le PAP - PLAN d'ACCOMPAGNEMENT PERSONNALISÉ

Living in France means having to embrace acronyms.  From SPANC for the septic tank (I kid you not) to ACCRE for setting up setting up businesses passing by CAF, APE,,, it's a whirlwind.

In the case of a child with special needs or learning difficulties there is a bewildering cornocopia of PPRE, PPS, PAI, PAP, MDPH to name but a few.  However, I want to chat about the PAP or plan d'accompanement personnalisé in full.

When we went through the process of having my son diagnosed with dyslexia this was with the aim of seeing what adjustments he might need to help him in his school work.  The process was that we had him tested and based on that diagnosis we would have his level of "handicap" measured and help would be given based on that - and guidelines would be given to the teachers about how to make his work more user-friendly.  And only after this was in place would the teachers be obliged to follow the guidelines.  The waiting list for testing is around 6 months and the MDPH - handicapping body would take another additonal 6 months to study his file.  Valuable time would be lost.

However, during this process we moved house and changed school and we felt that his teacher seemed more open to making adjustments on an informal basis, so even after we got the formal diagnosis of dyslexia we didn't bother following up with getting him labelled handicapped.  This was in December 2014.

One of the recommendations for my son was to cut down his writing due to the cognitive effort that reading and writing pose him. So I agreed with his teacher that I would reformat all his history and geography lessons and print them in a dyslexia friendly font in a colour that he finds less taxing.  All great until I discovered that she still made him copy it all down - just from the sheets I provided.  This went against the grain of all the recommendations that we had for him and against the adjustments she was making - gapfill exercises, multiple choice ....

Enough was enough and we felt it was time to put in place a formal PLAN.  So I began to research how to put in place a PPS - and felt saddened by the need to declare my bright and clever 8 year old handicapped when on the   http://www.apedys.org/ website I found a fabulous chart   http://www.apedys.org/dyslexie/article.php?sid=836 which listed all the possibilities open to us.  And I discovered that in September 2014 a new plan - the PAP had been introduced.  It's very target was children that need adjustments but not as far as needing a person with them (AVS) to help them.  It allowed for changes to testing, allowing for the spoken word and not the written word, lightening the loads.  It was also exactly what my son needed.   We didn't need to get him formally assessed for a handicap but a written contract would be created with us the parents, the head teacher and the medécin scholaire of the Education Nationale.  How cool was that.  As we didn't have to pass throught the MDPH then it is much quicker and easier to put in place.  It allows for a yearly assessment of the child and can follow a child all through their school life from maternelle all the way to lycée.

I'm not saying that we won't have to change the plan when he reaches exam time, however, I feel it will be a lot easier as the building blocks of his adjustments will already be in place.  I am also thinking ahead for when he goes to collège in 2 years and the PAP should make his transition much easier.

Here's to the PAP

Getting a dyslexia diagnosis in France

Our son started his speech and language therapy when he was 6 and in CP and this is ongoing.  However, towards the end of his CE1 year (the one after CP) we had a meeting with the head teacher as to how to plan his last three years at primary – Cycle 3 which is CE2 and the 2 CM years.  We had seen with our eldest child that there was a lot of copying required and memorising for dictations, we felt, along with this therapist that he would find this tiring and hard. 

The head teacher was surprised, as he was keeping up in his CE1 class – but there most of the work had been photocopied for him and some “copying for the sake of copying” had been reduced.  We asked that lessons should be given to him in a printed format and some of the memory work – poems, dictation should be shortened.  His response was to call in the school nurse, who decided that we had to go for a formal diagnosis with recommendations, without which the school was not obliged to make any adjustments.

Ho Hum!  The nurse gave me the details of the one-stop shop neuro-paediatric centre at Lille where he could be seen by everyone all at the same time.  We then went onto the waiting list, with a  4 month window to provide up to date tests on him (or else he would be booted off!).   Initially, we had to provide – an IQ test, an up-to-date bilan d’orthophonie and a doctor’s referral. When we got the convocation with the appointment we were also asked for a viewpoint from his teacher.

  Finally, after nearly 7 months we had  the appointment and went off to Lille for the day.  He was seen first of all by the neuro-paediatrician and then by an ortoptiste and  an orthophoniste.  The doctor took his family history and asked about the problems he had.  I felt very uncomfortable doing this as he was present and I felt that the focus was on what we perceived he couldn’t do (fairly naturally) as opposed to what he could do.  As we don’t make a fuss of what he can’t do at home, I’m sure that many of these things were a surprise to him.  Not necessarily a good one.

