Re: Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

[Guest guest]

I had a similar problem with my son's placement a couple of years ago. They put

him in a " language-based " preschool, with once a quarter speech. They being the

ones at the central office, not the school. As soon as we got to the school,

the pre-k teacher and SLP immediately set-up a update IEP meeting to put him in

individual speech 2x per week. If yours is coming from central services and not

the school itself, try talking with his SLP and teacher, as here in NC that is

the IEP team, and we can change the IEP anytime during the 12-months. We (the

IEP team) actually reviews my son's every couple of months to tweak items, add

more tasks, etc., just depending on how quickly he's picking up new items. The

only thing the annual IEP ensures is they can't yank services away for the

12-months, but goals can be updated and added at any point during the 12-months.

Good luck!

From: cathykarcher@...

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:10:02 +0000

Subject: [ ] Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " . Not

only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for the

past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with the

CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as

well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today at

1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and had

to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any longer

that day.

A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced they

got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly shy

and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of time

trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we got

stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for the

whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO individual

therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked - nicely -

and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI -- she

recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided documentation

from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20 minutes-ish

working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place their

mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story that

uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids move

to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that, each

child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8 kids

in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that are

far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting, they

were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s " sound

in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick up

language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll start

speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that that might

work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that help my child

with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They just keep

changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how great peer

interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older sisters, btw, and

is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an issue.)

So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

Any advice on how to proceed with them?

Thanks!

_________________________________________________________________

The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail.

http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multiaccount & ocid=PID28326::\

T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_4

[Guest guest]

I would do everything to learn your child's legal rights. Sounds as if his

rights are NOT being enforced. I would request another meeting NOW. Let

them know you plan to call a Due Process Hearing. Then make the written

request. Has the school done an eval? Why do they feel the know more than the

dev ped?

Suggest you study IDEA 2004 & get a copy of " From Emotions To Advocacy " by

the founders of slaw Website.

[Guest guest]

Do not give up on your concerns. I have a daughter, 4, that is in her second

year in same preschool class. The therapy that she receives is essential to her

catching up to her peers, and without the individual attention, she would be

much farther behind. Stick to your guns... it is my understanding with the " No

child left behind " Act that it falls on the school system to provide what they

need from the third birthday on. It also makes me feel better knowing that her

therapist is able to see her in a school setting, is able to watch the way she

communicates in normal situations, and can adjust accordingly. The way that the

school system is set up in our district she will have the same therapist for the

next 5 years... a wonderful way to keep building on her goals. She may even be

able to go to a regular class two days a week next fall!

Your momma bear alarms are going off... Keep fighting for your child. I have

learned to be her voice, and her teachers know that I may be strong willed where

she is concerned. But I know her better than anyone, and I am her best

advocate.

Good luck!

[ ] Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " . Not

only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for the

past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with the

CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as

well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced they

got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly shy

and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of time

trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we got

stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for the

whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked -

nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI --

she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20 minutes-ish

working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place their

mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story that

uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids move

to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that, each

child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8 kids

in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that are

far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting, they

were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s " sound

in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick up

language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll start

speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that that might

work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that help my child

with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They just keep

changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how great peer

interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older sisters, btw, and

is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an issue.)

So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

Any advice on how to proceed with them?

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

I hear your urgency in getting what your child needs lined up during this

meeting. However, the great thing about iep's is that they can be tweaked and

modified as needed. What would be the harm in " trying it their way " for a month

or two. The big benefit in that is then THEIR slp's will have been working with

him for awhile and he will get comfortable with them as opposed to 1 hour eval

with a stranger. I would plan to try and get their ear as much as possible and

ask for things you can do at home, and ask them their opinion on his diagnoses

and best treatment. You can also express your opinions to them. I have found

that my daughters therapists are my best allies when setting up her goals and

overall iep.

