Wednesday, August 17, 2011

ADHD - Where What & How (Pengalam Kami) Part 2

Wotehmeyon.. I had difficulties introducing this fella to Iman as he rarely saw one in real life. I encourage you to bring your children out to pasar or gerai yang jual buah. Show them how the fruits/vege really look like.



Moving on dari entry saya terdahulu (baca di sini ya) .. ni sambungannya. In my last entry, I am glad Hanis left a short comment and Oren also. I am no millionaire to donate much in monetary term. I can only share what we've been and still are going through. I am glad and thankful, even if there's only a single person can benefit from it.

Again, please be reminded that what we've done (and still are doing), may and maynot work with other children. But no harm trying right. Please don't come and tell me 'hey, why you tell this and that and it didn't work with my child' This is solely based on our experience. It work on Iman so far. It may work for other children. And it may also not. Kawan, tiada yang pasti 100% dalam dunia ni.

Okay, continue.


Saya diberikan contact number Pn Sariah Amirin. Siapa beliau? She's the Presiden of Persatuan Dyslexia Malaysia. Selepas a phone call, cerita ceriti serba sedikit, kami putuskan untuk mencuba hantar Iman to one of its centers. Testimoni dari seorang ibu yang anaknya sama-sama di taska dengan Iman, memberikan sedikit sebanyak 'light at the end of the tunnel'. Benar, Iman tidak dyslexic. At least at that point, he was not diagnosed for dyslexia. We were assured that they also take in children like Iman, non-dyslexic albeit the name 'Persatuan Dysleksia Malaysia)

Bacakan perasaan 'lega' saya dalam entry ini. Lega akhirnya ada satu benda baru untuk dicuba. Waktu ini saya baru setkan appointment dengan Pn Sariah untuk buat assessment. Assessment di buat di PDM (Persatuan Dyslexia Malaysia) Center Titiwangsa. Bacakan kisahnya dan finding-nya di sini. Semua ni berlaku dalam bukan February 2011. Mulanya kami nak tempatkan Iman cepat-cepat tapi banyak urusan cuti dan sebagainya yang belum selesai. Oh ya, PDM buat short courses 3 bulan untuk ajar membaca in BM and BI dan Math. It is not a taska so takde lah kelas Fardhu Ain, kelas ngaji dan sebagainya. In fact, it caters for all regardless the age. Ia lebih melihat kepada keupayaan, bukannya umur. Jadi jangan terkejut jika kelas 'beginner' adalah campuran anak-anak berumur 4, 7, 9 dan 10 tahun. Kesimpulannya, kami dapat tempat untuk Iman bermula Julai 2010 untuk 3 bulan i.e. Julai-September 2010. Kelasnya 5-days-a-week (Monday-Friday), 8.30am-12.30pm. Paling senang dan terdekat dengan kami ialah PDM Ampang Hilir. Paling dekat, bukan bererti dekat. Ampang Hilir dengan Cheras berjarak 20km. Mengharung traffic jam pagi-pagi hari bukanlah perkara yang best kawan-kawan, 20km tu makan masa paling cepat 45min (peak hour) Paling lama pernah tersangkut, lebih 1 jam! Kawan, hidup perlu berkorban. Faktor masa dan keadaan kami yang dua-dua bekerja 9-5 menjadi satu isu. Setelah berbincang, salah seorang kami perlu bercuti untuk menguruskan Iman. Tak perlu fikir panjang-panjang, saya calon terpaling amat sesuai.

Setelah benar-benar pasti Iman dapat masuk PDM Ampang Hilir bermula Julai 2011, saya jumpa GM dan menyatakan hasrat untuk bercuti panjang. Alhamdulillah dia faham dan akhirnya pada 7 May 2011, beliau telah menurunkan tandatangan keramatnya (chewah), pada borang permohonan CTG (Cuti Tanpa Gaji, bukan Cardio Toco Graph yer). Baca entry saya pasal tu kat sini dan bagaimana borang saya terhilang dalam entry ini. On 1st June 2010, application saya diluluskan. Alhamdulillah.

Isnin, 5 Julai 2010, bermulalah kelas Iman di PDM Ampang Hilir. He was in group 'beginner' and was assigned under Teacher Sharifah. In PDM, kelasnya tak ramai student. Satu kelas cuma 4-5 orang saja. That explains kenapa anak-anak kita kena Q untuk masuk kelas di PDM. Smaller class, tumpuan juga lebih. Bayaran pendaftaran RM50, yuran bulanan RM450 termasuk sekali makan. Buku-buku kalau tak silap ingatan, dalam RM30. Bacakan kisah 1st daynya di sini dan 2nd daynya di sini. Not forgetting to mention Iman's first crush dengan Sofea, his classmate. Read here. Jatuh cinta sebab Sofea bagi dia sticker gambar burung.. hurmpp.

While Iman was attending PDM Ampang Hilir, I got to talk to other parents. Ada yang dah lama kat situ, ada yang 2nd time hantar. Ada yang anak berumur 5 tahun, ada yang mencecah belasan tahun. It was an eye-opener experience. Kawan, jika berasa kita susah, sebenarnya ada orang yang lebih susah dari kita. Ada one parent, mungkin ketiadaan kenderaan, atau mungkin tidak boleh memandu, saban hari menghantar dan menjemput anaknya dengan teksi. Kawan sekelas Iman (beginner) ada yang berumur 9 tahun. One particular fren, bought a 2nd hand Kancil and hired a driver untuk tujuan hantar-jemput. As I was sending one child, some parents were sending 2 of their children. Bersyukurlah (bukan bermakna kita perlu riak sebab kita kurang masalah) Of course there's people who walked around in LV one day and Gucci the next day!

