EI to School district transition | Autism PDD

I just wanted to see if anyone could give me some great tips on this transition. DS is 32.5 months. So, come October we are thrown to the wolves

Any tips would be helpful!!

PS. My district is known for pretty good services for all spec ed.

we went from EI to the school district without a diagnosis so our IEP was
very vague. we were happy with our pre-school program b/c it provided
some social skills for our son and his language seemed to increase.
however, once our diagnosis was received i am in a different ball game.

the autism classroom is not the appropriate placement for him (he is too
high functioning) and the pre-K class he is in now will not do ABA.

if you plan on keeping your child in the pre-school program i suggest
putting an attorney on retainer and getting a child advocate. use the child
advocate a lot and the attorney sparingly. a good child advocate will know
when it is time for the attorney to get involved.

we are going to pull our son from the pre-K classroom and focus strictly
on an ABA program. we will do mostly home based and then some social
skills or GABA programs. there is also a private pre-K program in our area
that is hooked with a private college and the psych department. we are
going to put him there for 1 to 2 days/week for social skills, etc.

he is 3 and if in 2 years his progress is such that he will not be
mainstreamed we will then go back to the IEP and public school system. if
he can be mainstreamed (even with an aide in place) we will probably go
the private route. in our area services are very hard to come by.

bottom line... ABA, child advocate, special education attorney

LI agree, ABA, child advocate,special education attorney.
My EI/Regional was so slow and backed up that I started in home ABA
without them at first. Their own eval actually documented his progress
right when he started and 6 months later. It was incredible!!! When we
transitioned we were able to prove that he was making amazing progress
and they(SD) did
not have a comparable program in place. They did offer us placement in
Special Ed Preschool, I declined and that was that. My district is all over
the place when it comes to funding private ABA. Some never get it, Some
get 10-15 hours, and I know of one who got 37 hours a week fully
funded.
We used to get 25-29 hours from SD and we also get 6 hours from
Regional Center (EI). It has been a battle the last year. I also sent my son
to a NT/preschool with a shadow aide when he was ready. By the way not
all ABA is good ABA by the way. You got to make friends whose kids have
ASD in your area. Know the scoop. Most parents will share information.
The more you know the better off you will be.

One other thing I noticed from our IEP, less goals=less services.
Good Luck

Thank you. DS has very good strengths. Even with the DX he will not go into an Autism classroom. I have been assured of that. I just don't want to be blindsided during the IEP meeting. Do you bring your EI coordinator, therapists, ABA therapists, or just a huge pile of documentation. Should I figure out what is the best for him before the IEP meeting and tell them, or let tham tell me first. I just have no idea.

[QUOTE=KathyK]I agree, ABA, child advocate,special education attorney.
My EI/Regional was so slow and backed up that I started in home ABA
without them at first. Their own eval actually documented his progress
right when he started and 6 months later. It was incredible!!! When we
transitioned we were able to prove that he was making amazing progress
and they(SD) did
not have a comparable program in place. They did offer us placement in
Special Ed Preschool, I declined and that was that. My district is all over
the place when it comes to funding private ABA. Some never get it, Some
get 10-15 hours, and I know of one who got 37 hours a week fully
funded.
We used to get 25-29 hours from SD and we also get 6 hours from
Regional Center (EI). It has been a battle the last year. I also sent my son
to a NT/preschool with a shadow aide when he was ready. By the way not
all ABA is good ABA by the way. You got to make friends whose kids have
ASD in your area. Know the scoop. Most parents will share information.
The more you know the better off you will be.

One other thing I noticed from our IEP, less goals=less services.
Good Luck
[/QUOTE]

Thank you. I didn't see your response til I was done typing the last. My EI has litteraly given me everything I have asked for in record time. They cantacted the school district for me when he turned 2.5 and then organized a time for them to observe him in his EI playgroup, and they did. EI already informed the districts early spec ed director of the diagnosis. So, I am causiously optomistic.

That is exactly what we did and it went very smoothly. At your next transition meeting, the SD will probably ask you what kind of program you are anticiapting for your son when he transitions. Ours did and I told her exactly what I envisioned. It gave me a chance to gage her reaction and she seemed to respond as if our requests seemed very reasonable. Good luck! Our EI coordinator and therapists had also told us what our SD generally offers as therapy hours and felt like we would have no problems. They were right - I hope yours are too!!! Good luck!

Jen

Please read "From Emotions to Advocacy" by P. Wright also, there is a book
(what is the title???) about teaching my child w/ autism (look under
education forum here, it's a book I need to get my hands on...). They will
help prep you for the meeting. Bring AS MUCH documentation as you can
get--any therapy evals, doctor letters, et al. KNOW your rights before you
go so you are prepared. Hopefully your transition will go smooth, some of
them actually do, depends on your state & your SD. Good luck!

I think although I haven ot gone through this transition in my current district, I do have some wisdom to contribute:

The EI folks (meaning those who handle the 3 - preK kids) and the school folks, at least in my district, are VERY different deparments! In talking to my school-ager's SLP I discovered that the pre-school evaluators and therapists are NOT well-liked by the school teachers and therapists!

So ... it may be that one set is more liberal with services than the other. The funding is from different sources and the motives are different. Do not set your expectations of the school based on the EI folks ... (in our case, the EI folks were VERY tight!).

OF COURSE they should do more, earlier. My son (NT I Think) has a lateral lisp among other things. The SLP for the Pre-K's said she "did not want to evaluate him yet as it might still be due to his transitioning from Spanish to English."

He is FOUR and has spoken no Spanish since age TWO.

foxl39273.4217013889regarding your question who to bring to an IEP meeting:

ABA therapists
documentation
child advocate
your EI coordinator-if you feel he/she is an advocate for your child and
not chummy with the school districts

remember there are a lot of them on one side of the table and then you.
make it more even!

L

Our EI coordinator was already invited there by the SD, but we also invited our lead ABA therapist and brought letters from his SLP. We made sure to review all the evaluations before the IEP so we were prepared and so we could use them to support our recommendations. Also, I basically told the CPSE what I thought I would be wanting at the transition/information meeting. That way they knew my wants before the IEP. There were no surprises and everything actually went very smoothly. I got everything we asked for with no argument.

I have found that if you bring in a whole room of people with you, they (SD) tend to be on the defensive. So, I try to be cautious of this unless we are not getting appropriate services. Unfortuntely, I don't think any child with autism gets approriate services in our district. I let them implement their initial IEP (which I contributed to) talked with all of his therapists and then called a second meeting a couple of months into school after observing him and paying attention to his needs. You do have the right to call an IEP meeting at anytime. I still have a great relsionship with the distictThank you. I need to find an advocate. I will work on that. Any other tips would be great. I was so unprepared when he was diagnosed, I just don't want that to happen again.

Thank you all. I had my transition meeting with my EI coordinator today, we will have another one with the SD before his evals and IEP. It went well. I have a great relationship with her. I see her 2x per month. She was talking about my district and others in the area. There are some that she feels are better and easier to get services than others. She told me that of the 6 districts that she works with, mine is in her opinion the best. She said that usually with a PDD DX they will offer school 4 days a week, then ABA an additional 10 hours at home. Also, they will offer 4 hours ABA in the classroom 1 on 1 as well as 1 hour of speech, and then group OT. That is literally, exactly what he is getting now (other than school). I am planning on bumping his therapy up b4 school, but all in all that sounds pretty good. I plan on taking the EI coor, therap (floortime), and my husband initially. Then if I don't feel like the eval went wekk, or if things change, I won't sign anything until we reconvene with an advocate.

How does that plan sound???