Well, it’s that time again – IEP (Individualized Education Program) time, that is. Joe and I headed to the school this morning to discuss Nate’s new IEP for the next year. ***For anyone new to the blog, Nathaniel was diagnosed on the Autism spectrum around the age of 3 and has been within the school system since he turned 3. When Nate started, he didn’t speak a word. Now, a mere 2.5 years later, he talks up a storm.***
Things went quite smoothly this time with no real surprises. Almost all of his goals revolve around speech. At our evaluation meeting last week, we discussed the results of his recent testing. They tested to see what kind of information he could process and how well he could answer the questions they asked. The findings were what we expected. His comprehension and ability to answer is quite low when he doesn’t have a visual. Both increases greatly when he has something concrete to look at (a photo, an object, etc). As you can imagine, as he progresses into the higher grades, this is going to impact him more and more. The older the child, the more dependence is put on giving verbal cues only. He’ll struggle. It’s really tough to swallow sometimes, but it is what it is. One of the things I asked today was how long will they continue to provide visuals for him…their answer: as long as he needs it. That made me feel much better.
So some of his speech goals for the year are:
- After listening to a sentence and given 2 verbal options, he will answer the following “wh” questions relating to pictures, events or situations with 60% accuracy.
- Given a one level command, he will increase his receptive language skills of the following concepts by pointing to pictures or objects with 50% accuracy. A. direction/position (top, bottom, into, beside, between) B. self/social awareness (boy, old, woman) C. time/sequence (finished, old, starting, beginning)
- Given visual support/information, he will be able to compare and contrast quantities in 1 out of 4 trials. (This increases to 2, 3 & 4 trials throughout the year.)
- Given a verbal and visual model, he will increase his expressive communication skills by using the grammatical structures to describe events, pictures or objects with 50% accuracy.
So that’s it in a nutshell. He will have a couple of occupational therapy goals in there as well but the OT was out today due to a family emergency.
We’re actually looking into adding some more therapy (outside of the school) but we’re waiting to hear from the insurance company about what/if they’ll help cover the cost.
Overall, Nathaniel is doing fabulous. He’s reading at no less than a first grade level. He loves to read and does it every single day. He also loves to draw and write, something he also does nightly. He’s just the sweetest danged kid you’ll ever meet. Just look at him…tell me he isn’t sweet! I dare ya!!
