IEP

Nate's annual IEP meeting was yesterday at school. This is a very important meeting to determine Nate's placement for the next year. My hopes were that Nate would get some "typical peer" exposure. My expectations were that the school was going to propose Nate stay in his current placement.

Nate's area of need now is social development, but how is he going to get that if he's the highest functioning in his class and only around children who don't speak or speak atypically? In addition, I've seen Nate start to bring home some negative behaviors. I know he isn't perfect, but I do think if he's going to pick things up from his peers, they would hopefully be "normal kid" things.

After reading over Nate's recent assessments and the proposed goals for him in this next year as a group, the district representative made their offer of placement. I was beyond thrilled; it was exactly what I would have asked for if I had been able to create a "perfect plan" for Nate! Starting in May, Nate will do his normal day at school (first half in non-severe Special Day Class, second half in IBI), but he will leave IBI for one hour to go into the regular preschool, Preschool Connections. An IBI staffer will go with Nate (and possibly one or two other children), but that staffer will help with all the kids in the class and won't be velcroed to Nate. So that person won't be his aide; however, he/she will know Nate's goals and areas of need. After a month or two with this setup, we will probably increase the time Nate is in the regular preschool. Then, by late September/October, he will be in the regular preschool full-time, with probably an hour a day in IBI to work specifically on Nate's goals and kind of as a daily check-in. I'm super excited!

The goals for the next year include maintaining appropriate physical proximity when engaged in conversation or play (i.e., respect personal space); greeting others once and waiting for a response (not repeating the greeting over and over); maintaining a reciprocal conversation (asking questions and waiting for answers); accepting not getting his own way or not getting to be first for an activity; sustaining attention to complete a 10-minute, non-preferred task; skipping; raising his hand and waiting to be called on; cutting better with scissors; and drawing more simple shapes.

Nate will go for the extended school year (school through July) and will have August off, like last year. I signed him up to take the bus in the mornings starting at the end of June!

All in all, it was a wonderful meeting, and I left smiling!