A note about the Ohio autism scholarship... if you use this scholarship, you must forgo all services through the public school system. They have a list of registered providers who are eligible to provide services. You can find more info here...http://www.olrs.ohio.gov/asp/olrs_SpecialEducation.as p
Best of luck to you... My dd just turned 3, and I had her 1st IEP meeting yesterday. WOW, what an experience. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to learn the hard way to be more assertive, and not to just take no for an answer.
I would hold your ground on the blind teacher thing. That sounds totally inappropriate for an autistic child. Heaven knows we don't want to discriminate, but my goodness, that seems like quite a stretch.
Goodluck!
Tell me about the evaluations. Were you present? Were they extensive? Did the evaluators consider your input?
I've learned that prior to an IEP meeting, you should request copies of any all reports, documents, test results, etc. that will be discussed at the meeting in advance of the meeting. The school will often caveat that they don't want to just give you copies of test results because they need to be interpreted and explained to you by a qualified professional. Whatever... I get them anyway.
If it's too late for this, and I'm guessing it is based on your post, then be sure to take your time looking at everything they give you. When it's time to discuss speech, ask them for the names of all of the tests they gave your son. Ask for copies of the results. For each document they give you, very politely say "excuse me, I need a few moments to read this since it is the first time I'm seeing it" and then take your time looking at it. (Typically these meeings are scheduled for 60-90 minutes - my team learned quickly that the meeting could last 3 hours if they don't give me all written material to review in advance!)
Another key thing to keep in mind is that IEP goals and appropriate classroom placement are two separate topics. They can, and often are, discussed in the same meeting when it makes sense, but they shouldn't be discussed simultaneously.
I like to address things in the following sequence:
1. What are the results of the evauation of my child?
2. What are appropriate IEP goals?
3. What services does my child need to meet those goals? (i.e. speech, OT)
4. What is the appropriate classroom placement to assure that my child will meet all IEP goals and receive all appropriate services (either via pull-out or push-in).
It's really easy (and I'm guilty of this too) to jump from "the test score in x was 2 standard deviations below the mean" to "does that mean he has to be in a special class?" It is difficult to gauge which classroom placement will best meet his needs until he has goals.
I've been really fortunate in that I have a good team of folks at the school working with C. This is our 3rd year in the "special ed system" and we haven't had an adversarial meeting yet and have never been denied services.
My son gets speech 2x week and OT 2x week. I would be worried about the blind teacher as well, particularly with an ASD child given eye contact issues.
I would postpone the meeting until I could get copies of ALL written reports and have a chance to speak with the evaluators about their individual reports. If that's not possible, call the Chairperson of the IEP Meeting and tell her that you will need a lot of time set aside for the meeting because you will need to read the reports DURING the meeting and have them explained to you at that time. Ask questions about standard scores, percentiles, etc. If your child falls below the 25th percentile in any test, he's out of the normal range. I don't say average because to me, having 75% of the population do better (that's what the 25th percentile means) is not AVERAGE, although many SD's will try to say that it is. Anyway, the truth is that it is the rare ASD child who doesn't fall below the 25th percentile in some core areas. Especially in speech. If the testing does NOT indicate that there is a deficit in a given area but you KNOW that there is, ask for a Independent Educational Evaluation at public expense. They HAVE to give this to you OR take you to a hearing and a hearing will cost them much more. Go to www.wrightslaw.com and search Independent Educatinal Evaluation there. Also, get a copy of the second edition of FROM EMOTIONS TO ADVOCACY as soon as you can. It will be a lot to take in, but clearly your school district is set to screw you and your child right now. My guess is that the funding in your state for preschool is less than for EI. I understand Ohio has an autism scholarship fund, too, so maybe the SD is depending that you will use the money you can get from that to fill in the gaps. You'll have to investigate this more.OK, SO I live in Ohio and this is my very first IEP with the school system here. I already am having an issue as they wan to put Caden in a special ed class, with 12 other students, with the head teacher being blind and one aide.
also they evaluated him for speech and OT, and I think they said he qualifies for OT but not speech which REALLLLLY throws me for a loop. I have not seen these reports, so I'm not completely sure. In fact I feel pretty darn unprepared for the IEP meeting
I really appreciate any quick help and input by you all as I search the Internet for more last minute info