Mr. Obama's Brain Surgery?

What happened to the right side of Mr. Obama's head? What brain surgery did he have? Just curious.
For what it's worth, right-sided head trauma can cause a condition where the person is still a good reader (think teleprompter), but has trouble with higher order thinking and sometimes math (think spending us into the grave).
Hat Tip Hillbuzz.

Summary of special adventures

Or should that read adventures in special education?

The first step is the "aha" moment when you realize that there may be something going on with your kid. I knew my son struggled in school since first grade, especially in math. We went on struggling, year after year, and I kept hoping it was immaturity, disorganization, and that it was something he would grow out of. My friend in the neighborhood loaned me a book called "The Elephant in the Playroom: Ordinary Parents Write Intimately and Honestly About the Extraordinary Highs and Heartbreaking Lows of Raising Kids with Special Needs" by Denise Brodey. This book sat on my counter top for months and months. I finally started reading it out of guilt when I found it while cleaning. A few stories in and I was hooked. I love reading about people's lives. And these heartwarming stories of family and love were amazing. Then midway through the book my heart skipped a beat. There was a story describing my son. I mean completely. The only thing different was that the boy in the story was SO stressed out by school he went through an episode of hysterical blindness before he was diagnosed with Nonverbal Learning Disorder. This gave me a lot to think about and I started researching it.

The school said they would look into it with my son's testing. It wasn't until the first IEP meeting on May 1, 2008 that they told me they completely ruled it out, and that my son had ADD, and that he didn't qualify for any special services. He was given some accommodations on a 504 plan. I was SO angry and devastated after this meeting. The school had ignored a lot of their own testing data. All the data that pointed to his learning disorder was explained away "oh, he must not have been paying attention during that part of the test".

My neighbor told me about a local group of advocates and trainers called Team of Advocates for Special Kids, TASK. I went to an 8-hour IEP seminar in late May. Around that time, I requested an IEE, an Independent Educational Evaluation, based on the fact that the school ignored testing data, and I didn't trust their conclusions. I spoke to the woman at the district and she approved the IEE. Without her approval, I would have had to go to a hearing to argue for it.

The day school let out, I sent a letter complaining about bullying in school, to make sure it was documented before the IEE took place. That caused a flurry of activity, and an IEP meeting was held the next day, granting my son a lot of services and support. At the same time, I obtained a doctor's report from an HMO physician documenting my son's Nonverbal Learning Disorder. The new diagnosis was also included in the paperwork at the school. I started to relax and come to terms with being an advocate for my son.

Summer came and went, and there has been another flurry of activity in September gearing up for his first experience in the Resource Specialist Program (RSP) where he goes 90 minutes per day. His homework load is much less this year. Partly because his teacher has a kind heart. His teacher doesn't want to send home unfinished schoolwork for any of the kids in the class. It is refreshing to hear a teacher who respects the children and their need for down time. I pray that my son has a good year this year. Body, mind and soul.

The meeting went well

I took care getting dressed today. I wore a crisp white shirt and black flat-front pants from Ann Taylor. With pearls. Professional. Here are pics of me after the meeting, posing with baby A.

Everyone was polite. And I got everything that I wanted. The most interesting part was when I asked to have a record removed from his cumulative school file under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The principal asked to see the paper and the moment she looked at it she said, "this is illegal." She said she would have it shredded immediately. And the references to the paper in the meeting minutes will not refer to the objectionable terminology directly, so the vicious name-calling against my son will stop there. Done.

And I asked them to put those other 2 items that were left off of his accommodations list back on, the use of the Alpha Smarts computer and the teacher checking the backpack to make sure he has all his material to go home. Done.

We signed the Occupational Therapy goals so that can start now. Done.

They agreed to re-assess him for long-term recall, because he scored unusually low. The psychologist says that the score might not reflect his true recall because she felt he had trouble paying attention to that portion of the testing. So shouldn't it be repeated? Done.

I asked what the procedure was to get an in-service seminar at the school to educate the staff about Nonverbal Learning Disorder. The principal asked if I could find someone to teach it, and I said that I could. She said she would work with me on it, as long as it was research-based. And that it would be for the staff that works directly with R***. I hope I can find someone good in my area to teach this. Won't it be great to educate them? They are still reacting to my son as if everything he does is because of Attention Deficit. They really don't understand his neurological condition. So I need to do research on this. But the possibilities are exciting.

All in all I think we are moving in the right direction. We will meet again in about a month to go over the results of the psychological and speech/language assessments.