Re: IEP meetings over for the year - bizarre experience

[Guest guest]

>

> I love the offer for parent training.? You should have said, " Yes, I'd love to

give some in-servicing to staff, when would you like to schedule that. " ? <GG>?

Thanks. Yes, that would have been a great comeback. I was so amazed by

their determination that our son did not need help at home but his parents did,

that I did give them quite a spiel on my background, the

research/networking/interventions that I do, what we've accomplished, and

examples of how lack of support from the school have caused many of the problems

they see as parent problems--but none of it was very funny! I don't think I

convinced them of anything. It's like, oh well, time to move on; I got it off

my chest and our son is getting what he needs. Who knows, maybe my thoughts

will affect somebody and I just can't tell.

Ruth

[Guest guest]

Ruth, after reading your response to others - sounds like your schools parent training is more like a parenting class. I have an autism specialist that I can bring up concerns with my son and he'll offer strategies that works for us. Also, if my son is getting a low mark on a test, I'll fax him the papers and he'll find out what the problem is. one problem was my son knew all the answers to this test but got a low grade on his test. It was because the questions were worded differently and now I'm requesting - re-phrase questions if necessary and check for understanding. that works for us. He gave me a list of strategies under executive functioning that would be helpful for the school and recommended some books to read that relate to my situation. I also get e-mails on seminars and work shops.

We only meet once a month and we try to set up a time, day and place that works for us both.. The top part of your post relates so much to mine. BTDT too and found out the best help I got was from outside the school with finding strategies that work best for my son. you know, while in elementary school - I even had to take my son to a tutor because they didn't see my concerns till the end of 3rd grade when he took the NYS test to prove it.... I wish I had this help I have now while my son was in elementary school. while in elementary school they thought he needed a consequence when he forgot or lost things - organization was a challenge for him. this specialist helped with a strategy that is working. not 100% but much better.

I'm so happy for you that things are now working out. I know that fight! BTDT....too.

Rose

From: r_woman2 <me2ruth@...> Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:46:18 AMSubject: Re: ( ) IEP meetings over for the year - bizarre experience

>> as far as parent training - I can see why you feel the way you do with the school - I've been reading your post for a long time. I understand your feelings. But can you request that your parent training be through an outside autism support group? or someone you can find on your own - that's not school related... I find the parent training very helpful and needed. (when you have the right person)I think I have remembered to thank everybody privately who posted congrats, but in case I missed anybody--a big thank you for all the kind words and support!Rose, can you name some specific things about the parent training that were helpful and needed? Some examples? I'd love

to hear a BTDT. The assist principal said we can ask for it at a later time if we change our minds since we've already been recommended for it. It would not be ongoing; it would be three 45-minute sessions at our house. I think they want to do it during the work day, so I'd have to use up vacation time or work some odd hours to do it. And I've had to do so much of that from being forced to attempt to be my son's case manager for so long with only the 504, along with all these IEP meetings. And all the examples they gave in the meetings were very simplistic stuff--have your son do his homework before he gets the computer (I let them know we do that!) etc--it'd be really annoying to jump through all these hoops and that is all they had to say.I don't have any choice in who I get. I live in a large suburban school district with around 45,000 students and it is all contracted and planned out.Anyway, I'd be curious how it went for

you.Ruth

[Guest guest]

Dear Ruth,

Of course our experience was different from yours, but my son also seemed to get more appropriate services in high school than he had in middle school, even though he had an IEP from preschool on. Some of the things that happened in high school were:

1) He finally got to be in an adaptive P.E. class (after many years of being told that our county schools "didn't have the resources" to set up an alternate P.E. program for kids with disabilities);

2) He was allowed to be in a special study hall for kids with disabilities, staffed by special ed teachers, for one period each day (study hall didn't exist in middle school);

3) He was given a laptop computer for taking notes;

4) He was allowed extra time to finish tests and exams if he needed it -- usually during the study hall;

5) An extra teacher was present even in some of his classes that included many gifted kids, so that if he had a problem, she was there to help;

6) Many of his teachers were willing to adapt his assignments so that subjects he would have failed at became possible;

7) For the first year and a half, he had a personal assistant, but afterwards, he was assigned a monitor who was supposed to keep track of how he was doing and help him if he needed help. The first monitor did not work out, but after I requested a change, the second monitor was fantastic!

8) At the end of his junior year, he was encouraged to attend a special weekend program for college-bound students with disabilities and their parents at one of our state universities, which was a big morale boost both for him and for me.

I know that our county (Arlington County, Virginia) is known for its excellent public schools, but I still feel that individual teachers and administrators went above and beyond the call of duty to help him. His high school years were not problem-free (he was even unfairly accused of sexual harassment by a girl who misinterpreted some of his behaviors, but was cleared of that charge), but he was able to take enough Advanced Placement courses to start college with 22 credits, and he was also one of the 20 students who graduated from his high school with a grade point average higher than 4.0.

Of course, none of this happened without a lot of work on our part! We were in almost daily contact with some of his teachers, by e-mail or face-to-face. We monitored his homework assignments very closely, and spent many hours during evenings and weekends helping him, so that at times I felt like a part-time homeschooling parent. But it was worth it!

