IEP-time again.

Today was Jaysen's IEP (whew- glad that's over!).
It seemed to last forever, but it was such a productive meeting. I am extremely satisfied, and once again, am in awe of what a good school district can offer.

Here's a synopsis:
Speech: Work on the 5 "W" questions, increase mean sentence length, focus on comprehension, and build on conversational skills.

OT: (consult) Incorporate a sensory diet into his day (thank you!), and try "brush therapy". I've tried brush therapy in the past- he hated it- but the OT said you have to push past the initial screaming (out of my comfort zone again), and be consistent with it for a month. He has to be "brushed" for five minutes every two hours of his waking day. Crap- that's a lot. She says that if the child is responsive to brush therapy, it will realign his sensory system, and it won't ever have to be done again. I suppose it's worth a try!

Social Work: Continue working on social relationships with peers, conversational turn-taking, and feigning- I mean keeping interest in the conversation.

Resource Room: Begin reading program (I can't recall the name of it right now) to accelerate his reading curriculum. Continue to build math skills with touch math, and move into two column adding with carry-overs.

I think that's touching on all of the "special" points. I was a little hard on his regular ed. teacher, and I wasn't doing it on purpose- it's just that the issues I brought up, were from last year that never got addressed, and I wanted to make sure they were addressed this time.

For instance, I explained that Jaysen is afraid of making mistakes. He had learned to write on regular lined paper, so when he was introduced to the 3-lined paper, he became very confused and his writing got really sloppy. This kid has no clue why that middle line is there, and is writing letters on top of it, below it, anywhere, as long as his letters don't go outside of the lines.

She will give him regularly lined paper.

Keeping with the same fear of mistakes, I explained that to Jaysen, one mistake is just as bad as 100 mistakes. I understand that she is trying to help my son, but I can't show him a paper that is full of red pen. I also can't show him a paper that is full of red pen, with a star at the top that says "Great!", because in his head, how can it be "Great" if it's full of red pen?

She is to correct the assignment. If the assignment is a spelling test, she will only correct his spelling, not the formation of his letters. If the assignment is letter formation, she will correct the formation of the letters, not if they're too big or too small. Etc.

And so on. I don't feel poorly about his regular ed. teacher, I just think that Jaysen is the first "special needs" kid she's ever had (she had me explain to her (at Wednesday's conference) what an IEP meeting was). I do give her props for asking me, and for giving her input at the meeting.

It was a really good meeting, he has a great IEP, and I think this Team is the greatest. Jaysen has made such gains, that the new staff to the Team were in disbelief that he was ever "like that". I also have to clock out now, so I'll catch you all later!