Anyway, hasil dari conversation, we were advised to pindahkan kes Iman dari private practices ke goverment hospitals. Katanya it'll be easier to deal with other government agencies in future (with Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat, Kementerian Pelajaran etc, if need be) if we have proper documentation (Psychiatrist's findings, diagnosis, recommendations etc) from government hospital. Since we're in KL, we were told the best 2 options are HKL and HUKM. HKL is the best but after considering factors as queueing time, location HKL di tengah-tengah KL, we opted for HUKM. Shorter q-ing time and much nearer to where we live. Yang ini, I'll continue in other entry on how to go about registering your child at HUKM.

Let me share how I taught Iman about colors. When he was 5 or 6, he still didn't know colors. Yellow, green, red.. let alone other colors like pink, light blue, deep red etc. I bought many books on colors but back then he was not a book-person. More of action-learning type.

Here's a box of basic color pencils that I've used to teach him yellow, red, green, blue and purple. I associate every each color with something. Yellow with kubah surau nearby our house, green with leaf, blue with one of his toys and purple with grapes. First mula-mula memang limited to that 5 colors and 5 that things. Later, yellow as in potted flowers that we had back then, green with bakul kain or his little underwear, purple like his favourite yoghurt drink blueberry flavour and my tudung. I didn't use book, I used this color pencils. Ambik satu warna and ask where did he see that color. I started small. 5 colors only. I gave him few weeks to digest.
those are red, green, purple and yellow. and my desk is beautifully conteng-ed!


Later on bila dia dah grasp that 5 colors, I bought him this Kumon book Let's Color. Slowly his vocab and knowledge berkembang to black, white, orange, pink etc.

this is actually book no 2 under the same tittle



red like apple. cili.




And later on when I noticed dia ni (and Kakak and Adam too) suka menconteng, mewarna and melukis, I bought them more crayons, color pencils, color pens, water color. Of course at times Adam went overboard and conteng dinding, kerusi, langsir, meja etc (pengsan?) In a way that encourages skills as well (part mewarna, bukan skill membuat mural kat dinding) like the right way to hold a pencil and we can teach them to draw circle, square, oval and whatnots. See, we're already talking about shapes!


colors!

more colors!



some more!!


Just my one note of hope to parents out there with child of similar case - Jangan terlalu banyak beralasan. Takde masa, takde duit, takde pengetahuan. Takde masa, cuba chip in 10-15 minutes only a day. Sekejap tapi konsisten. Takde duit takpe, kita boleh buat teaching-material sendiri, tak perlu beli. Takde pengetahuan, boleh google info di alam maya. Jangan serahkan 100% kepada cikgu tadika or whoever teacher. Chip in your effort as well.


6 comments:

oren said...

saya suka part akak associate 5 basic colors with apa yg ada di sekeliling kita..hmm..macam tak terpikir plak..kita selalu ajar kaler ikut yg ada di mata pensel tu..itu sayalah..

will keep on reading ur entry..

aida said...

conteng dinding like ishaan :):):)

*sorry mode movie hindustan masih belum over*

Farra Da Smiley said...

akak...sharing ni sgt bagus & berguna kpd ibu2...mmg kdg2 kite ni suka cari alasan dlm mendidik anak, tqvm

ijjah said...

Tq kak tie for info sharing. Saya pon bercadang nak bwk Nuna buat assessment dgn paed since from self assessment ade simptoms adhd.cuma masih 50-50 nak pi jumpa paed sbb umur dia 3yrs plus; sama ada dia mmg over lasak berbanding others.pray for us juga ya. Utk Iman & akak, congrat for the achievement.

Ummu Auni said...

TQ for sharing this! suka artikel akak & ustaz hasrizal, yang kebanyakan melayu lambat minta bantuan untuk anak, on which we need to change that!

ummi said...

oren ~ my kids ni jenis action-learning bak kata orang nih.. kena start creatively.. lelama sok buleh belajar ngadap buku pulak.. insyaAllah.

aida ~ dinding, kosi, sofa.. haihhh.. semua dah kena

farra ~ i feel that we owe a future for our children. hak untuk mendapat pendidikan (dunia dan akhirat), kita as parents kena tunaikan.

ijjah ~ when in doubts, always seek more info when it comes to our children. one mother i met kat PDM tu, mmg lagi gigih. sampaikan dia sdn jadi cikgu kat situ. she has the spirit. i loike semangat dia.

ummu_auni ~ even when we started pun, ada some close relative were saying things. or ckp 'ala dulu si polan2 ni gitu jugak, pastu elok jerr'. itu si polan, ini anak kita. what if anak kita bukan bersifat sipolan? by then it'll be a tad too late. bukan tak boleh, tp early intervention is VERY important. akak emo sikit bab2 makpak yang takmo acknowledge and accept (what more take action) keadaan anak2 cam tu. sedangkan masa depan diorang sgt sgt sgt depends pada makpak.

*statement emo kak mon hihi*