Good luck to your son and to you!

Jill

[Guest guest]

>

>   

> I have an autism specialist that I can bring up concerns with my son and he'll

offer strategies that works for us.  Also, if my son is getting a low mark on a

test, I'll fax him the papers and he'll find out what the problem is.  ...  He

gave me a list of strategies under executive functioning that would be helpful

for the school and recommended some books to read that relate to my situation. 

These are some great examples on how one might take advantage of the autism

supports at school. I don't know if I ever would have though of e-mailing an

autism team member a copy of school work so they could help figure out the

problem, but that is a great idea. I'll keep these things in mind.

Ruth

[Guest guest]

>

> We were in almost daily contact with some of his teachers, by e-mail or

face-to-face.

Thanks for the very encouraging story of success, Jill! I was so hoping the

adding of a case manager and every day organizational help would help get me out

of the everyday talking with the teachers thing LOL. But you're saying it was

still necessary? I'm just trying to picture this, trying to anticipate. I was

hopefully picturing myself being able to finally just focus on homework kind of

like a normal parent.

Ruth

[Guest guest]

So happy for you Ruth. It has been a long road.

Vickie

>

> Well all, at the age of 14, going into 9th grade next year, my son with

Asperger is finally getting the special ed services he needs. He had nothing in

elementary and a 504 in jr high. The 504 came after I got a private eval done

and brought it to the school. I asked for a SPED eval in elem, but they

insisted on doing it for ED and came back empty-handed.

>

> I say it is a bizarre experience because I have been fighting for this since

the beginning of my son's 4th grade year with great opposition from

teachers/school administration; then in the middle of this school year an

assistant principal, in consultation with a school psychologist, said he thinks

my son should be evaluated by the autism team--and in a couple of months it is

done and my son has an IEP. No oppostion at all from anyone.

>

> I don't know what else to say! We met a few times with the autism team, then

the IEP team, and they met a few times amongst themselves; and I think the IEP

is pretty good. We made a few tweaks one final time all together as a huge

group this morning. It was pretty painless and quick.

>

> In case anyone is curious, they are focusing on social skills (tailored to

specific things from his speech/autism evals) and planning/organization problems

due to executive dysfunction. He'll have an elective class 5 days a week where

he works on social skills and organization/planning, and he'll also have a

monitoring teacher/case manager to make sure everybody is communicating. If

this works out, I don't know what I'm going to do with all the extra time that

I'm not spending talking to teachers/administrators every day! Another thing I

really like is that they have the social skills/organization classes segregated

with autism spectrum kids in their own class. So, he won't be stuck in a class

of kids with behavioral disorders.

>

> We turned them down for in-home parent training and aides in every class. He

will have an aide in math. Not one-on-one but shared. Turning down all the

aides was one of those things were it was a matter of looking at pros and cons.

They would have been helpful, but those classes are somewhat watered down, and

we want him to have as strong a college-prep curriculum as possible as he is

very bright. Since they have already determined that he is helped by smaller

class sizes, we can always add the aides back in if it turns out he needs them.

I think he may need one for language arts. Anyway, same goes for the in-home

parent training (for different reasons).

>

> Turning down the in-home parent training had a lot to do with the issues we've

been discussing on list. That is, the line of thinking with certain school

staff and team members is that many of our son's problems have to do with poor

parenting rather than neurology. They weren't offering anything that would

involve working with our son, only talking to parents. I couldn't see taking

off several days off work for this " training " to be told about how my son needs

a routine. They had a list of topics that might be discussed, and I'm pretty

sure that type of thing is all it would have been. My husband didn't want to do

it because he thought it would be too intrusive, thinks maybe the school

district is looking for evidence of child abuse/neglect and could manufacture

evidence, etc. Which I think is possible too. Gee, I guess there are a few

trust issues between ourselves and the school district after all this LOL.

>

> One advantage they gave us is that they put in his eval that they recommend he

be encouraged to continue in theater for social skills reasons. He has taken it

both years in jr high and gotten interested in it. Anyway, since they have

recommended it, I figure he is less likely to get booted out of it because of

scheduling difficulties if that ever comes up. I think they will try to work

his schedule around it. I already mentioned that they validated that he is

gifted and recommended he be put back in advanced classes with appropriate

supports, starting with one at a time. So, that is also happening.

>

> Anyway, for those of you following our little saga, this is how it turned out.

I would say you have no idea what a load off my shoulders this is--but you do

know. Love talking to you all!

