sa23

Yes, we are. After writing my reply to Carolyn I looked up the specifics. I don't know if they do any standardized testing in the PreK program. But the state requires indirect services from K - 2nd grade, 3 hrs direct services 3-5th. Middle school and above do not have direct or indirect services. We actually love Ross Greene at our house! I'm in a book club for The Explosive Child, led by one of the Lives in the Balance advocators. It's been a tremendous help. I don't know if they specifically looked at pragmatics/social skills. He might be at a further disadvantage because he is able to memorize and repeat massive situational scripts (gestalt language processing, to some extent, I think) and so he sounds like he is much more mature than he really is. In other words, I'm not sure that they even picked up on it during the evaluations. We had a private speech/lang eval done last year, and they determined that he did not need services. He didn't display some of the speech issues that he does at home when thinking/stressed/excited. He was so focused on doing exactly what she wanted him to do that he outperformed for his age (according to the SLP). Here's a list of all the assessments they conducted: PLS-5, Oral Peripheral Exam (OPE), SLI checklist, Vision/Hearing screener, BDI-3, DAYC-2, BASC-3, VINELAND-3, Natural environment observation, family interview, ECEC checklist, Prong I, Prong II, OT eval for Motor, GARS-3, ADOS-2.

Thank you for taking the time to go through and answer everything! I'll try to add some clarity by answering your questions in these areas. Also, a little more background: he is going to a special PreK program (our state has several, for kids ages 5 and under) one day a week, and is going to turn 6 this summer. I have been doing K with him at home (I already homeschool our second, older child who is autistic). We entered the school year a couple of months ago, after requesting testing in October of last year; it was completed and the IEP finished in March. We and the school do not have any IQ concerns, although he came back mild delay in the cognitive domain on the BAT. After interacting with him during testing and based on our reports of him at home, the team thought it was more likely that he under performed. We did not request an IEE. I didn't know it was an option at the time of testing. At this point, we're just going to proceed with the private route. I did not know we could request another meeting afterwards; that is good to know! Sensory: the school OT spent about 45 minutes with him; his qualification report just reports the test type as "motor". She noted his issues with scissor and pencil grip to me, verbally, but didn't in the report. She also noted to me, verbally, that he needed repeated breaks and would hide in the ball pit for a bit, then come back and continue to work with her. I had warned her at drop off that he needed to warm up and might hide or refuse to talk. The report says, "[Child] appears to be age appropriate for fine motor development and visual motor skills. He will not qualify for school-based OT services at this time." The teachers keep telling me that they have no problems with him in school, that he does great. He wore his headphones once in class, starting at drop off, then took them off and left them off about halfway through the day. He is not in K, he is in a PreK based program. We're concerned that they might want to just shuffle him up to K rather than 1st grade. The IEP team told me they don't do gifted screening before 2nd grade, and don't have any gifted programs before then. They offer pullout programs for gifted kids in 2nd or 3rd grade and up. We can request IQ testing, but it is discouraged before 1st or 2nd grade, can't recall which. The IEP team did say that if he is gifted, the gifted program teacher will go to his classroom every couple of weeks and give his teacher differentiated instruction for him and maybe work with him one on one a little bit. He is verbally precocious, does 1st grade math (at home), and 2nd - 3rd grade science (at home). The work they've been having him do at preschool (coloring, cut and paste, letter/number tracing, name writing practice, find the difference in a row of 3 things, etc) he's been doing for several years both at home and in a private preschool program 2 years ago, and he is thoroughly bored.

Hello, I'm working on our parent concerns letter for our meeting next week. This is our first year dealing with an IEP and I'm pretty lost! I do have the IEP Toolkit, but I'm not sure how to word a lot of things. Our son's teacher emailed me a list of questions to complete prior to the meeting. It is pretty thorough, but long. The last question is about our parental concerns. Do I answer all of the questions and submit that in the form of a parental concerns letter, or just answer the last with a "please reference the attached parental concerns letter?" More specific questions directly related to our concerns: We have an autism and IQ evaluation scheduled for him in June, which is separate from the evaluation the school did for him. They did not find him to be autistic, just social/emotional delayed and they didn't do IQ testing since I didn't request it at the time. Do we need to mention this at all? He is an excellent masker at school. He does exactly what he is told and doesn't push back. He also doesn't speak up if he is anxious, uncertain, in sensory overwhelm, or if having a social conflict. He has a meltdown after school instead. So far, I've put in the letter that he needs help with self-advocacy and knowing how and when to speak up. How else can I address this in the letter? His primary complaints about school are: doesn't like the gen ed teacher in the class, the work is boring, he wants more playground time, and he is constantly afraid of breaking a rule he doesn't know about. We are concerned that they will want to place him in K, even though we know he is ready for 1st grade. We think he *might* be gifted, since he enjoys 2nd & 3rd grade science projects, and is doing 1st grade math at home. (He is only going one day a week to this program; I am working with him at home otherwise.) We know he will be bored out of his mind in Kindergarten. My thoughts are to: not mention the gen ed teacher, since I don't know why he doesn't like her (he refuses to talk about it, although, based on one interaction, I think she is strict and embarrasses him), state that we want him placed in 1st grade and have examples from his work at home to show readiness, request he do testing to show 1st grade readiness (can we ask for that?), bring work samples from home, state that he has anxiety and that if he is not misbehaving or giving pushback, that is a sign of how anxious he is? Any other suggestions for this? We've stated multiple times that if he is being silly, or precocious, he is actually upset and angry and dysregulated. They seem surprised every time, commenting on what a joy he is to have. I sent an email to the special ed teacher in his class with concerns one day after he got out of class and immediately started running away from me, and she gave back a reply along the lines of, "Thank you for your input, we were honestly surprised by his behavior at pickup, he isn't showing any issues in class, uses words appropriately, enjoyed being here, etc." Should I address this in the letter? Do we need a diagnosis of anxiety or autism before we can do anything about it?