About a month ago, Julianna’s school finished her “re-evaluation.” This is required every three years under the IDEA, presumably to ensure that kids who are receiving expensive special ed services still need them.
Julianna entered the mid-kindergarten eval with a diagnosis of “young child with developmental delay,” a dx that does not carry into the elementary/secondary years (for obvious reasons). So, beginning mid-fall and lasting until Christmas or thereabouts, she underwent a battery of assessments for language, behavior, speech, motor, and academic skills. Even an IQ test, about which we were intensely curious. Hearing the number 60 was a bit of a reality check; it’s one thing to recognize that your child is and will always be delayed; it’s another to see it quantified. Somewhere deep inside, you keep hoping your kid will pull out a 69 and almost squeeze into the “normal” range.
In any case, the end result of this re-eval was–wait for it–an IEP meeting in which we went over the report and incorporated the results into a new plan. Ten people in the room, copies for everyone–nauseating amounts of paper, because the god Privacy forbids electronic dissemination. We moved quickly, with many interruptions caused by the three children in the room (one of whom was trying to eat every toy block in sight), so it wasn’t until the formal report came that I sat down to really read and process it in depth.
When your child goes off to school, you automatically lose a certain intimacy. No matter what you do, you can never quite pry out of them what their day is like now. Their routines are unremarkable to them, so they don’t see anything to share. You ask “What did you learn in science today?” and you hear: “We didn’t have science.” You know they must have, they just didn’t recognize it as such, but without a beginning point there’s no way to pry the layers back and understand exactly what’s going on in the hours he or she is away from you.
If it’s that hard with a verbal child, imagine the dearth of information when your child doesn’t communicate by speech at all, or at least, only at the most surface level. So this report was really enlightening. It didn’t tell me about the school days or the routines, but every so often a nugget would pop out that I recognized so clearly, I could picture the entire scene:
“It was often unclear whether she was simply repeating the presented words rather than making an attempt to respond to the items.” Check.
“When asked to write numerals in sequence, Julianna wrote the number 1. When asked to write other numbers, she wrote the number 1 again.” Ouch.
“Julianna would sometimes point to several pictures on the page and was reminded that she could only point to one. This test was given over 2 sessions as she would start pointing randomly.” And giggling with a sly Miss Charming look on her face, no doubt.
“Julianna appears to enjoy socializing” (you think?) “and will wave hi and bye to many adults and peers.” Yup.
“She is a risk-taker.” Uh, yeah.
Concurrent with this is the formal discernment by the Catholic school administration as to whether they can realistically serve Julianna there. I am so torn on the subject. I want her in an environment where faith formation is “in the air,” and I want to have one PTA, one fundraiser, one school calendar to deal with.
And yet…she really needs speech intervention every day, and I will have to transport her myself (barring carpools, but you can’t count on that.) The public school has been wonderful–I love all the people. Her speech therapist calls her “chickadee,” and it makes me all warm and gooey inside. Her para and her teacher are particularly wonderful, and all the necessary infrastructure is right there. Her classmates are incredibly sweet to her. It has been a wholly positive experience, and even considering moving her feels disloyal.
It’s a good position to be in, so don’t take these reflections as complaint. But this is a part of the special needs parenting process, so I share it for the benefit of…well, whoever needs it.
I am being paged for a game of Spot-It. Bowing out for the day.
Kathleen M. Basi 
We had Shelby’s re-eval last year. She was diagnosed PDD-NOS which no longer exists in the DSM-V so I wanted that off, plus it doesn’t carry over after third grade and we were due anyway. And just for fun, I got a medical diagnosis too. So, according to the school she has global developmental delays with autistic tendencies. But the doctors gave us a better picture: 1. Classic Moderate/Severe Autism 2. Sensory Processing Disorder 3. Global Developmental Delays. You are so right, it’s one thing to know it in your heart, another to hear it spelled out so clinically. Prayers. We are planning on Joey going into public school for kindergarten in the fall, but are thinking more of charter school for first grade. Sigh. Two calendars, here we come…
Her support system is remarkable. You are very lucky.
I agree with comment above – her support system is remarkable. Sounds amazing really. Sounds like a difficult decision. Prayers.
Have you considered doing things the other way–moving her brothers to her school? Since my special needs child was the oldest, we didn’t have to “move” his sister, but we chose public school for her because he was there, and I didn’t want to split my efforts.
We haven’t considered that…I’m not sure it will fly, but it’s certainly a possibility we haven’t thought of before.
I really like reading about Julianna so keep posting about her and what’s going on in her life.
Hail Kathleen, I learned this week from our Holy Father in the Infancy Narratives, that the traditional Jewish salutation was “Shalom,”, but Gabriel, chose “Hail” the Greek, meaning “Rejoice” He said “Rejoice Mary.” Scripture does tell us that “Rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength.” You always find cause to rejoice which is strength for the day and tomorrow.