>

> Ruth

>

[Guest guest]

Dear Ruth,

The reason it was still necessary for me to talk with at least one of my son's teachers -- or an administrator -- almost every day is that having a student with Asperger's syndrome was a learning experience for the teachers! Also, if one teacher worked out strategies that helped my son, that didn't mean that all the teachers learned or even could use the same strategies. We realized after all that it was the one-to-one relationship between my son and each of his teachers that made things work. For example: he liked his chemistry teacher so much that he would reach up to hold her hand while she was trying to lecture the class. She had to explain to him that this was not appropriate -- without making him feel as if he was being rejected or punished. He had trouble solving some of the problems in his AP calculus class. E-mailing the teacher didn't work -- what we had to do is go to school before it started (that meant getting there at 7 a.m.!) to meet with his teacher, who fortunately was very willing to do this for any of her students. His English teacher liked him, but didn't understand why he didn't finish answering all the questions in his first test. I went to school and met with her to explain why he could not answer questions about various fictional characters' motivations, and explained that he was OK with answering questions that didn't have to do with understanding human behavior. He also would not answer questions unless he knew the whole answer. For instance, if she asked for three examples of something in a text and he could only think of two, he wouldn't answer the question at all, so that meant he didn't get even partial credit. She had to convince him that giving a partial answer was OK.

Well, those are just a few examples -- I could give you many more. But the real reason you can't just hand over the reins to the teachers during the day is that you are the expert on your son's behavior -- they simply don't have the experience that you do, even if they have had other students on the autism spectrum. You know the saying, "You've met one kid with Asperger's syndrome, you've met one kid with Asperger's syndrome?" It's true. Whatever training teachers have had, it's very unlikely that they have had scores of kids like our kids in their classes.

What has made me really happy a few times is that teachers have told me they learned a lot by having my son in their classes. And when I report back to them what he is doing now, they are very glad to hear how it all turned out.

Jill

[Guest guest]

>

> The reason it was still necessary for me to talk with at least one of my son's

teachers -- or an administrator -- almost every day is that having a student

with Asperger's syndrome was a learning experience for the teachers! Also, if

one teacher worked out strategies that helped my son, that didn't mean that all

the teachers learned or even could use the same strategies. We realized after

all that it was the one-to-one relationship between my son and each of his

teachers that made things work.

Jill, what did you (or your son) do at the beginning of each year to get this

relationship going?

> His English teacher liked him, but didn't understand why he didn't finish

answering all the questions in his first test. I went to school and met with

her to explain why he could not answer questions about various fictional

characters' motivations, and explained that he was OK with answering questions

that didn't have to do with understanding human behavior. He also would not

answer questions unless he knew the whole answer.

I'm curious what ended up happening here. Now that she knew he was not

answering questions due to his disability, what did she do? Did he lose points

on questions not answered as normal or did they come up with alternative

questions? Some other strategy? It sounds like he learned how to partially

answer questions, but what did they do while he was learning that? Did this one

teacher handle it on her own or was it put in his IEP?

> Well, those are just a few examples -- I could give you many more. But the

real reason you can't just hand over the reins to the teachers during the day is

that you are the expert on your son's behavior -- they simply don't have the

experience that you do, even if they have had other students on the autism

spectrum.

Yes, you're right. I guess I knew that, but couldn't help hoping! Thanks for

all the great advice.

> What has made me really happy a few times is that teachers have told me they

learned a lot by having my son in their classes. And when I report back to them

what he is doing now, they are very glad to hear how it all turned out.

I have a lot of teachers tell me my son was a learning experience or " was a

first " too. His elementary teachers don't even know he had Asperger, so

I've thought about e-mailing them (and the principal). What do you tell them?

I've had writer's block, perhaps because about half of them were very negative

and disrespectful. But, I'd still like to let them know.

Sorry to pepper you with so many questions--hope you don't mind!

Ruth

[Guest guest]

Dear Ruth,

I don't mind being peppered with your questions -- I feel glad if our experience can help someone else. If I were in your shoes, I would definitely either write to or talk to your son's teachers before classes start (or soon afterwards) every year. I tried to explain to each new set of teachers the strategies that had worked for us -- and even if they sometimes said, "We can't do that," at least they were on notice, and could not claim that they had no idea how his disability would affect his learning or his behavior when something went wrong. Often I had to make multiple visits to explain things before they understood. And there were times when I had to admit that my son was at fault, and promise to work with both him and the teacher to solve problems. What seemed to work best was to convey the attitude "We're all in this together." Of course there were some teachers who absolutely didn't understand and didn't want to. I tried to make sure my son didn't take classes with those teachers when I heard about them in advance -- but sometimes, he had to take a class with a teacher someone had warned me about, and it turned out OK anyway. I'm thinking of a math teacher that everyone had told me was incredibly boring. Owen did OK in her class because he was interested in her subject and didn't focus on her teaching technique. In another case, a mother (who was also a teacher) told me that her son, who had trouble writing, had been traumatized by a certain English teacher who embarrassed him repeatedly in front of her class. Since my son had the same problem (partly the physical ability to write, but also not knowing what teachers expected him to write), I made a strong plea to have him placed in a different class. Fortunately the school administrators understood and agreed to my request.

In another case, he had had a great social studies teacher for 10th grade American history, who actually asked me to have him sign up for her 11th grade gpvernment class. We were notified just before the next school year began that he had been placed in another teacher's class, but there again, when I made a strong plea to have him placed in her class, the school administrators agreed. It worked out very well.

I guess what I'm saying is that your involvement in your son's education is something that can make a big difference in how school affects him and how well he does. Of course, teachers with whom he has a great relationship can also write recommendations when he's applying to colleges and universities. It's worth your time to nurture those relationships!

Jill