What should I expect during my child's first Quarter at Kentwood?

The first quarter for every new student enrolled at Kentwood is a DIAGNOSTIC QUARTER, during which the staff and treatment team spend this time observing behaviors, getting to know your child, reviewing your Parent Priority Sheets and all the testing available.

Finally we create an individual plan for your child. The primary emphasis during this time is to integrate you child in to the Kentwood social skills and behavioral milieu. Academic demands are kept to a minimum and the level of difficulty slowly increased to allow us to gauge the relationship between behavior and academic stress. The majority of students entering Kentwood have been underachieving in school not because of lack of intelligence but due to lack of learning and study skills. The fact that your child have covered certain curriculum content and even received passing grades does not mean that the information has been absorbed, comprehended and or can be recalled or generalized to other situations. A combination of auditory and, or visual processing difficulties, illness, distractibility, anxiety, absence from school, behavioral consequences and lack of skills etc. has contributed to a foundation for learning that has many bricks missing which results in a very shaky foundation for further learning in the higher grades. As the demands of the curriculum, complexity and quantity of work become greater the foundation is more likely to collapse.