Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Story Continues


Why it was delayed

Well, it was not my intention to drag my story on the dyslexia thingy into another year. I should have updated that before we greeted 2010, but somehow, I got carried away with other stuffs.





Meeting the Consultant Psychiatrist
Ok, so we went to see a Consultant Psychiatrist (CP) in GMC. She took down SY's birth history (emergency C-sec, and other details), and also asked us about our concerns. We told her why we're there in the first place, to address the concern brought up by her principal. Anyway, we also mentioned that we're not so worried about the dyslexia thingy, compared to her hyper-activeness and her speech articulation. So she spent some time observing her playing – oh yes, her room was full of toys! We took SJ along since we couldn’t leave her alone, and it’s a good thing too because the CP got to observe how SY played with her sister.


The Tests Begin
She gave her some short tests on her writings, the alphabets, etc. The CP also observed the way SY did her counting and writing, as well as how she answered her questions. We're also asked to go out for awhile so that she could have a 1:1 session with SY (SY requested not to have the door closed when we left, and the CP agreed).

The CP played with her for awhile, before asking us in to update us on her findings.





The Diagnosis
So, after about a 2-hours session, here's her diagnosis:

On Dyslexia
It's still too early to label our child as dyslexic (as we had anticipated), so she asked us not to worry about it. On another side note, she observed that SY’s brain worked faster than her hands, from the activities that she did with her. She also agreed that SY got very good memory. She did advise us to correct her whenever she wrote in mirror, and also suggested the use of the alphabets magnet as a learning aid. 

Something New
However, the CP noticed that SY's attention span was quite short, as compared to a 4-year old (btw, that time she's not even 4 yet), and told us about ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). She suspected that our child might have ADD – as she’s quite rough when playing with her little sister and couldn’t sit still to complete an activity. For this, she recommended us to give her Efalax fish oil for 3 months. It’s not a medication, but according to her, this could help with her concentration. And since it’s a very good supplement, there’s no harm taking it.

When I asked her what could cause ADD, whether it was inherited, she told me that there were many possibilities. One could be lack of oxygen during her birth (well, she’s an emergency C-section baby, so I was a little worried). However, since her Apgar score was rather high – 9, so it shouldn’t be due to that. And since none of us had any family history on ADD, there could be the environmental factor too, such as taking too much fast food, MSG-based or high calories stuffs. Well, I wouldn’t deny that SY ate quite a lot KFCs, McDs, and even gassy drinks like 100-plus, etc. So she advised us to cut down on those. Apart from that, she also suggested a more structured environment for her, like a separate play area from the study area, because her mind might be difficult to distinguish these clearly.

Speech
As for her speech articulation, she advised us to bring her to see a speech therapist, so as to correct her from young. She recommended one from the Island Hospital and wrote a referral letter for us.


Does it ring a bell?
Well so it seemed that our direction was steered to a different one this time, from dyslexia to ADD. That made me wonder... is that why we had such a difficult time with her? Well, she’s certainly more difficult to handle compared to her little sister, but I always thought that was due to their characters. When she’s smaller, that was before she started full day school, her normal bedtime was around 2am, and she could never play alone. She needed our full attention all the time, and she’s so hyper active. We’re all worn out most of the time (3 of us, mine you -1 little girl with 3 caretakers!) and kept wondering why our child was so hard to handle.

Could it be due to her being a firstborn and only child then, and taken care by her grandmother some more, so she’s practically spoilt to the brim? And then now – after hearing this side of the story, I started to wonder – ah, could this be the symptoms of ADD?

I was more worried after I sought out the Psychiatrist’s advice… Hmm… and do you know how much we paid for this new anxiety? RM300! No wonder the service was so good. Well, but my story’s not ended yet. We had to see a Speech Therapist, remember? Ya, next post, hopefully.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Predators in Disguise

I had been planning to send SY for Art Lessons, and thought maybe this would be a good year to start her, since she's 5 (she just celebrated her 4th birthday less than 1 month ago!). But something stopped me from doing so temporary.


I heard a real life story from a friend where a 6-year old girl was sent for arts lesson with her brother. When her brother's not going with her, her teacher (male) would ask her to go into a room, gave her stickers and started to touch her private part. She was asked not to tell anyone, and given more stickers to keep her mouth shut. Her parents only found out about this ~1 year later, when the child burst out why she didn't like to go to Art Class.

Gosh, even though I've heard of many child molest cases, it's still disgusting to hear about this especially when it's so close to you. After this I vowed that if I'm ever going to send my kids for extra lessons - the first criteria would be the teacher MUST be a lady teacher. And most of the art teachers are male, so do let me know if you know of any good lady art teachers nearby!

Friday, January 1, 2010

An Appetizer to 2010

Last December, we were asked to prepare something for a potluck Christmas party at SY's school. When the teacher asked me what would I bring, I told them home-made yoghurt. But it seemed like they were not so eager to the idea and suggested sausages instead. Well, hubby pointed out - not all people like yoghurt, you see...

So, in the end, here's how my cocktail sausages and fruit sticks turn out to be. Yes, I insisted to include some tomatoes and grapes in it so that it would be healthier. I purposely stick the tomatoes and grapes on top of the sausages because kids normally prefer sausages to fruits, so they would have to eat the fruits first before they can get to the sausages (evil me!). I was planning to get some green grapes too, to add more colors so as to attract the kids, but unfortunately I couldn't find seedless green grapes. So I had to make do with this.


Oh, by the way, I overslept that day, so after boiling the sausages, hubby helped me to wash the fruits and we sticked them quickly before we woke the kids up :) So, what does this imply? Yeah, it's surely a fast and simple thing to prepare!

Ah, I know it's nothing much to shout about, but I just wanted to start my first post of the year with something positive - and food is always a great appetizer, don't you think so? :)

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