Post by Emilysmom on May 22, 2004 22:50:42 GMT -5
I thought I'd post up and tell you the REST of the story about Emily's IEP meeting from last week. Hopefully, we addressed the OT issues and things will be better next year. I will definitely be doing a better job of monitoring OT progress! (and Em's aide will be keeping a log of when Em received OT and when she does not)
The Speech therapist was unable to be with us during the IEP meeting, and did not send her progress notes to the meeting. However, she had told the resource teacher she had some new "really exciting" things to work on with Emily next year. The next day, I received a report from the ST, and I nearly flipped!! The report began by explaining to me that a characteristic of Down's syndrome is a larger tongue and smaller mouth than normal........ya think????? (I'm guessing that I learned this info about Ds before this therapist was out of junior high!) She went on to say that these features will not change as a result of therapy and therefore she was discontinuing all the articulation goals. Her plan (the exciting stuff?) was to focus next year on getting Emily to slow down and speak louder, answering "why" questions, etc. Her reasoning was that Emily did not like articulation work, and tended to just close her eyes and not focus on the therapist's face....making it impossible to address these goals. I called the school and requested a meeting with the ST. I considered requesting an independent eval, but decided to take her to the Ds clinic and have the ST there send a report to the school. I told her I was not happy at all that I had not been contacted about Emily's habit of closing her eyes.......a behavior plan with rewards for NOT doing that would have been developed and it would not have gone on and on!! Once again, I'm kicking myself for letting the whole school year go by ASSUMING all was going well. That will not happen next year!!
Anyway, we revised the goals a bit and I stressed that articulation was going to be a very very important part of Emily's IEP for many years to come.
I think I'm on a roll.....I've upset 2 therapists in less than a week. This parenting stuff is not easy.
Otherwise, I'm still feeling positive about next year's program!!
Susan
The Speech therapist was unable to be with us during the IEP meeting, and did not send her progress notes to the meeting. However, she had told the resource teacher she had some new "really exciting" things to work on with Emily next year. The next day, I received a report from the ST, and I nearly flipped!! The report began by explaining to me that a characteristic of Down's syndrome is a larger tongue and smaller mouth than normal........ya think????? (I'm guessing that I learned this info about Ds before this therapist was out of junior high!) She went on to say that these features will not change as a result of therapy and therefore she was discontinuing all the articulation goals. Her plan (the exciting stuff?) was to focus next year on getting Emily to slow down and speak louder, answering "why" questions, etc. Her reasoning was that Emily did not like articulation work, and tended to just close her eyes and not focus on the therapist's face....making it impossible to address these goals. I called the school and requested a meeting with the ST. I considered requesting an independent eval, but decided to take her to the Ds clinic and have the ST there send a report to the school. I told her I was not happy at all that I had not been contacted about Emily's habit of closing her eyes.......a behavior plan with rewards for NOT doing that would have been developed and it would not have gone on and on!! Once again, I'm kicking myself for letting the whole school year go by ASSUMING all was going well. That will not happen next year!!
Anyway, we revised the goals a bit and I stressed that articulation was going to be a very very important part of Emily's IEP for many years to come.
I think I'm on a roll.....I've upset 2 therapists in less than a week. This parenting stuff is not easy.
Otherwise, I'm still feeling positive about next year's program!!
Susan
&
Susan, Proud mom of Michael (32), Justin (25) Emily (22ds), and Jordan (20).
That is one of the silliest remarks I think I have ever heard 