School

We had another meeting with the IEP team.  The IEP programming piece is looking really good, they have given us almost everything we requested.  Our advocate was pleased with how it’s shaping up. 

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What a relief.  This has all been very stressful and time consuming but the last of the evaluations are DONE!  Yay!

We don’t have the official results but based on what the evaluator told Duhdee I think Beverly is a real possibility for us.  She agreed  with the speech evaluator that it is essential that he be in a total communication environment.  She recommends adding a picture exchange system to his signs (which we are experimenting with) so that down the road he can transition to a device that uses pictures to form sentances and speak for him.  She said he’s not ready yet for a device like that but did suggest some software that will get us moving along that path.  Our next meeting is April 9th and we’ll discuss what sort of services Monkey will need/receive.

Since you all may be wondering, The Beverly School for the Deaf is a private school in Beverly, MA.  Despite what the name implies, it is not a school solely for kids who are deaf or hard of hearing.  They have a fantastic integrated program that serves kids with all sorts of communication problems.  They have typically developing peer models that are in the classes (these kids have no special needs.) They have kids with hearing issues but no developemental delays.  They have kids with a wide range of developmental delays.  The common theme is that these kids all need a variety of methods of communicating.

They use “signing exact english” in all parts of the school so everyone learns  and understands sign language.  They also use spoken english in all parts of the school.  They also use any other methods of communication that the kids are successful with (picture exchange system (PECS) for example.)  Research has shown that the more methods of communicating that you give a child the more likely they are to learn language/speech.  It’s really fascinating really.  I know some people believe it holds kids back and keeps them from learning to talk but experience and extensive research has shown just the opposite is true.

So that’s where we are at for now.  We’re going with his current strength (ASL) and working toward finding another way for him to communicate (speaking, hopefully, or some sort of technology.)  I suspect that at some point he’ll go to a mainstream classroom in Cambridge, that is what we want for him, but we need to make sure he has the tools to communicate, learn and make friends first !

Hey all, I figured I should update on where we stand, it’s been a while since I’ve commented on the situation.

First, no decisions have been made.  Duhdee and I have toured an integrated classroom at the Beverly School for the Deaf and a substantially separate classroom and an integrated classroom in the Cambridge Public Schools.  Our first choice is the Beverly classroom, second choice is the integrated classroom at Cambridge.  There is no third choice for us.

All but one of the evaluations that are being done by Cambridge are done.  We have one more on Monday for assistive technology.  The results so far are exactly what we expected since they relied heavily on our reports and on the EI reports.  Monkey just isn’t a kid that a stranger can walk in and try to test so they did few actual “tests.”   He has been determined eligible for special education, which was really a given but they have to work through their “process.”

At the next meeting we will start working on a draft IEP.  We know he’s going to need PT, OT, ST and special education (they will have to modify the way information is presented for him to learn it.)  We’ve been working with an advocate and she has been awesome.  She has walked us through an IEP so we had our own draft/outline which we presented to the team at the last meeting.  They seemed to agree with our suggestions at first glance so we’re hoping they will use our outline to prepare their draft.

After we get the “program” we want for him written THEN we’ll talk about placement.  The CPS ST and the team leader are going to visit the Beverly program next week to see what they have to offer.  We are cautiously optimistic that they (at least the ST) will be willing to send him to that school.  If not, then we will have to discuss the need for an aid and which classroom in Cambridge he’ll attend.

We’re getting jerked around by Cambridge Public Schools. They’ve only set up 2 of the 6 evaluations we need to have done by mid-March, NONE are completed. They’re not returning my calls. I’m unimpressed with their process. I’m unimpressed by the fact that we’ve had to hire an advocate (which is NOT cheap) because it was pretty clear they were not going to play nice.

Everyone says we need to try to get along but they’re not trying to get along with us. They told us how they’re going to proceed and it doesn’t seem to matter that their process is illegal and it doesn’t seem to matter what we think. Bah. They suck.

Hey folks, we’ve had a really busy stretch here so I haven’t been able to really think about what to post. I guess a roundup post is in order!

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