After the tests, we had a long wait as the medical team consulted on the children that they had seen that day.  At the end of the day we were called to see the neuro-paediatrician again who confirmed that he was dyslexic and made some recommendations regarding his on-going treatment.  She also said that he should come back when he was in his last year of primary in order to see his progress and to make plans of how to best adapt for secondary education.  A full report was sent out quite quickly with the comments from the doctor and some very detailed recommendations from the orthophoniste to help him in his daily life.

Following this, and depending on the recommendations made a request can be made to the MDPH for the funding of equipment or the AVS (assistant) that a child might need.  It might also be necessary to put in place a PPS (projet personalisé de scolarisation).  We have worked on a voluntary basis with the school but at the end of CE2 are planning a meeting with them with the view to putting in place a PPS as we feel that the recommendations are not being implemented. Apparently this too may take 6 months!! ;-)

RT 2012 - what's it all about then?

In an effort to cut down France’s huge energy bill and dependence on electricity in 2012 new building thermal regulations came into force.  These target 3 main areas : the bioclimate of the building (thermal performance), primary energy consumption and summer indoor temperature.  To do this constructors have to look at orientation, heating systems and building materials – it is really a “fabric first” approach requiring high levels of insulation.

On a practical level for us we, this meant we couldn’t have our original hand drafted plans as the orientation towards the sun wouldn’t work, we  have a LOT of rockwool insulation (on reflection in the pursuit of a healthy house I wish we had used sheep’s wool) as well as blown cellulose in the loft space.  We have triple glazing – something that was integral to the build for my husband.  One part of our roof is a green roof, although that was more of an aesthetic approach – the additional insulation was a bonus.

We had quotes for various kinds of heat pumps but felt that as the house is super insulated we would not get the return on investment of one.  The regulations state that there are certain appliances that you do have to have – for example you cannot just have an ordinary water heater but one that is “thermodynamique” – it uses the calories in the air around it to heat the water.  In addition as we were creating a largely airtight house (few windows open) we had to put in a heat recovery and exchange system (VMC double-flux).  These were non-negotiable as they formed part of our heat survey (étude thermique)  included in planning permission.  The respect of the étude thermique is paramount, as  they show that the house will be low energy consumption  or BBC (batiment basse consumption).  We face fines if it is not and also the non-allocation of our PTZ – 0% interest loan from the government, which in our case is nearly 30,000€ so would be very hard to find if we are not compliant.

At the end of the build you have to provide a certificate to the planning department to show that the work that has been done is inline with what was given in the étude thermique.  Initially it is a paper exercise,  our builder will send information regarding the construction methods and material used to the company that provided the étude thermique who will say whether it matches or if there is divergence.  In the case of divergence or just as a matter of random checks, the planning department can implement a level 2 study – still a paper exercise but carried out by them.  They can ask for full details on the build.  Finally, if they are still not happy they can demand a full inspection.  Again our PTZ hangs on this certificate as it is the proof that we have a BBC house.

Listed below are some websites that provide more information regarding RT2012.

 

http://www.rt-batiment.fr/batiments-neufs/reglementation-thermique-2012/presentation.html

 

http://www.ecodis.fr/en/content/regulation-rt-2012

 

http://www.gasinfocus.com/en/focus/french-thermal-regulation-rt-2012/

Dyslexia Diagnosis .. the first steps

In France, reading is taught in CP, when a child is 6.  During maternelle they will start pre-reading skills which may include sight reading certain words – their names, colours, and days of the week.  They will start to make the link between spoken words that they know and the written word.  I remember clearly one exercise that my eldest did was to match “le, un, la, une” to words that they knew  - “maison, banana, garcon, fille”.  My son found it really hard as he did not yet have the right article for these common, basic words.  However, he learnt them by learning to read the article.

Most schools use a syllabic method to reading – that is, they break down the word into easy chunks of recognisable syllables.  We learnt a whole host of these – the “ai” de balai; the “en” de dent, “ille” de fille.  And it works, by leaving reading until later and chunking it down most children are reading within weeks and certainly by Christmas.  In  fact, I started to teach my eldest to read in English, despite the books saying leave it 2 years, as he took his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book and tried to read it with his French reading skills.  He was amazing.

