"Well done"

That's what the sticker says. Yes, it was great that this time the tests confirmed my instincts that changes are beginning to take place. All the results were very well 'into the green' so on to the next challenge.

We now move into 'mental tasks' and something different happened today which makes me think that maybe it's in the normal order of things that son's social skills seem to be sharpening up whilst his concentration is as poor as ever. As we are now moving on to the mental challenges, two new sections of questions were added to the standard questionnaire. I laughted out loud as I read the questions and confidently awarded son the lowest possible mark:they were ALL about the ability to concentrate, focus and keep still! This surely implies that it is from now on that we might reasonably expect some progress in this area?

Anyway, much heartened all round.

Before and after?

I thought I would try posting a message just before the next review - and then one straight after. It's 9.20 in the morning and in a few minutes we'll venture off to Bedford and the Dore Centre.

We picked ourselves off pretty well after the gloom that set in last visit. Somehow the exercises weren't quite as tedious as I had feared and we just got on with them. But probably more important is the fact that son has now settled into year 5 at school, new teacher, new routines - and seems to have had fewer problems than in previous years.

When we started this programme I said to myself that the main success factor would be that son can have a bettter time in the playground - and this is definitely the case now. He plays happily with his friends, seems better able to compromise and seems less clingy and dependent on one or two individuals. He still has real problems concentrating, focusing on work and organising himself - but there's still lots of time. It's strange: I would have thought that the effects of the programme would show themselves firstly on the cognitive processes (being able to structure and focus) and only later on the social responses (being able to work co-operatively with other children). Instead it appears to be the other way round.

Now lets see if the tests back any of this up ...