It may sound crass, but if he has apraxia, he will still have it in the fall and

beyond. If it is a speech delay it most likely will " work itself out " without a

ton of intervention.

Stay passionate about his treatment, but keep in mind the big picture of his

treatments for the next 6-12 years as well.

Barbara

[ ] Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " . Not

only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for the

past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with the

CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as

well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked -

nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI --

she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20 minutes-ish

working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place their

mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story that

uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids move

to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that, each

child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8 kids

in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that are

far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting, they

were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s " sound

in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick up

language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll start

speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that that might

work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that help my child

with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They just keep

changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how great peer

interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older sisters, btw, and

is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an issue.)

So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

Any advice on how to proceed with them?

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

CPSE is literally trying to drive me crazy. A developmental ped diagnosed my son

with Apraxia back in December. I accepted it. Atleast it offered an explanation.

Then in February the evals for CPSE started. They started with a Psych and a

speech eval and they recommended a PT and OT eval. The speech therapist said my

son would need speech for a long time. The Psych said no PDD or Autism. The OT

said he was fine. The PT said he needed PT. Needless to say I was sad for my son

because they made it seem like he had serious speech and coordination problems.

I went to the CPSE meeting last week and was told that my son won't need any

intervention, and that he would be fine eventually. She denied that he has

Apraxia and said that based on the evals all he had was a delay. She threw me a

bone and extended EI through Septemberand asked me to come and see her again in

June because she MIGHT give me speech 2 days a week and PT 1 day a week. She

will make a final decision then based on progress reports from his speech and

special instruction therapists. I left feeling confused. How could he be in such

bad shape one day and then next he is perfectly fine?

Needless to say, I know how you feel. Anyone have any words of advice for the

follow up meeting?

________________________________

[Guest guest]

Very similar scenario with my daughter. Have been looking fir answers

since she was 9 mos old. Was told just developmentally delayed.

Finally diagnosed with apraxia in December age 3. School system

doesn't want to offer her what she needs. Insurance co denied her

speech therapy - states shell outgrow it b/c it's developmental. Very

frustrated every day with having to fight for every little thing that

should be offered to her. Thank God for all of us moms!!! Otherwise I

really would hate to see where r children would end up. Thinking about

the NV to supplement fish oils and our present therapies. Haven't

decided yet.

Sent fromnued my iPhone

[Guest guest]

I really left feeling confused and at a loss. I felt that maybe on some level

she was right, but what if she is wrong and my son is put in school and can't

express himself and can't participate. What then? Thanks , I will look into the

it.

________________________________

From: " Sandimarcus@... " <Sandimarcus@...>

Sent: Wed, April 14, 2010 1:30:18 PM

Subject: Re: [ ] Re: help! Need IEP help for today

(Wednesday)

I would do everything to learn your child's legal rights. Sounds as if his

rights are NOT being enforced. I would request another meeting NOW. Let

them know you plan to call a Due Process Hearing. Then make the written

request. Has the school done an eval? Why do they feel the know more than the

dev ped?

Suggest you study IDEA 2004 & get a copy of " From Emotions To Advocacy " by

the founders of slaw Website.

[Guest guest]

I am very new to this. My son will turn three in a week and a half and will

start PPCD (Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities) at that time with

the school district. We have his ARD the Friday before and I am so nervous. I

don't know what will take place. I am praying for you though!

>

> Very similar scenario with my daughter. Have been looking fir answers

> since she was 9 mos old. Was told just developmentally delayed.

> Finally diagnosed with apraxia in December age 3. School system

> doesn't want to offer her what she needs. Insurance co denied her

> speech therapy - states shell outgrow it b/c it's developmental. Very

> frustrated every day with having to fight for every little thing that

> should be offered to her. Thank God for all of us moms!!! Otherwise I

> really would hate to see where r children would end up. Thinking about

> the NV to supplement fish oils and our present therapies. Haven't

> decided yet.

> Sent fromnued my iPhone

>

[Guest guest]

How did it go?