But what do you do when it goes wrong?  With my youngest by the “Toussaint” holidays I was talking to his teacher – was everything ok or was it because my eldest had found reading so easy that I had unrealistic expectations?  The reply was slow but not catastrophic.  However, by January it was a different story – a note came home with his everyday work book highlighted, filled with sound inversions, letters back to front….

Not knowing anything, the first thing I did was to google “sound reversal” and surprise surprise got back dyslexia.  Thereafter there was a conversation with his teacher to see what she thought.  She said it was a possibility and that perhaps we should get him tested.

As dyslexia is treated as a medical condition in France, our first step was to go to our doctor who, as he knows us really well did not hesitate to give us the prescription for his assessment and any further sessions that he may have required.

 

The hard part is to find an “Orthophoniste” (speech and language therapist) – they are relatively few and far between and as their remedial work is often of a long term nature they have a long waiting list.  It is common for the waiting time for the assessment to be in the region of 3-4 months.  Normally, they won’t see the child until they have an available place for them if they require further help.  We were fortunate that a new Orthophoniste had just arrived in the next village and were able to get him assessed and his sessions started within 2 weeks.  This is rare.  We decided that her relative inexperience was outweighed by the fact that our son would receive support straight away just as problems were emerging  and would not have to struggle on.  It helped that she worked in the same medical centre as another othorphoniste and we felt that she would be able to ask questions if need be. We also felt that her youth may make her more open to our son’s bilingualism.

The initial assessment (bilan) was scheduled for one hour but in fact as speed is one of my son’s problems it took nearly 2.  At the end of it we discovered that he did not recognise the entire alphabet and that he had phonological problems – consistent with dyslexia but too early to say definitively. He also had problems with his short term memory but had greater than average working memory – probably due to his bilingualism – however one does not compensate for the other.  Ask his to simply repeat a series of numbers, he can’t ; ask him to repeat a series of numbers backwards he can.

He began weekly ½ hour session of remedial work straight away. We also talked to his teacher regarding the alphabet and she agreed to take him into “soutien” – small group support after school with some children from the year under him to work on this.  Which he loved and really helped.

We are in it for the long haul and I feel really fortunate that he has managed to get regular, professional help from very early on and feel confident that he will succeed in French – I now have to work out how to tackle his English.

obtaining finance

On 1^st July, 2014 the walls of our wood-framed (ossature bois) house went up; it felt like a real achievement and the start of something new.  It was also the culmination of year’s preparation and hard work where we frequently felt like giving up or banging our heads against the brick wall that is French Banking Bureaucracy…

French banks are much more cautious than British banks about lending money – especially when you go down the self-build route.  You can’t just walk into the bank, waft a few payslips and be told that you will be loaned x amount.

No, you have to provide your employment contracts and 3 months’  payslips or 2-3 years of information if you are self-employed, your tax returns for 2 years; to show your income is stable, passports, marriage certificates and  the “livret de famille” if you have one.  All fairly standard, if detailed,  stuff.  However, where there is a big difference with self-building in the UK is that you have to provide a budget, with quotes to show that you can, in fact afford and finish the house that they are going to help you build.  This is really proactive on their part.  Follow the plan and you will have a house at the end of it.  No more “Grand Designs” projects that run out of money.  I think I gave 50 pages of information to each bank we asked and when we had been accepted the total number of pages was well in excess of 200.

As our bank was not local all of these pages had to be scanned and emailed to them.  A real low and losing the will to live moment was when some of them were rejected as being “too faint”… You just can’t make it up!

It is also very hard to try and think of everything that you are going to need to have for your house, especially if you have never built before.  There is also no going back and asking for more – once the project is set then that is it.  You also have to be very clear as to what is covered in the loan and what isn’t.  At the beginning our kitchen units were covered but not the appliances, but midway during the project the bank about faced and said that none of the kitchen would be accepted…..

We actually have 3 different loans that all have different repayment schedules.  Despite the fact that we had already had a house in France, but had sold it several years ago, we were considered as first time buyers and as such were entitled to help to buy from the Government in an interest free loan.  The amount of this loan is determined by your earning s of 2 fiscal years ago.  For us this was great as it was the year I set up my own business, so our earnings were lower than, for example, the previous year.  This is known as a PTZ (Prêt à taut zero).  However, we have strict guidelines attached to it.  We also have a classic fixed rate loan and a loan that kicks in once the PTZ is paid back so we pay more or less the same amount for the next 25 years L.  Variable rate loans are uncommon in France and the rate is only allowed to vary by a small amount so didn’t seem to make sense. 2014 was also a year where the interest rates were extremely low anyway.

