The review meeting

On Friday, I had the final meeting with KayTar's evaluation committee. When I arrived, the SLP said, "Oh, this is going to be a totally different experience for us! You already know everything we are about to tell you, but most parents don't have a clue." I suspect the meeting can be quite an upsetting affair for those parents, the ones who are referred to the special education program but feel it is a mere formality stemming from undue concerns, and are sure their children will be turned away. I'm not one of those parents, because my biggest concern has been KayTar NOT getting services we already know she needs. As wonderfully as this experience has gone (minus the timing snafus) I have been a little nervous that KayTar just won't be getting what she needs, and because of the insurance situation, school therapies are currently her only option. Thankfully, my concerns seem to be unfounded.

The team is recommending the 4 day per week/3 hour per day community-based (inclusion) preschool class. She will be with a group of 6 typically developing children and 5 other not-so-typically developing children. She will have a normal preschool teacher and a special education teacher. She will receive OT in the classroom. Her special education teacher will have speech goals to work on with her through the year. They are recommending two adaptive technologies for her, a wagon/stroller for when the class has to walk places, because KayTar fatigues easily and cannot keep up, and a picture system to help ease transitions. These are only the recommendations, they still have to be approved by the ARD committee, but I feel pleased with the recommendations. We will have her ARD in a month, and she will start school in the fall. I'm a little diappointed that she will be without services all this time, but I think the summer will give her some good time for growth and hopefully it will ease her transition, as everyone has concerns about her ability to transition easily. The psychologist said it will likely be difficult for her, but in the long run it will be a very good thing. I think so, too. We might start going to church to help her get used to being with non-familial caregivers and groups of peers in the meantime.

The evaluation team also gave me a LARGE packet of testing results, which I will sift through and post highlights from later in the week for your perusal (and my record keeping), so stay tuned if you are into that sort of thing. Sneak peek, she did test WELL within the autism range on one tests (GARS-2), and she did NOT test in the autism range on another test (ADOS). They are not diagnosing autism at this time, because well think that her autistic quirks are caused by the larger neurological picture, rather than a specific ASD, but it is something that will continue to be evaluated as she grows, and her tendencies are well documented. All in all, it was an excellent meeting.

(excuse the rashy arms, we just can't seem to shake it! it has started to spread to her cheeks, too. bummer.)