We just had my daughter's today. Feels like a relief. She is going into 4th

grade. We kept everything the same but added reduced homework. We already had

modified.

Now to make sure she gets the right teacher...that is a whole other ball of wax.

[ ] Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " . Not

only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for the

past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with the

CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as

well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked -

nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI --

she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20 minutes-ish

working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place their

mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story that

uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids move

to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that, each

child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8 kids

in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that are

far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting, they

were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s " sound

in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick up

language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll start

speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that that might

work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that help my child

with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They just keep

changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how great peer

interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older sisters, btw, and

is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an issue.)

So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

Any advice on how to proceed with them?

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Well ... it still didn't go well. They refuse to budge. Their stance is

basically " These are the classes we offer, this is what we're offering you, and

it doesn't really matter what you say to us about apraxia -- we're not going to

change our program. " My husband's response was, " well then why did they even

have us at a meeting to discuss this -- they could have just mailed the document

to us and told us where to sign if they weren't going to take anything we said

into account! " (He didn't say that in the meeting, he thought of it afterward.

;o))

Though I did say to them, " Well it doesn't really sound like you offer an

individualized education plan at all, and you just fit the kids into your

existing programs as you see fit. " You should have seen them all jump up out of

their chairs at once to respond to that! In any case, they disagreed with me

and still refused to budge. (Although, how they can disagree with that still

befuddles me -- they flat out said to us that they " just don't offer individual

therapy to preschool kids " and just have their classes to put the kids in

instead.)

I don't know what I'm going to do next. Part of me wants to send a " confused "

email to the head of Sp Ed at the district, asking her why the psych was so

careful to explain to us when this process first started that we're part of the

IEP team, and as such, will help the team develop our son's plan, and then when

it came time for the meeting, all of our thoughts were dismissed and we were

told " we just don't do that " .

The thing that sucks about everything is that I feel like I'm in a no-win

situation -- if I complain too loudly and escalate this to a higher level, then

I risk my relationships with the teachers that I'm going to want on Jack's side.

So now I have to pretend to make nice with his teachers even though I feel like

I was just screwed by everyone!

>

> I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

>

> For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " .

Not only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for

the past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with

the CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis

as well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

>

> My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

>

> A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

>

> Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked

- nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI

-- she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

>

> What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20

minutes-ish working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place

their mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story

that uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids

move to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that,

each child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8

kids in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

>

> And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s "

sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

>

> ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick

up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll

start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that

that might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that

help my child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They

just keep changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how

great peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older

sisters, btw, and is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an

issue.)

>

> So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

>

> Any advice on how to proceed with them?

>

> Thanks!

>

[Guest guest]

So they were telling you that your child does not have " rights " under

Federal Law because it is a pre school program?

I think you need to hire an advocate. You are laying a foundation for what

you expect of the school system.

We were told not to push too hard in pre school by well meaning fellow

parents. We did push & obtain the

Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that the twins were entitled. Yes,

the laws apply to a pre school setting.

You may be the only voice your child ever has!

[Guest guest]

They are not allowed to do that. You should go to the superintendent of schools

or even the governor and share what your school told you. I read in the late

talker book to ask for the why in writing. I would not just give in and my

husband and I would not sign an iep we did not agree with. Kate

> >

> > I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

> >

> > For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " .

Not only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for

the past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with

the CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis

as well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

> >

> > My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting

today at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR

hours, and had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't

go any longer that day.

> >

> > A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

> >

> > Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked

- nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI

-- she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

> >

> > What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general

preschool class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the

class is to work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class

that meets for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20

minutes-ish working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place

their mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story

that uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids

move to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that,

each child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8

kids in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

> >

> > And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s "

sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

> >

> > ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick

up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll

start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that

that might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that

help my child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They

just keep changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how

great peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older

sisters, btw, and is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an

issue.)