Finally, it took an incredible 6 months to put together our dossier and get it approved… apparently building it is the easy part ;-)

Colourimetry for Dyslexia

Following the idea that my youngest might be dyslexic and not being a person to not take action, I have recently spent a great number of hours researching and reading about this problem.  One of the treatments that may help for visual dyslexia is changing the background colour - black on white is one of the most difficult things to read, yet almost all reading is done with this colour combination.

Mini-twinks has revealed that reading is easier and the words move less when the background is either blue or red, so I have been reprinting all of his reading homework from school on blue paper.  I have also been putting in little lines under the middle of each word to help him track across the line.  This has helped him to read with less difficulty and less squinting at the words!

 So last week we went with  Other Twinks for a joly to the UK to get their eyes tested and for him to be tested on an intuitive colourimeter to see if coloured lenses would help.

First of all he had a normal eye test and the recommendation to have a slight correction as whilst he can see perfectly well he is slightly long-sighted and his eyes are having to work a bit harder which may explain his headaches and how tired he becomes.  Then after he'd had a break we moved on to the colorimeter where he looked at a page of script and the optician guided him through the spectrum of colours to see if any made it easier to see the writing.  When he fixed on a colour they moved onto the depth of the colour to the exact best shade for him.  It is quite subjective and at 6 he his quite young.  We spent quite a lot of time reminding him it wasn't his favourite colour that counted but what made it easier to read!  Our optician tested him 3 times to try and remove as much subjectivity as possible.  While I can't be sure that he has the optimum colour for him, what was very clear was when a colour didn't help him.  I think that if they do seem to help then this will be an exercise to repeat in a couple of years when he himself will have a better understanding of the process and why we are doing this.

One week after that by the Grandparent Delivery Service one beautiful pair of blue tinted glasses has arrived.    It is the holidays so too early to decide if they really will help.  I can't wait for him to go back to school to see how he adapts to wearing them in class and to see if his teacher notices any difference over the next term.

it could only happen to him ....

Well after a couple of months when mini-twinks reading was slow, but not dramatically bad it has all come to a head and action has been called for.  His teacher put a note in his homework book about some of the written mistakes he had made that day including some dramatic sound and letter reversals.  Not one to sit doing nothing I googled "sound reversal" and not surprisingly (but was to me at the time) stumbled on sites for dyslexia, which threw my world upside down in the blink of an eye.



Like most people I thought dyslexia was purely a problem with reading and writing - not so.  The more I read up on the symptoms the more I saw a portrait of my son.  A creative, fun-loving, "meme pas peur" (fearless) and funny boy that makes everyone laugh with his mispronunciations.  I've posted on FB some of his more memorable ones (muffins for puffins and meringue airplane).  A boy that at 6.5 doesn't know his left form his right and has no real notion of time  "mummy is it today?" is still a common question in our house.

I cried.  And then I cried some more - as all I can see is a momental journey ahead, dealing with literacy in not one, but two languages.

Then I told myself off and got down to some action.  First a chat with his teacher who agreed to take him into "soutien" (after-school help) after the holidays to provide extra phonic help.  In under a week he had an appointment with a speech and language therapist and the optician to get his eyes tested (although the waiting list is 3 months for that).  I removed my head from the sand and have now bought a daily calendar for him to change and he is fed up of "Simon Says" with integrated left and right!  I have researched colourimetry and experimented with different colours of paper for his reading.  He seems receptive so next week we are off to the UK for the day to get his eyes tested both for prescription lenses and coloured lenses if they may help.  His french eye test will be maintained to see if he would benefit from eye retraining exercises, and to register him with an opthalmalogue so that future visits do not take 3 months to come through.

His speech and language therapist remains non-committal, and whilst not ruling out dyslexia does say that such a diagnosis can only be made over time while working with him.  This work starts next week.  We feel  a little fustrated as we would like to know, but pleased that he has been able to get started with a therapist a couple of weeks after his teacher raised the alarm.  This is rare - normally it takes about 3 months to have the first evaluation carried out.  We feel lucky.

Who knows what the future is going to hold for him and I expect to become and expert on dyslexia, but at least he is getting the support  and understanding he needs straight away and for that I am grateful......

to be continued....