VPK and Summer Surgery - Logan

Logan made it through his 9x7 PK class pretty well.  At the beginning of the year he struggled but by January he blossomed and started doing better.  They prepared his IEP with a Resource model (More than 40%, but less than or equal to 79% with non ESE students).  This meant that 40% of the time Logan would work with an ESE teacher in a smaller class for Math and Reading.  The rest of his time would be spent in a regular Ed class.  They felt strongly that he would perform better in a smaller classroom environment.  I agreed and felt this was a good solution for Logan.

His PK teachers recommended that he attend Voluntary Pre Kindergarten during the summer before he entered Kindergarten.  I believe I was given an application for VPK at school.  But you can also go through Polk County School Board to find out more.  Or if you are out of state, you can check with your local public school to find out what type of Voluntary Pre Kindergarten classes they have.  This is a free program for any student. 

We moved towards the end of the school year to another school district and so Logan started VPK in another school (already his 3rd school....poor guy).   I believe that to be enrolled in VPK the students have to be going into a regular Kindergarten class.  Logan had an IEP and so they questioned me at first as to whether he could be in the VPK class, but b/c his delays were only speech related they let him attend. 

VPK was a long and exhausting day for Logan.  They started bright and early at 8 am and went until 5:00 pm Monday through Thursday for I believe 6 weeks during the summer.  It was good for Logan and his teachers actually wondered why he had an IEP.  It was at this point I realized that not all the teachers have access to his IEP documentation.  So I went ahead and made copies of his IEP so they could see what he had on there and also get some good background information for him.  Logan continued to do well.  He has never been a behavior problem so all the teachers love him.  It's a good thing, but also a bad thing at times b/c he was so quiet he would not ask for help.  I made sure that the teachers were aware of his trait of not asking for help. 



Logan before surgery.



Logan right after surgery.



During the summer after VPK was over we took Logan back to his ENT (Dr. Raam Lakhani).  When Logan had his tongue tie surgery he told us that Logan had very large tonsils and that eventually it would be good to have them removed.  We also had his ears checked by an audiologist who said that he had a mild hearing loss issue in his right ear.  We had Dr. Lakhani check that out and he suggested that Logan have tubes put into his ears as well.  So, we took Logan in for another surgery with Dr. Lakhani.  He removed his tonsils and put in tubes.  It was planned that Logan's adnoids would be removed as well, however, before Dr. Lakhani started to remove them he noticed that Logan has what is called a Bifid Uvula basically the Uvula in the back of the throat is split.  It is in the same family as a cleft palate.  The bifid uvual can cause issues with speech.  It can cause additional problems with speech if the adnoids are completely removed. This article explains how removing the adnoids completely can cause additional issues with speech.  Thankfully, Dr. Lakhani knew that and only removed a portion of his adnoids.  This also explained some of Logan's speech delay and low muscle tone in his mouth.