> >

> > So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of

individual therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering

him -- while they might be good classes for working on general language skills,

and to a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any

sort of SPEECH help.

> >

> > Any advice on how to proceed with them?

> >

> > Thanks!

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Get an Advocate! Also, as someone else suggested, read on

www.wrightslaw.com for additional info about what they HAVE TO do by law.

Warmest wishes,

Barbara

Barbara A. , M.S., CCC-SLP

Executive Director/ Help Me Speak, LLC

<http://www.helpmespeak.com/> http://www.helpmespeak.com

(o) 410-442-9791 (f) 410-442-9783

2500 Wallington Way; Suite 103

Marriottsville, MD 21104

follow us on FaceBook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marriottsville-MD/Help-Me-Speak-LLC/1046288520

32

Call me with any questions about NutriiVeda! www.hms.myzrii.com

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of cathykarcher

Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 1:38 PM

Subject: [ ] Re: Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Well ... it still didn't go well. They refuse to budge. Their stance is

basically " These are the classes we offer, this is what we're offering you,

and it doesn't really matter what you say to us about apraxia -- we're not

going to change our program. " My husband's response was, " well then why did

they even have us at a meeting to discuss this -- they could have just

mailed the document to us and told us where to sign if they weren't going to

take anything we said into account! " (He didn't say that in the meeting, he

thought of it afterward. ;o))

Though I did say to them, " Well it doesn't really sound like you offer an

individualized education plan at all, and you just fit the kids into your

existing programs as you see fit. " You should have seen them all jump up out

of their chairs at once to respond to that! In any case, they disagreed with

me and still refused to budge. (Although, how they can disagree with that

still befuddles me -- they flat out said to us that they " just don't offer

individual therapy to preschool kids " and just have their classes to put the

kids in instead.)

I don't know what I'm going to do next. Part of me wants to send a

" confused " email to the head of Sp Ed at the district, asking her why the

psych was so careful to explain to us when this process first started that

we're part of the IEP team, and as such, will help the team develop our

son's plan, and then when it came time for the meeting, all of our thoughts

were dismissed and we were told " we just don't do that " .

The thing that sucks about everything is that I feel like I'm in a no-win

situation -- if I complain too loudly and escalate this to a higher level,

then I risk my relationships with the teachers that I'm going to want on

Jack's side. So now I have to pretend to make nice with his teachers even

though I feel like I was just screwed by everyone!

>

> I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

>

> For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more

definitive in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's

definitely apraxic " . Not only that, but he's also been seeing the director

of our speech center for the past two months while our SLP is on maternity

leave, and she concurs with the CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last

summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as well (she worked with my son for 8

months last year), and the SLP from the EI program came out to meet with my

son last summer and also said his speech issues are related to motor

planning problems.

>

> My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting

today at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR

hours, and had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we

couldn't go any longer that day.

>

> A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is

fairly shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair

amount of time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's

at. Then we got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that

they're goals for the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy,

then it gives the school district a way out of providing individual therapy.

>

> Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I

asked - nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP

through EI -- she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and

provided documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

>

> What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general

preschool class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the

class is to work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology

class that meets for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the

first 20 minutes-ish working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids

how to place their mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then

reading a story that uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the

week. Then the kids move to a table to color a word book to take home, and

while they're doing that, each child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work

on their goals. There are 8 kids in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing

up 35 minutes or so for their individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes

of individual time per class to work on goals.

>

> And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the

" s " sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

>

> ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids

pick up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you

he'll start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out

that that might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will

that help my child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an

answer. They just keep changing the subject and going back to their pat

answer about how great peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My

son has 2 older sisters, btw, and is around kids all the time; lack of peer

interaction isn't an issue.)

>

> So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of

individual therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're

offering him -- while they might be good classes for working on general

language skills, and to a small extent his speech in the phonology class --

don't offer him any sort of SPEECH help.

>

> Any advice on how to proceed with them?

>

> Thanks!

