I spent an hour and a half on the phone tonight with the Mom of a special needs boy who had been in Samuel's class up until this school year. She has not had her son diagnosed with autism yet, and is facing problems with the services he is receiving at school because of it. For confidentiality reasons I cannot say any more about it, but our discussion reminded me that I need to once again start reading "From Emotions to Advocacy" and start questioning things that I see and don't see in Samuel's IEP.
Samuel has been very challenging the past few days. He is constantly scripting at home (I am told he has not been doing this at school). The last two weekends he would not get himself dressed on Saturday mornings (the only day I can leave him to dress himself). He also remains very unfocused when we do his homework. The token board, with its promise of an occasional bite of snack as a reinforcer, is not helping him the way it had been a few months ago. Maybe Samuel needs a new reinforcer. He may have been tired one or two of the days, but that isn't the only thing going on here. I won't let him watch "The Upside Down Show" anymore. However, his brothers still like to imitate things they see on it so it's been very hard keeping Samuel from imitating it himself. He also tries to watch it on Noggin's website during his computer playtime. We only made it through about 10 minutes of mass last Sunday, he kept screaming. He had only gotten a little sleep the night before so I knew it wouldn't be worth staying there.
He is starting to ask questions about school ending. There are only 5 more weeks!
I was very saddened by the shootings at Virginia Tech last week. I had to stop watching the news about it after a couple days because I was starting to get desensitized to the story. Early this past Monday morning, however, I watched a portion of CNN's show about the shooting victims. Although it was overwhelmingly sad, I was glad to hear about the real story in all of this, the senseless loss of such beautiful lives.
5 comments:
There is another child in my youngest's grade that last time I heard was not dx'd. Without my children's dx's he would not be getting some of the services he does, and he doesn't get them all. AND, the school likes to toss him at me when "we have other children". Sorry... not my problem. I played by the rules they can to.
Something is going on at school. I admit I love the first day of school and every year about now... I can't wait until the end of June so that's over for another year. Once they start discussing the end of the year at school I found my eldest started getting more and more wound... could be part of the problem.
If you still have trouble let me know. I belong to a support group and one of the kids had that. (His mother told us) She's a special ed teacher herself w/2 on the spectrum.
Hugs-
Getting Beauty diagnosed was no problem but the IEP was like getting blood from a stone.I knew that she needed all the things we requested, the school knew this and so did the education authority but the education authority were the stumbling block. It seemed like they said no to everything hoping that I would just go away(but where?).I totally believe that money was the issue and I was even told by the education authority that there was only a certain amount of money and if my child got the money then other children wouldn't.
As parents I believe that we are the only true advocates for our children so your questioning everything is definitely the right thing to do.
aaah! sounds like your son might be experiencing the 'short timers attitude' ;) Both of mine are on 'overload' and alot of it is the testing going on right now (MCA's) and the thoughts of summer. (hey...I'm even getting into the anxiety frenzy!)
I got several booklets from Wrights Law...one was "Getting Your Child with Autism what they are entitled to under the Law" and the other was about how school misuse the 'severe dsicrepancy' formulas for service denial (my kiddos are always 'low average' but not ENOUGH etc etc)
In a perfect world we could get all the services our kids need...reality has shown me I have to 'focus' my efforts on the services I think they MUST have.
ie..Speech..this is an across the board NEED in every single class. Receptive/Expressive! So I push for the most in this area.
If a need is identified...they are required to address it. Problem is...funding. Pick your battles!
Right now I'm battling the reading comprehension. It encompasses so many subjects as we move into the 'higher thinking' area I'm finding he needs this one address more.
Wrights Law and Pacer.org have great resources!
(((HUGS)))
Love your mission statement! :D
I have to admit it was easier back in the days when I was just happy I had some assistance from the school, and was content knowing Samuel was "in inclusion". It wasn't until I observed him in this setting, at the end of kindergarten, that I started wondering about his learning environment. It also hit me how limited a good teacher can be by not having the resources and support she needs.
I don't like how adversarial the whole system of special education is. I also don't like when I encounter the "I know better than you do" attitude. I certainly respect professional opinions and experience, but I expect staff and administration to consider me as an equally valid part of the "team" that gets together to plan my son's education.
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