Transition Meeting

[AnalogWife]

I'm a little annoyed with the results of DS's transitional meeting on Friday. Everyone agreed that he is ready to start preschool asap (he'll be 3 in May, has major speech delay) but since the openings evidently aren't available they all agreed to double his in-home special instruction to 2 hours per week. THEY all decided this in front of me without considering that maybe it's a bit of a dent in OUR schedule. All I could think was "ah, shit...more cleaning." Of course, I'm too much of a wimp to speak up--even if I did what would I say "I don't want to wake up early twice a week!"? I just think at this point the weekly visits aren't doing much, the boy needs SPEECH therapy which he's not getting. I just feel frustrated---I was sooooo looking forward to ending the home visits.

Just ranting, sorry.

[kme]

I don't get it - he has a speech delay but is not getting speech therapy? What are they doing at the weekly sessions? Does he have an IEP? There should be something on there to address his speech delay. I would absolutley make sure he will begin preschool in the fall if they can't provide it now.

Do you have a special education advocate available? We have one here - they can go over your son's testing and help advocate to get him the services he is ENTITLED to. It certainly sounds like he should be receiving ST at a minimum.

Have you considered private testing/therapy? I supplement what the school gives with private therapy because the school only provides the bare minimum. I spent far too long listening to the school district telling me my son was "doing great" when he really wasn't.

[2boyzmama]

What state are you in? Here in Ohio, if a child is 3 standard deviations behind in one area, or at least 2 standard deviations behind in 2 areas, then they qualify for integrated preschool, and there HAS to be room for them. Our district has actually opened new preschool rooms halfway through a school year if necessary.

There might be some sort of caveat that if they can't accomodate, then they can offer in-home care as an alternative.

There also is part of the law that states that if the child's home district can't provide the right services, then they have to transport the child to a district that does. That's what they're doing with my son, our local district can't handle him, so they're sending him out of district (to a better school anyway, I'm really happy about the way it worked out!)

SO...ask your Early Intervention case worker what exactly the law says.

Also, don't be afraid to speak up and say that a certain time of the day is difficult for your family. They are there to accomodate YOU, not the other way around. If mornings are difficult, then request a different time! You don't even have to give a reason, but if it helps, then make something up about how his behavior is more receptive after he's had breakfast and time to transition to his day better.

Can you get him into private speech therapy? Call around, I found one therapy place that gives scholarships to certain children, so once we reached the max allowed visits through our insurance, the scholarship kicked in and paid for his visits. Worth asking for at least!