My son turned three last December, and has started special education class in Fremont, CA since early Jan. He only attends the classes on Tue and Thur mornings, and the rest of the time he goes to a main stream preschool. He was evaluated by a psycologist back in Nov, 2006, but we didn't get the report until the end of Jan, 2007. In other words, when we had our IEP in December 2006, the Fremont school district told us he is not autistic and only need two half day special education class, and 30 min speech therapy. But his psychological evaluation said he is autistic. My questions is, has anyone here dealt with Fremont special education group in the past, and what are your experiences? We want to have more services for him, but we heard the city doesn't have much money, and a lot of times, they always call Autistic kids non-autistic, which is the case of my son, the school psychologist said he is not autistic, that's why he is not getting much services. We have another IEP coming up soon, any advices on how to ask more servies to the school district and get it too?
Thank you very much!
Make sure to contact your local Regional Center as well, and schedule an intake and evaluation by them (all free of charge). If Regional Center qualifies him as ASD, the school district will have a tough time quantifying a non-ASD dx, and your Regional Center coordinator can attend all IEP's with you to make sure the school is not brushing over any services you are entitled to. Call Regional Center right away! It should be the first thing any California resident does at the first mention of autism in relation to their child. Fremont is no different than any other school district in the nation. ALL states have to follow the minimum laws required by the Federal government. Now that you have this outside evaluation, you can call another IEP meeting to share this information with the school district and ask that your son be tested for additional needs now that you all know. Hopefully, the doctor included in his report suggestions about what interventions would help in school. If you want the best advice that is specific to your area, find a special education advocate who can help you. That's really the best way.Thank you for your advices. We do have an IEP coming up, and our Regional center case manager will be there too. I will try to find a local advocate if the school district does not give us more services in this coming IEP.
Thanks again!