Thanks to everyone for your prayers for Natalie's first IEP today. Tom and I are generally happy with everything that Natalie got--PT, OT, school placement. The only thing we're not happy about is that no individualized speech therapy time was defined in the IEP. What is in the IEP is 30 minutes of group therapy, once a week. She's currently getting 2 hours of individualized speech therapy per week, so you can imagine our disappointment.We pressed the IEP team a lot on this, believe me! But they didn't budge from their position that they don't want to specify individual speech therapy until Natalie is in the classroom, and the speech therapist who will work with her (the school speech therapist) has a chance to see her. Of course, a speech therapist is on the assessment and IEP team, and our current speech therapist gave a report for the IEP, but apparently it's the policy (although they couldn't provide it in writing) that this school district does not assign speech time at the first IEP. They told us we have to request it after she's in class, and perhaps ask for another IEP.
We know there are a couple of options open to us (besides trusting the school district at its word, that they will provide Natalie individualized speech therapy, if she needs it...which we all agree she does, so why can't it just be in the document?), so we're going to talk about those options and ask others more experienced for advice.
On the bright side, Natalie will be getting 2 hours of PT and 1 hour of OT per week, all individualized (which is what she currently has), she will be going to the school we like (even though it's not the one they wanted to assign her) and she'll probably also get transportation to and from this school to which they didn't want to assign her. So we did get some stuff we weren't sure was going to come easy.
The other uplifting thing that happened today was when I picked Natalie up from therapy this morning, her speech therapist was finishing up the test to report to the IEP and said her receptive language was in the 27-30 month range, and her expressive language was in the 12-15 months range. Both of these scores are significantly higher than when she was tested just a few months ago.
As most parents who have gone through this process will tell you, we didn't sign the IEP at the meeting, and I'll be reading through it tonight to make sure everything we talked about is in it.
Whew! It's over. But it's not really over until we sign the IEP. And then...it's just the beginning.
6 comments:
Glad to hear you guys made it through the stressful IEP! I was wondering if your Regional Center Service coordinator was with you at the IEP. Even though RCOC doesn't like to provide Speech if the child is in a school program, it does happen a lot, so that's an option to explore if you haven't already. We'll pray for you guys.
--Carianne
I am glad that it is over, for the most part. I hope that they will allow Natalie speech therapy. Still praying...
ok, so in two years you will take a little trip to Illinois, and walk me through this whole thing right????
Whew sounds intense!!!!
the joys of IEP's. Every time I hear of someone else experience with IEP's I realize just how lucky I am. NY state is much more lenient with therapy. Their policy is to give too much therapy so you have the option of taking some away because it's much harder to add in extra therapy.
IEP's make me crazy! Good job not signing it until you have read through it. I think that is odd about the speech therapy....although I know that you will stay on top of it and make sure she gets what she needs. I'm glad that it is over...doesn't it feel like buying a house...looking through all of the different paperwork and having to sign in 20 different places:). I love that picture of Natalie. She's SO cute!
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