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks all for your advice and encouragement!

I didn't realize the Late Talker book recommends writing a follow up letter to

ask them to explain why in writing ... that's something I've been thinking about

doing all day today. Because I'd love to force them to put their thoughts in

writing so I can have that to use against them later. I'll have to go back and

reread that section.

And yes, they actually said that they don't do individual therapy with preschool

kids. The absurd thing is that in defending this practice, they were trying to

tell me (in a very patronizing way, btw) that age 3 and 4 is WAY too young for a

child to be able to handle individual therapy. HUH??! You mean my child who

has been in therapy since he was 14 MONTHS old for PT and OT, and then later

speech, is too young to be able to sit through an individual therapy session???

Trust me, he knows how to handle therapy!

This whole thing depresses me because I know Jack's speech is going to be a LONG

road, and I'm going to have to be fighting the district for years to come.

>

> I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

>

> For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " .

Not only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for

the past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with

the CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis

as well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

>

> My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

>

> A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

>

> Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked

- nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI

-- she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

>

> What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20

minutes-ish working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place

their mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story

that uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids

move to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that,

each child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8

kids in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

>

> And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s "

sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

>

> ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick

up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll

start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that

that might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that

help my child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They

just keep changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how

great peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older

sisters, btw, and is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an

issue.)

>

> So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

>

> Any advice on how to proceed with them?

>

> Thanks!

>

[Guest guest]

Do you have a copy of your state's " Special Eductation Bill of Rights " ? It may

be called something different there, but by law in Missouri they provide a copy

to every parent in the program. I thought that might be a help with your

arguments, as it has laid out all of the rights we have with our daughter, who

is in a special education preschool program. I have been tough with our

teachers, and they seem to not let it effect their relationship with our

daughter.

[ ] Re: Help! Need IEP help for today (Wednesday)

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Well ... it still didn't go well. They refuse to budge. Their stance is

basically " These are the classes we offer, this is what we're offering you, and

it doesn't really matter what you say to us about apraxia -- we're not going to

change our program. " My husband's response was, " well then why did they even

have us at a meeting to discuss this -- they could have just mailed the document

to us and told us where to sign if they weren't going to take anything we said

into account! " (He didn't say that in the meeting, he thought of it afterward.

;o))

Though I did say to them, " Well it doesn't really sound like you offer an

individualized education plan at all, and you just fit the kids into your

existing programs as you see fit. " You should have seen them all jump up out of

their chairs at once to respond to that! In any case, they disagreed with me and

still refused to budge. (Although, how they can disagree with that still

befuddles me -- they flat out said to us that they " just don't offer individual

therapy to preschool kids " and just have their classes to put the kids in

instead.)

I don't know what I'm going to do next. Part of me wants to send a " confused "

email to the head of Sp Ed at the district, asking her why the psych was so

careful to explain to us when this process first started that we're part of the

IEP team, and as such, will help the team develop our son's plan, and then when

it came time for the meeting, all of our thoughts were dismissed and we were

told " we just don't do that " .

The thing that sucks about everything is that I feel like I'm in a no-win

situation -- if I complain too loudly and escalate this to a higher level, then

I risk my relationships with the teachers that I'm going to want on Jack's side.

So now I have to pretend to make nice with his teachers even though I feel like

I was just screwed by everyone!

>

> I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

>

> For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " . Not

only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for the

past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with the

CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis as

well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

>

> My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting today

at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR hours, and

had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't go any

longer that day.

>

> A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

>

> Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked -

nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI --

she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

>

> What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general preschool

class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the class is to

work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class that meets

for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20 minutes-ish

working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place their

mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story that

uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids move

to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that, each

child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8 kids

in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

>

> And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s "

sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

>

> ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick

up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll

start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that that

might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that help my

child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They just

keep changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how great

peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older sisters, btw,

and is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an issue.)

>

> So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of individual

therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering him --

while they might be good classes for working on general language skills, and to

a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any sort of

SPEECH help.

