Feeling like part of the team

Well we finally had it....the dreaded IEP meeting.  I went in with low expectations, and was happily surprised with the way the meeting went and what decisions were made for Will.

Since we were transitioning from pre-school age to school age there was MANY people at this meeting.  Seven school personnel to our two parents.  Despite being outnumbered my husband and I felt like we were listened to and included on decisions for Will next year.  We were told he would go from "a child with a disability" label (which all pre-school IEP kids get) to "speech and language impairment" label.  The chairperson said decisions on Will's schooling would be made through that label's lens.  We were very happy with this label and even more happy we didn't have to fight off an undesirable one.  

The review of Will's progress by his teacher was very even sided.  Reports on his speech testing (still VERY behind) balanced nicely with his progress socially.  Often times I find these meetings are about what is wrong with these kids, not on also where their growth or strengths lie.

So it looks like next year its 1/2 Kindergarten with speech/OT/special ed push-ins.  Now we are just waffling on whether or not we should let him go for the whole day, or wait until next year for a full day experience. 

Oh and I did manage to get the "input" goal from Will's OT removed easily enough.  After a open and frank conversation, the OT gave no resistance to removing the goal and put in an addendum the next day.  I don't think she had anything invested in Will so removing a goal was a "no brainer" for her "no brain".

Special thanks to fellow blogger Pia and her Crack in the Light blog for the IEP alert level pic.

Cruising along not letting bumps in the road derail progress

Been a little while since I've posted.  Wills IEP meeting is in a few weeks and until then I'm holding my breath that all the promises from the school district will hold up at the meeting.  For the most part things have been going along well.  We spent our Spring Break at our family Camp and Will had the best time.  Got to hold his first fish.  He loved it so much I just bought him his first fishing pole.  The new surroundings always seem to bring out more language and interaction with Will.  Well I guess the place is only 800sq.ft. so togetherness of the family is sort of inevitable!

Had Will's meeting with his teacher and all that was reported went right along with what I knew from Will.  Still testing with a moderate delay with receptive language and a severe delay in his expressive language, which I knew without formal testing.  The teacher who is wonderful made nice comments on the progress Will has made trying to be more social at school, which is nice for her to note.  She also has asked for Summer services for Will which will be the same class he took last summer, but this time the school district will pay for it (at $120/week I'm relieved.)  She also told me she intends to bring up the idea of having an aid for Will next year, or at least an evaluation in Oct/Nov. to see if he needs one.  So all in all a good meeting.

We did not however go over the OT report, since she isn't his OT.  I got that report the following week of Spring Break.  Well that was......hmmmm well surprising.  The report on his progress was good he is at about 85% of the majority of his goals.  What wasn't so nice was the formal re-evaluation he received from another new OT.  It seems Will didn't want to comply with the new OT, surprising?, I think not.  Well the report states that testing was very difficult and not all tests were finished.  This didn't seem to stop the tester from giving final test results and giving some "wonderful" observations and hearsay in the rest of the report.  It seems Will is a child that needs to "grow-up", and has outbursts and "temper tantrums".  Okay, did she observe these things during the whole 1/2 hour she was there?  If not, is it professional to put these descriptions of Will in her report?  Funny his teacher has never told me of these temper tantrums, nor have a witnessed said outbursts at home.  Will is a fall apart crying kid, not the laying on the floor meltdown screaming kid.  I do not consider crying temper tantrums, but what the hell do I know, I'm just his mother.  The best part was at the end of the report where its reported that a Sensory Profile was given to me and his teacher (I think it was his regular OT).  Evidently Will has Moderate to Severe Sensory issues in regards to distractions.  Now this is all from the schools profile, NOT mine.  There is one sentence reference that "it should be noted the home profile was less".  The interesting thing at the end of the report they say he has Mild to Moderate sensory issues. (It makes me wonder if she just copy and pastes the childs name on the report and changes a few things.)

I have decided to take a deep breath and just ingore this ignorant women and her testing.  I am very proud of myself that until writing this I have not obsessed over it.  I talked to Will's diagnosing doctor and her advice was just what I had planned on.....ignore it.  Next year Will will be back to his first OT who also had me fill out a Sensory Profile as well and said "I just don't see any sensory issues with Will"  So this Mom is just going to run right over this bump in the road and look forward to forgetting this woman ever had the fortune of meeting my son.

PS 95% potty trained - YES!!!

Update 5/7/10:  After writing this post I decided to reread the evaluation to see if it was as bad as I remembered.  It was worse actually.  What I did find was the new goals the OT wrote for Will for next year.  Most were completely fine until the last set of goals stating Will should receive "input" then comply to a predetermined activity for different time limits.  

I decided I would have to have these goals formally removed from Will's IEP during the May meeting, shouldn't be a big deal as he does not have a diagnosis of Sensory issues from either of his doctors, so there should be no need for sensory "input".

The funny thing is I mentioned his OT report to his teacher with my concerns.  It seems as I am not the only parent to complain and there were A LOT of complaining parents about the testing and lack of professional reporting by the examiner.  The teacher expressed sincere disappointment with company that conducted the OT tests.  It seems that there may be something that can be done since more than just this little ol' mom expressed her concerns.

Well at least I'm not alone.