He's done!

We are finished with Brain Balance, and I am not too impressed.  Whit is still staring off into space and proceeding at a snail’s pace when it comes to writing assignments, causing frustration all around (meaning I get frustrated).  His grades actually came down marginally at school this go-round.  His teacher explained that he’s unable to finish written expression during class.  (Of course it doesn’t help that 4 of 12 kids in his class are using laptops with DragonSpeak dictation software, so that they don’t have to physically write any more.  They just talk into their computers.  Whit’s neuro-psych testing has actually shown that noise totally distracts him.  So you can see how that is working out for him, with four kids mumbling around him while he needs to actually write.)

I think he has made progress when it comes to math though.  He usually gets his homework done in class and doesn’t have to bring it home.  When he does have math homework, it goes relatively quickly once I can convince him to start on it.  The same goes for any reading assignments, the type where you read a page and then have to answer multiple-choice questions.

In January, I wrote a list of how I would judge success.  So let’s see how we did:

Easy homework taking 15 minutes?  YES, as long as it’s not writing.

Less goofing off at school? NO, he had more U’s for unacceptable behavior on this report card than ever before.

Able to remember three or more tasks given at once?  OCASSIONALLY.  I’ve seen improvement, but I still am having to remind him more than I’d care to.

Stop saying “no” just to be contrary? OCASSIONALLY.  Again, maybe it’s better overall, but if he’s feeling ass-y, I’m getting no’s.

This week Whit is being retested at Brain Balance so that we can compare how he did back in January to how he is now.  I will have those results next week, and I’ll let you know how much Brain Balance says he improved.  But I would have liked more drastic results.