31 For 21 - #20 - IEP

2 weeks ago we had a meeting called the EDM (Eligibility Determination Meeting). At this point, the school district transition coordinator, myself, and several people who will be involved in the next step of Jack's education were there (including special ed. teacher, therapy coordinators, and therapy providers.) Jack had already had several evaluation appointments, so we went over the results at this meeting, and be officially declared eligible for services from ages 3-5 (gee it was such a shock - not!). I don't think I learned anything new, after all the subject, Jackson, lives here! They give you results based on some sort of chart, and give your kid's developmental age, based on typical kid development. I don't neccesarily think it's all that accurate, since EVERY child develops at their own pace, but I took it as it's intended, just a guideline. These are just numbers, they don't tell anyone about how your kid can climb up on the bathroom sink and completely empty the medicine cabinet (which has no medicine in it!) in the amount of time it takes to pour yourself a glass of tea. Some families are disappointed in the numbers, but like I said, it doesn't really tell you anything. As an example, Jack, who runs and plays and climb up on stuff and gets into cabinets and opens and shuts doors, got 15 months for physical development (motor skills). I actually laughed when I saw it. Is it accurate? Maybe, maybe not. But whatever.

So we got all the results and were told that Jack will get services. At that time, we were not officially told what type of sevices, duration (school times and therapy amount), or where he would be placed. We did have a little preview, since someone at school was nice enough to prepare us a bit. Officially, all this was to be told to us at the next meeting, the IEP(Individualized Education Program). Apparently, all of this is commonly done at one big meeting, but since the IEP includes goals written for the child's upcoming school year, I wanted a bit of time to make sure I understood what was said before the goal writing part. I wanted to make sure I didn't forget any questions I had. Everyone was very nice, but our district person would sometimes talk and then later on I had no idea what she meant. I think it's because she speaks quickly and takes shortcuts that I wasn't familiar with. So I needed extra time. Next post - the IEP.