Friday, April 09, 2004
Ian's IFSP meeting was yesterday afternoon. Individualized Family Service Plan. This is an Early Childhood Intervention tool similar to an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) for school aged kids. What happens is all of the people who work with a child get together once a year, go over the goals and objectives established the year before, assess progress toward meeting them, add new ones if necessary, and plan for the coming year.
In Ian's case we were just planning for the summer because he will be starting kindergarten in the fall. So we had 9 people in this room. The Physical Therapist stayed just long enough to say that he has some issues but nothing that would require physical therapy, and that the issues could and should be addressed in this other settings. So actually it was 8. The Service Coordinator, the 2 DT teachers, the Speech Therapist, the Occupational Therapist, the Inclusion consultant and me and John. It was a good feeling but at the same time it was kind of yucky. I looked around at all of these people who are impacting my son's life. There are state agencies, funds, employees... There is a system that is involved in the process of helping my son. I should be extatic. Why am I not extatic?
I guess it's because these people represent my inability to help him. There is probably still some little part of me that feels guilty that he needs this kind of help. What did I do when I was pregnant to cause this? Did the immunizations cause it? Is this some kind of cosmic karma I am burning off? Watching helplessly as my son struggles to make sense of things his brain is not physically structured to understand?
They all mean well. They all seem to see what a smart little guy he is. Candice the ST knows what a great sense of humor he has. They know he has a good heart and tries hard to understand and do things the way he is supposed to. But I had to sit there for 2 hours and listen to all of them talk about the "concerns" and "challenges" in his life. And they informed me in no uncertain terms that the PET meeting (the transition meeting with the school district) will be worse. They will be spending all of that time going over these issues, to portray him as disabled as they can so that he can get as many services as he can "in case he needs them" because if you don't get them up front it is almost impossible to get them written in later. Gods, how can I listen to that? He is NOT DISABLED!!!!! He is incredible.
And once again they are discussing putting him in a special purpose program. Segregating him from the general population. They want him to go to a kindergarten in a different town that is a "supported program". It's an ABA program. Behavior modification. A Pavlovian puppy farm. Martie told me that when I heard that she saw my face actually turn red. I'm not at all surprised. I was livid. The whole team was sitting around talking about this like it was just the greatest thing in the whole world and would be the perfect place for Ian. *sigh* CR*P John even thinks it might be a good thing. I don't think he has any idea what ABA means. All he is looking at is the 20:1 ratio in the "regular" kindergarten. He has some strange idea that there will be gifted as well as special needs kids put together in this thing and that Ian may actually get more educational opportunity here. GAD. Every nerve in my body is screaming "RUN AWAY....FAST!!!!!" But John's wishes must be considered, as well. He is the father, after all. So I'm going to go look at it. yuck.
Nice Lady suggested we try and get someone from the school district to come out and see Ian in his preschool, kind of an unofficial assessment of him to see how he actually "performs" in a classroom setting. I like the idea but I would be shocked if anyone actually went for it.
Get a ribbon, wear it.
Remember, you know somebody with Autism.
Peace.
posted by Unknown
at 11:39 AM ::
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