So last Thursday my husband and I attended the IEP meeting for our son, who will be starting elementary school this fall. After a 2 hour meeting to review the Evaluation Report and go through the IEP draft they had prepared, we both left very happy with this team and their understanding of and commitment to our Little Guy.
I wanted to share some of the information from it related to his goals and services, not to expose any personal information about him, but because I know how hard it was for me to get a handle on what to expect when we first started writing IEP's upon transitioning from Birth-3 to the preschool program and how desperate I was for any information I could find.
Special Considerations
- First of all, I was relieved that the team happily checked off communication needs, assistive technology, behaviors, and even other for his special diet. The preschool program had steadfastly refused to check behaviors until I finally insisted last year and wanted to uncheck communication on the last IEP. At that point, my question was, "If he doesn't have communication needs and he doesn't have behavioral issues, why are we even here?"
- Given instruction and a pencil grip, M. will independently utilize a mature tripod grip on his writing utensil 3/4 cold probes. (The OT said that if we choose to enter him in a first grade, she will add another goal about writing related to spacing, letter size, etc.)
- When presented with structured activities for improving pragmatic language skills, specifically "managing conversations", M. will respond appropriately by using target skills in 4 out of 5 opportunities with no more than 1 verbal prompt per trial. (Then she lists the 3 target skills she will start with.)
- When presented with unstructured and structured tasks for "non-verbal communication", M. will respond appropriately by using target nonverbal skills in 4 out of 5 opportunities with no more than 1 prompt. (Again, 3 target skills are listed.)
- M. will follow his daily schedule and will transition between activities without displaying maladaptive behaviors such as yelling out, covering ears, falling to floor or becoming overly active with no more than three verbal, visual or physical prompts per transition.
- Occupational Therapy - 20 minutes per cycle, direct (This will increase to 30 minutes if second goal is added.)
- Speech Therapy - Two 30 minute sessions per cycle
- OT & SLP consult with teacher and other staff to monitor progress and address needs - At least one time per month
- Autism Consultant - One time per week for 6 weeks and then review based on recommendation of the team. (This was a result of my pursuing her attendance at the meeting and then politely pushing for her inclusion on the IEP. The team was in agreement with the outcome, but I did have to state my case and be persistent when the conversation got onto other topics before we had finished addressing her role.)
So there you have it, that's what we all came up with. I will work on typing up the Modifications and SDIs for tomorrow so you can see what they look like as well. Now the kicker is trying to make a decision about which grade he will start in, which is making my head spin and, frankly, that is not a pretty sight!
