smallmom, everybody, I’m celebrating | ADHD Information
[QUOTE=notsosure]susieb - Congratulations. Can you please tell me what an alphasmart 3000 and a DANA is. My son was just diagnosed by our private evaluator as having dysgraphia. We are awaiting the schools testing (of course they have to do their own which takes another 60 days) but we are hopeful. Dysgraphia was a complete surprise to us.[/QUOTE]
Here's the link. An alphasmart 3000 is a laptop sized word processor. It has a 4-line display and has 8 files. It's a pretty basic machine and costs between 0-0. The school provided it for my son in 4th grade and he's used it ever since. Alphasmart also makes what they call a Dana which has larger screen and is palm and windows compatible. Right now my son has two problems with his alphasmart. One is that it doesn't have the memory he needs. He's in 7th grade and it's like having 8 pieces of paper to do all your homework and school work on and that's it. Another is that it doesn't give Patrick the ability to do his algebra homework on a keyboard. He's working with symbols that a regular keyboard doesn't have. One of Pat's problems is that he can't write on a line to save his life. In algebra, one step has to follow another step and it has to line up and you have to be able to read it. His teacher has the patience of Job with his handwriting and never complains that it's hard to read. With the dana, we can load software that does math word processing so he can do his algebra homework on a keyboard like he does all the rest of his homework. Another good thing about the alphasmart opposed to a laptop is that it powers up immediately and it is durable. It's made to take the kind of punishment a student can dish out.
The program administrator for exceptional children said that it probably would make him feel different from the other kids and he won't want to use it. His resource (sped) teacher and his social studies teacher burst out laughing. His soc studies teacher says that when she puts music on at the end of class, Pat will get up and dance for the whole group (my kid dances like a white boy!). They both agreed that Pat seemed to enjoy standing out in a crowd.
Thats great I'm happy for you and your son and it's good that the school did that for you.
Susie, way to go! Isn't it amazing when everything falls into place and your child actually gets what he needs? I'm so happy for you and Pat!
thats great.....That is great! I know you must be elated. It is nice to hear the good things that happen.susieb - Congratulations. Can you please tell me what an alphasmart 3000 and a DANA is. My son was just diagnosed by our private evaluator as having dysgraphia. We are awaiting the schools testing (of course they have to do their own which takes another 60 days) but we are hopeful. Dysgraphia was a complete surprise to us.YAY!!!!!!!!! So happy for your ds. Way to go Mom!!!!!!!Hey everybody, I posted this on the thread on issues in school but I can hardly contain my joy, so I'm posting here.
My ds has dysgraphia and has an alphasmart 3000. He needs more memory and other things so I went to the schools to ask if they could upgrade him to a Dana. We did a re-assessment but they weren't that hopeful that the request would be approved. This was about 2 weeks ago and I was told it could take up to 90 days to reach a decision. I got the decision yesterday
He got it!!!! Pat got the upgrade to a machine that has more memory and an ability to load programs to help with writing math homework!!!!! Thank you, Guilford County Schools!!!!!! Thanks to Ms. G, Ms. J, Ms. A, Ms. R, thank you everybody!!!!
I like the name prayingmom. I think that name could apply to any mom of an ADHD kid!