IEP

Now these 3 letters strike fear into the hearts of many parents of special needs kids. Not so much for me. First of all, I spent years on the other side as the special needs teacher and secondly because I just do not need to ask for too much. That said, here is how it went for us today.

Ayden Jane officially does not meet the criteria as developmentally delayed from her testing. Yep. Never been so excited to be average in my life! She does qualify for speech services with a language delay from the testing Nicole did in August. (Jen has thankfully agreed to keep AJ on her case load for PT so they did not even evaluate PT or OT) So, we know that cognitive ability falls in the average range, receptive speech is at least average and expressive speech has made great gains. Actually, she does not qualify for a language delay for expressive speech accept for articulation. She has a number of omissions and substitutions which make her speech unintelligible to those who are unfamiliar with her. In simple terms, she has the vocabulary and complex sentence structure but needs a translator. Ayden Jane will have speech therapy weekly at the elementary school. Perfect.

I asked Ayden Jane's preschool teachers to give a summary of how she is doing to help at the meeting. I thought I would include all the great things she is doing as I am amazed at my little one. This is a preschool without special needs students. Her peers are typically developing kids in her age group. Ayden Jane turns 3 tomorrow and I could not think of a better way to celebrate.

Ayden Jane is doing great in school. She has adjusted very well and has recently started to come out of her shell and communicate a lot more. She understands directions very well and is usually engaged in classroom activities. She is communicating more and more, not only with her teachers, but with her fellow students as well.

Strengths:
*Ayden Jane is very independent. She loves to do things by herself and is very capable as well. (even more so than many of her classmates)
*She is a very good listener and follows directions very well.
*Even though she may struggle with certain activities, she is a very willing participant.

Ayden Jane is a very good student. We have noticed that only in a month's time she has made marked improvements. The greatest improvement we have seen is in her ability to socialize with others. A strength of hers is that she has a wide vocabulary, however she struggles with articulation.

Weaknesses:
*Ayden Jane struggles with group activities that involve lots of physical activity. She tends to be more of an observer. (my take: too much to process too quickly to keep up with the song...)
*She sometimes needs to be asked several times to do something. She often needs eye to eye contact to communicate effectively. (my take: again, that pesky processing, can't screen out all the background noise to catch what is being asked)