>

> Any advice on how to proceed with them?

>

> Thanks!

>

[Guest guest]

Just a few seconds here ---

Your next step is to request an Independent Eval, and also a hearing/mediation

over the issues

While my son is not getting one on one, the SLP comes to his class once a week

and works with him in that setting, and she works with him through various

activities.

They will get more and more individual as they get into the school age programs.

Also, my son goes 1/2 days 4 days a week to a public preschool.

> >

> > I'm going to try to keep this brief if possible!

> >

> > For some background, my son was diagnosed by his current SLP as " suspected

apraxia " in January. He didn't have enough speech for her to be more definitive

in her official diagnosis, but in her words to me " he's definitely apraxic " .

Not only that, but he's also been seeing the director of our speech center for

the past two months while our SLP is on maternity leave, and she concurs with

the CAS diagnosis. AND, another SLP from last summer mentioned a CAS diagnosis

as well (she worked with my son for 8 months last year), and the SLP from the EI

program came out to meet with my son last summer and also said his speech issues

are related to motor planning problems.

> >

> > My son turns 3 today, and he's having a continuation of his IEP meeting

today at 1:00 PDT. The first meeting was 2 weeks ago, and we met for FOUR

hours, and had to schedule a continuation meeting for today because we couldn't

go any longer that day.

> >

> > A lot of that time was just going over his assessments (I wasn't convinced

they got an accurate assessment of his true abilities because my son is fairly

shy and takes a long time to warm up to people), so I spent a fair amount of

time trying to give them an accurate picture of where I think he's at. Then we

got stuck on his goals -- I felt they were too easy given that they're goals for

the whole year, not to mention, if the goals are easy, then it gives the school

district a way out of providing individual therapy.

> >

> > Which takes me to my main sticking point with them -- they offered NO

individual therapy for him. Zilch. And they won't offer it (even after I asked

- nicely - and despite the written recommendation of his current SLP through EI

-- she recommended 5 days of 45 minute individual sessions and provided

documentation from the apraxia-kids site for them as well.

> >

> > What they're offering is this: 2 hours, twice a week, of a general

preschool class with other " language " impaired kids (the main purpose of the

class is to work on language goals, not speech goals). Also, a phonology class

that meets for 1 hour, twice a week. During this class, they spend the first 20

minutes-ish working on the sound of the week -- teaching the kids how to place

their mouths/tongues/etc. and how to make the sound, and then reading a story

that uses a lot of words with that particular sound of the week. Then the kids

move to a table to color a word book to take home, and while they're doing that,

each child gets pull-out time with the SLP to work on their goals. There are 8

kids in the class, so you've got 8 kids dividing up 35 minutes or so for their

individual time -- so that's roughly 4 minutes of individual time per class to

work on goals.

> >

> > And that's it. Not to mention, the phonology class may work on sounds that

are far beyond my son's ability -- the week that we had my last IEP meeting,

they were working on the " sp " sound. My son can't even say a word with the " s "

sound in the first position, let alone a " sp " sound.

> >

> > ARGGG! The school is arguing that " you'd be surprised at how well kids pick

up language/speech in a group setting with their peers, and I bet you he'll

start speaking like crazy once he starts this class " . When I point out that

that might work for a child with a simpler speech *delay*, but how will that

help my child with a *motor planning disorder*, they don't have an answer. They

just keep changing the subject and going back to their pat answer about how

great peer interaction is for getting kids to speak. (My son has 2 older

sisters, btw, and is around kids all the time; lack of peer interaction isn't an

issue.)

> >

> > So my question is this -- how do I get them to provide any sort of

individual therapy?? Because the way I see it now, the classes they're offering

him -- while they might be good classes for working on general language skills,

and to a small extent his speech in the phonology class -- don't offer him any

sort of SPEECH help.

> >

> > Any advice on how to proceed with them?

> >

> > Thanks!

> >

>