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But this is about academics, not SPED services.
I have been repeatedly advised here that I need to disclose the dx to his school or else. Or else...my son won't get vital services.
I have.
I just did not realize that once you disclose, the school may back away from offering those services, or only offer scantily, or what have you.
For ex, my son's major issues are with:
- attention (staying on a task he's not 100% self-driven to)
- executive function (tasks like "dress yourself", "clean your work area", etc seem to daunting for him.
- social skills (he can say the wrong things at the wrong time when around age peers, not very skilled in becoming part of a group dynamic), etc.
These are just some examples. What kind of services might the school want to withhold in such situations?
We (and you) cannot know what services will be offered until you have your son evaluated by the school personnel and they tell you what they believe he needs. It may be that he will simply be fine in kindergarten without any services or accommodations.
My granddaughter had attention problems and a reward system worked well for her with part of her reward being getting up and moving around when she finished a task and other parts involving drawing since she loves art and draws whenever she can get her hands on paper and pencil or other art materials. This is not something that costs extra and so would probably not be denied unless they believe your son does not have any attention issues.
For social skills, a separate class may be warranted and this may already be offered and he may simply need to be included in that. He may also need the teacher or playground aide to be aware of the group dynamics and how to help him to be included. That is better done in preK, but kindergarten teachers are often skilled at that as well. This might cost extra money in a school district, but not if it is already being offered to other children and it is likely to be. The school psychologist or councilor would be the one offering this as a pull out class probably. My granddaughter has been in one and was also in a private social skills class for a while, but we did not see a lot of benefit with her in the private one. The best thing for social skills actually is something like boy scouts for a boy or girl scouts for a girl, imNsho.
In terms of executive function, many of those skills are not taught explicitly in school. Cleaning up the work area is often facilitated by singing songs and having everyone work together, but dressing himself is something *you* as a parent will have to work on. You may want to talk to some specialists about how to teach these tasks in a way that works for your son. An OT or PT can often help and their might be one available at the school, but usually they are not focused on everyday tasks other than fine motor and writing or skills kids need in PE. Certainly, I would look into private OT (Occupational Therapy) especially if he seems to have problems with sensory overload.
I suggest reading Carol Stock Kranowitz's book The Out-of-Sync Child. You can probably get it at the library. You can read through it to see which systems seem to be out of sync and then figure out what activities will help with them. Our OT has been a fantastic resource for my grandson. He has learned so much from her. Not every OT is trained in sensory integration though, so you need to choose wisely.
Aconite, can you explain why it's considered an aggressive move to record the meeting or have an advocate present? Wouldn't everyone say and do the same things whether the meeting is being recorded or not, or whether there's a third party there or not?
Why? Beats me. I'd expect it's because I live in Florida and people tend to be batspit crazy, but I've heard people elsewhere say they've had the same experience.
So in absence of that, I'm guessing because it gives the appearance of lack of trust. If a person feels mistrusted, they feel devalued, and it's a short hop from that to being a hindrance instead of a help. Despite the fact that, in theory, the child is the center of the IEP, there's potential for a lot of ego to get in the way when you have a bunch of experts in one place. Throw in a parent (who clearly has a personal stake in the issue) and it can get hairy sometimes.
IME, if you're going to record, the school system will also record, and they automatically assume it's being recorded for legal reasons, rather than because Mom is dysgraphic or forgetful, or because meetings run ridiculously long sometimes. Maybe it's not that way in some places. My experience is limited to...well, my experience.
I don't see why every meeting is not recorded and included in the student's file. Makes sense to me. I never recorded a meeting (kinda wish I had just because I cannot take notes and listen at the same time) but the minute I brought an advocate in, I started getting pre-meeting notices from the school that if I intended to record I must give 2 (or was it 3) days notice in writing because if I record, then they will record as well. Funny, I never got those notices before.
I still decided not to record in order to prevent them from getting more defensive and create walls.
We recorded meetings on occasion, but we used the excuse that my dil has a hearing aid and doesn't always get things in the meetings. It is helpful to her to be able to listen to it later.
All right...if you wouldn't mind bearing with me for a second...
Here's a behavior-based example:
Then I told them both: come on, now that you made friends, the two of you go and play nicely and carefully, OK?
To which my son says to the other boy, (in my language):
"come on, friend, let's go play!".
He never said something like that in English.
I wanted to die.
I wouldn't have, a few months ago, before finding out that kids who may commit "the crime" of uttering something like that once every few months, are "pathological". But now I do.
After 22 years of teaching, plus 8 of teaching 4-6-year-olds in Sunday School, I still don't recognize anything "abnormal" about that. I've heard plenty of kids (and adults) talk that way. They are using language skills to express themselves. He's acknowledging that they are friends by calling him Friend. (Did he even know the kid's name?) Is it only "friend" that's pathological? How about, "Come on, Dude," "Come on, Buddy," etc.?
Am I missing something? (I admit, I have only read about two-thirds of the thread so far.)
I guess I got lucky. My kid's in an autistic program in school, his teacher and director have children with ASD also. First time in his life there's a school that gets kids like him. (he's high-functioning, btw). It's not about me or trying to live vicariously through him by planning his future for him. We (he and I) will figure this thing out together, not worry about society's idea of what's "normal" or try to keep up with the joneses. We live our life for us.
Just wanted to say thank you again for all the advise that has accumulated in this thread.
Many people's arguments here have convinced us to go ahead and disclose the dx to the school.
We have.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an extensive e-mail to the principal in which we explained the whole story. She was thankful that we disclosed and said that this will help them meet his needs better. OK. We expected that.
We returned to the US a few days ago and today we enrolled our son in K.
He went through the screening, the teacher who did the screening was excited about him as he apparently responded all questions correctly and completed all tasks she gave him. But then again, when he met the principal, he was kind of off and awkward as usual, not looking her in the eye, not responding when she would say "nice to meet you". When I asked him later about it, he said he's just "shy".
In the meantime, we set up an appointment with the principal + someone from the district to sit down and talk about the whole thing for the first time.
At this point, what should I have with me at the meeting - which will be next week? What are the main things I should ask about? Talk about? Suggest? What should I expect that they will do at this point?
Everything will flow from there - probably a proposal to have him evaluated by the school psychologist?
Or will they wait to see how he does in K first?
Do you think we will be talking about an IEP now?
I don't even know what to expect at this meeting.
I would appreciate it if anyone had any advice for this particular day. Thanks again!
It definitely won't be a meeting where you set an IEP, by any means, but it may be one where you discuss your expectations, find out the school's timeline and procedure on getting an IEP set up, and planning for when you will have a formal IEP meeting.
Things to discuss would be parental concerns, relevant medical issues, what sorts of things you, as a parent, would most like to see addressed in your child's education, and just learning as much as you can about the program and how it will apply to your child. They'll probably want to discuss different assessments and other things that will be used to determine where your child is at, skill-wise, which will be used during an observational/data-taking period to help write the IEP goals when the time comes. It sounds like this meeting will be kind of an orientation session for all.
I wouldn't worry about a kid being shy around the principle...many neurotypical kids at that age would have likely responded similarly.
You don't need to have anyone with you yet. You and your husband if he is knowledgeable ought to be enough. Probably, they will set up the evaluation process. He may, btw, do fine without an IEP in kindergarten. Only time will tell. My granddaughter is going into 4th grade and does not have an IEP. Her asperger's is evident more with her peers than with school and academics and she has not needed an IEP since her teachers have been more than willing to accommodate her without them. They are aware of the dx and help her when she needs it without any formal process.
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Recording IEP Meetings
