social studies teacher doesn't think he has cognition issues, while English teacher does. And of course, I think he's fine in most areas except for social.
Isn't there supposed to be some sort of statistical analysis here? How can you take three sets of data which all say different things and draw any sort of meaningful conclusion from them? Oh yeah, and both the teachers are the ones he has in the morning when he's been having those hypoglycemic events. Let's just skew the already questionable evidence.
The other thing that got me is her saying that he has "rule-bound thinking and actually lacks true creativity" and then claims she found this during testing which supposedly makes it true rather than her perception. If anyone is lacking creativity or has rule-bound thinking, I think she'd be more apt to find that person by looking in a mirror.
Oh yeah...and he supposedly has echolalia...because he was imitating one of the professors in my department who one time went up to him and began speaking to him in a rapid stream of Portuguese. Even after telling her this, she left it in the report. And then she says he doesn't imitate people...because imitating someone would run counter to the notion of being autistic.
I'm of two minds on this, and what I'm going to do is wait and see what comes up next week when I meet with someone about some possible alternative arrangements for the kiddo. However, if it looks like nothing good will come of this, I will flat out tell them that I will refuse any special services for my son. I'm not going to have them helping him with the wrong thing because the psycho(path)ologist wrote up a diagnosis that matched what she had determined the outcome would be even before testing.
I thought public school was bad enough when I was a kid. I hate it a million times more as a parent.
So yeah...pissy mood.
I will say that I had a good time tonight, but it's not enough to wipe out my upset from the rest of the day.
The good news is that I took the kids, my mom, my youngest sister, and my photonics study partner (who is apparently not mad at me, just busy) to see the Harlem Globetrotters. We had a great time, and I realized how much I miss watching basketball. (Next year, we're getting season tickets to Bison b-ball games. Cuz I want to.)
We had a really great time, especially older son.
The bad news is (from least annoying to most):
1 - We're supposed to get five inches of snow tomorrow. This won't bother me if they cancel school tomorrow.
2 - Mike is sick, so he couldn't come with us tonight.
3 - Stupid kitty is having problems again. Any time we start letting her out of the kennel for more than a few hours at a time, she starts going outside the box. I think we're going to have to give her back to the humane society and tell her she needs a home with no other cats and no kids.
4 - This one was the kicker. I got the psychologist report from the school. I'm flabbergasted. There are three categories in which he must have recognized impairments to qualify for a diagnosis of educational autism. I agree he has problems with category #1, which is social interaction. However, she went from stretching it to just plain misrepresenting results and lying in the other two categories. (I believe it's rather unethical to use an observation as evidence when the observation time took place *when he was in the middle of a hypoglycemic reaction* because he hadn't eaten his snack on time. Okay, maybe it's not unethical...unless you fail to mention that was what was happening!) As far as I know, there have been no other incidents of the irritability/anger since we got the hypoglycemia diagnosis.
I'm sorry, but anytime someone is having problems with low blood sugar, they are going to be angry and have a bad reaction to *anything*. This does not qualify as evidence of anything except that, since we now know he's hypoglycemic, he needs to eat more often!
Speaking of evidence, it's interesting how she got feedback from *two* teachers on his behavior, and even they can't agree on what the problems are. His social studies teacher says that he's got problems in language, when the English teacher doesn't. The social studies teacher doesn't think he has cognition issues, while English teacher does. And of course, I think he's fine in most areas except for social.
Isn't there supposed to be some sort of statistical analysis here? How can you take three sets of data which all say different things and draw any sort of meaningful conclusion from them? Oh yeah, and both the teachers are the ones he has in the morning when he's been having those hypoglycemic events. Let's just skew the already questionable evidence.
The other thing that got me is her saying that he has "rule-bound thinking and actually lacks true creativity" and then claims she found this during testing which supposedly makes it true rather than her perception. If anyone is lacking creativity or has rule-bound thinking, I think she'd be more apt to find that person by looking in a mirror.
Oh yeah...and he supposedly has echolalia...because he was imitating one of the professors in my department who one time went up to him and began speaking to him in a rapid stream of Portuguese. Even after telling her this, she left it in the report. And then she says he doesn't imitate people...because imitating someone would run counter to the notion of being autistic.
I'm of two minds on this, and what I'm going to do is wait and see what comes up next week when I meet with someone about some possible alternative arrangements for the kiddo. However, if it looks like nothing good will come of this, I will flat out tell them that I will refuse any special services for my son. I'm not going to have them helping him with the wrong thing because the psycho(path)ologist wrote up a diagnosis that matched what she had determined the outcome would be even before testing.
I thought public school was bad enough when I was a kid. I hate it a million times more as a parent.
So yeah...pissy mood.