IEPs IEPs

It was good, it was bad, it was frustrating, and it was mostly good.

Last week was KK's IEP meeting. It lasted a lot longer than I think any of us had anticipated and it went better than I'd hoped for bits.

We have a setup where we take the boy to the university for their language school. He gets his speech therapy there, but other services have to come from the school district. Last year we requested that he get evaluated for OT. We got those results this year. Yeah, that's more than a bit out of compliance for a response. And I'm still a bit pissed about it.

But the results say that he does qualify for OT. We knew this. He can't even dress himself for Pete's sake. Anyway, she also said he's very ready to learn and will incorporate what she demonstrates back into the classroom. Yay. This is a really good sign. Also, she's going to take him out for one on one sessions to avoid distractions in the classroom. I think that's brilliant. She also said he's got the skill level of a 24 month old according to her tests. FTR, he's almost four. ;-/

They actually read his autism evaluation and suggestions for the first time. We gave them a copy much earlier. Did I mention my frustration with the school district? Yeah. Anyway, they read the recommendations and asked about getting an autism specialist on his team. Ya think? His preschool director also wants to involve the university to see if he qualifies for any studies (since those usually involve funding and more therapy than we would otherwise receive.) I'm all over that plan.

We went over his strengths - letters and numbers, increasing receptive skills, better focus, etc. Yay. And then the bad part, his weaknesses. I had to admit that his functional communication skills really hadn't improved. He says the words he says more clearly, but he's still not saying that many words to do anything other than label objects. He does have his moments, so here's to hoping that those moments increase.

His preschool director said she'd left an AAC device in the class and given him some opportunity to play with it to see if it would help at all. He used it to ask for a snack, which is good, but then when other kids started playing with it, he started hitting the "no" button repeatedly. Even better.

The end goal is still going to be spoken communication, but if an AAC device bridges the gap, I'm all over that.

I requested cognitive testing if it were possible, but we decided that maybe waiting another year would be better to really get a good picture. I wanted a baseline, but I didn't want a test that relied on his communication ability to see what's going on in his head, and I know that's going to be hard to find.

They also initially had him listed as being dairy free for the treatment of autism. We corrected them that he was dairy free for the treatment of foul smelling farts from hell, but if it improved his behavior, yay for us. They all seemed to think he was much more focused since we'd eliminated dairy from his diet, but it's hard to tell if that's just halo effect. The stinky farts are not halo effect, so yay to be rid of those.

IEP Meeting for the Girl

P had her IEP meeting today, and they're increasing services. I always get paranoid that they're going to take them away. They said that actually they'd already increased services and now the IEP was going to officially reflect what they were doing.

They said she's going interesting gaps where she does higher level skills well but misses basic skills completely. Her functional speech is still a big issue. She scored at 47% on receptive speech, which gives her a huge gap between expressive and receptive skills.

She can't identify double digit numbers at all, which puts her math skills behind, but I've heard her add and subtract, so there's that gap in a basic skill again.

She's now getting four 30 minute reading sessions, four 30 minute math sessions, and one hour of speech therapy per week. They're also evaluating her for music therapy, and they said they'd add that on if she qualified. They're also giving her extra cues and prompts and extra time.

She's got good coping skills, and she uses all the resources available, and she's making excellent progress. She just has a ways to go.They're very pleased with her fine motor skills, which used to be a concern in preschool, so yay. That's one of the reasons they wanted to see if she qualifies for music therapy. They figured she was so artsy that it might play to her strengths.

And sometimes Google isn't your friend. After reading this article, I'm even more concerned about dyslexia. She does all of those things. I guess the good news is that because she's receiving services, they're more likely to catch it if it is dyslexia.

Three Year IEP... Someday

P's got her IEP coming up. They've called to reschedule already. The first time they called, they suggested two possible dates to make sure they'd have an alternate. And they can't meet right after school, or early on an "early release" Wednesday, or during the school day, or any other time that might be convenient for parents.

But at any rate, it should be next week, unless it's rescheduled again. I'm hoping we don't have any surprises or really really depressing news.