ABBLS yearly update

We had our end of year meeting with Dominic's SPED teacher yesterday afternoon.  Remember, they are using the ABBLS with him, so he's got specific things he's learning.  Here're the differences from May 2011 to May 2012

These are the percentiles of where a NT 7year old should be

Receptive Language : 2011: 31%, 2012: 64%
Imitation: 2011: 75%, 2012: 95%
Play and Leisure: 2011: 35%, 2012 48%
Social interaction  2011: 30%, 2012: 43%
Classroom Routines 2011: 58%,. 2012: 79%
Reading  2011 7%, 2012: 21%
Math 2011: 0%, 2012: 5%

Whats more interesting to me is the number of categories that've been added in this past year that he was at 0% for last year - they are:
Cooperation/Reinforcement: 86%
Requests: 32%
Labelling: 9%
Spontaneous vocalizations: 54%
Syntax and Grammer: 13%

He has SUCH a long way to go, but he's made a lot of progress this year.  At his IEP in Feb, they let us know they were going to start a new reading program with him that teaches total sight reading of words (no sounding out).  Its set up so that a child learns 5 words per unit, and at the end of each unit, theres a book made entirely of those 5 words.  Each unit adds on to the earlier.  I guess he's ALMOST done with the first 5 words, but hasn't quite made it to a book.  So i'm hoping we can do some work this summer to make sure  he at least doesn't lose those words over the summer.  If I can get Alpine to agree to make it an integral part of his day each summer, I will buy the system and donate it to them.

Right now its not clear what kind of support Dominic will have next year - budget cuts abound and they are trying to run the school district on a business model - supposedly someone is going to be brought in to show them how to make them more efficient.  So we'll see.  They are legally bound by Dominic's IEP, and I'm not shy about letting them know that I know that.