Hi,
First time here. Thank you for setting up such a great forum.
I have a four year old daughter with SM. She LOVES going to school.
She has never spoken to her teacher but loves her too.
Her teacher is very understanding & supportive.
She very rarely says a word to anyone in class although her teacher
has seen her say a few words as long as my daughter does not think that the
teacher is watching her. Anyway, I was just reading a post from Jacquie about taping her
child reading for his or her teacher. That is a great idea. I just asked my daughter if she would like to have one of her older sisters film her as she spells her name, says her phone number & address. I also asked her if she wants to sing & dance. I told her that her teacher can then see her on her computer. She got very excited about doing this. Has anyone else tried something like this?

I was actually going to try this last week, but my Camcorder kept shutting off before I could press record. I have installed recording software on my Computer and I am going to record my daughter reading and then email it to her Teacher. I would have preferred to video tape her, but audio should be good enough for now.

Thank you for joining, the more member we have, the more knowledge we can spread.

We have taped our daughter in the past (last year) and showed it to her kindergarden teacher. Her teacher really enjoyed seeing the video. She suggested that we show it to the class but I didn't quite figure out if I wanted my daughter to be there when this video was being shown and then I thought I could keep her home and let the teacher show it but then I thought I would be going behind my daughter's back and I was afraid that she would learn from other kids that they saw a video of her speaking. I figured our daughter had enough anxiety and I didn't want her to feel any pressures from the children to speak. Taping your child is an effective method (for teachers) of evaluating an SM child and I think that it's a very good idea! It's very important to educate the teachers on SM and share as much as you know with them. They will appreciate it and life will be easier for you and your SM child.

Hi
I'm new to the site and havent read thru all the forum topics yet... but this caught my eye first
my daughter is almost 7 and in 2nd year of school with SM, tho the problem goes back to preschool and probably much before that if I really think back on her behaviour.

The filming to show the teacher is a good idea.... we have done this since the beginning of school.... and with my daughter's permission, she has been happy for her classmates to watch her videos. Its a good medium for her to be able to participate in things like news day (show and tell) and also for the teacher to establish her reading level.

I would highly recommend doing it... but obviously the child needs to be aware and comfortable with the teacher seeing the footage and then possibly classmates (just one special friend at first and build up to a couple of mates and then when they feel comfortable, the whole class).

Good luck to everyone who has to struggle this frustrating and often confusing disorder.

I look forward to reading thru more topics and hopefully getting lots more info from people going thru the same thing.

I am from NSW Australia, and often find we dont have much info over here to help.

welcome to the site!!!! hope we can help!!!

We filmed our daughter twice last year (Kindergarten) and the teacher said it was very helpful in evaluating our daughter. There was another affect that was unspoken, but we definitely noticed -- it was almost as if the school started believing us more once they saw for themselves that she could not only speak, but was reciting an entire story from memory after only having it read to her class once, earlier that week.

We also talked about making a movie to show the class. We left the decision to our daughter, who said she wanted her friends to see that she was a "talking kid" at home. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to make it.

I do think the videos were an important part for the child -- realizing that in some way the teacher was going to hear her speak, even if it was on video. She finished the KG year without speaking a word to an adult, but says she loves school just the same.


Rick

I know that my daughter loves to see herself on video. I'm not sure that she would want the attention received after her Classmates would give her after seeing her talk.

just another thought too....

the showing of the videos does let the other kids know that the child CAN talk...
often there is a misconception amongst the kids that they simply cant talk at all.
it might soften the blow for when (WHEN!) the child eventually does start to talk in front of others

my daughters class LOVE watching her videos ... its almost like a premiere of a special movie... my daughter gets a kick out of being the centre of attention (strange, given that the whole anxiety thing is why we are here in the first place!)....

Very interesting! Our SM daugher is the same. This summer our daughter learned how to take videos on our camera and we spent a week camping in the rain so we spent lots of time in our camper and our daughter took lots of videos of herself. In some of them she would sing and do music videos. These videos would quite entertaining and I'm sure some of the classmates would be shocked to see her talking/singing the way she did in these videos. I am going to ask her if she would like her classmates to see a video of her speaking. If she agrees, I would like to do that. I think it may take a lot of pressure off her to speak. Her class has 'Show & Tell' once a week and it would be nice to show a video of our daugher talkign about something she likes... our dog, Hannah Montana... etc.

We never made a video for her class - my daughter decided she'd be too nervous. At the end of hte year her Gr 1 teacher did a fantastic job lining things up for Gr. 2. She made sure the teacher was the right match and spent time with her discussing our daughter's needs, etc. The transition to Grade 2 was seemless, and for the first time she is getting up and ready for school without a fight.

R