Thursday, November 3, 2016

Triennial IEP....

Every three years, the school district reevaluates Dominic for disability and related services.  In no shock whatsoever they re qualified him for all services he currently receives.  In a moment of hilarity, the Speech therapist realized she was his ST in preschool forever ago.  "he's really grown" she said. Yeah. we know. 

Anywho.  The tone of the meeting was interesting.  I feel like the creative solutions were coming wholly from us.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, and multiple times they commented on how much they enjoy working with us (they haven't made me angry yet.... lol).  I also felt like they were much less defensive than the elementary ones felt.  Which is interesting.   The big goal is to create an independent human being.

Goals for the next year are actually going to be possible to meet, I think.  Normally they're HUGE and hard to do.  They included reading CCVC and CVCC words at 85% accuracy; doing addition and subtraction up to 20 at 85%; being able to participate verbally in a group setting with peers, being able to do group work in a setting, and the like. 

They will be incorporating Dominic's input into his visual schedule each morning - something thats been highly successful in home based setting in an effort to make transitioning easier.

good stuff.  I'm pleased with the team on board. 

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Generalization!!!!


I'm again woefully behind in Dominic updates, I apologize.  Life has been ridiculously busy.

The day after I posted last about Dominic and family game night, when he came home from school, he asked to play Don't Break The Ice again.  This time he played with Tim, our roommate, and had a wonderful time.  Look at the interaction, the turn taking, and the FUN on this child's face:



We did start ioncleanse by AMD footbaths back up on a regular schedule as the undereye circles (liver congestion) are back, and he's been having some skin eruptions.  So we'll get those back under control right quick. 

Last week we had a nice parent teacher conversation with Dominic's SPED coordinator, in which we collaborated on a number of things.  She was so concerned we were going to be disappointed that he hasn't met any of the IEP goals from last year - she was quite surprised when we advised her that in his entire IEP history he's never actually met a goal in the time provided. It was eyeopening for her.   She was thrilled to hear about the games AND to see the video above - so she decided to try including him in games.  Look what she emailed me yesterday:







Given that her biggest concern for Dominic is that he be able to work in a group, follow group instructions, etc - she is over the moon.  I'm excited about the potential here too.

We are now up to the following questions EVERY morning - and he knows the answers.  If he's focused and not mad at me, he can asnwer every one of these without cue or correction:
Whats your Name
Whats Mommy's NAme
Whats Daddy's Name
Whats your Last Name
Whats your teacher's Name
Where you do live (street address)
How old are you
Where do you go to school

We are also working on "What day is today" and "What day is tomorrow" and "What city do you live in", which he gets about 50% of the time.  I also will throw in asking the dogs names.   We are trying to rotate the questions around into random order so that he actually listens to the whole thing before answering.

The next biggie we need to do is going to be the home phone number.  We are working with Speech Therapy to figure out the best way to get him to learn it.