Going back to my post about L and school…

The thing about L is that one day she seems like a total mess and other days she is completely fine.

The very same week I had a melt-down about her complete failure at circle time at her IEP meeting,  I went to her end of the year party.  At the party, despite the chaos and noise, L was amazingly perfect.  Other times I have visited her in the classroom, she appeared completely shut-down (mouth sagging, unengaged, worried-looking).  At the party, she was lively.  She played the games happily.  She **sang the songs and did the hand motions** in circle time.    She was totally herself.

It is entirely possible she acted that way to make me look like a total asshole.  Heh.

Mr. A and I are not exactly sure what we should do. We had been leaning toward requesting a different teacher for next year,  but after seeing L so comfortable with her classmates & teachers, I am reluctant to uproot her.  L is very slow to warm up to new adults (and kids too), so it might be better for her to start the year in a familiar environment?  We have also decided to let the IEP from the meeting stand for now because it does address some areas where we have concerns.  Once school begins in the fall, I will go in and observe her every 2 weeks or so to see how she is doing.  If she looks shut-down, I will call another IEP meeting.

In one stroke of good news:  L graduated from Vision Therapy last week! She had worked really hard in therapy and I am so pleased with the progress she has made. Her tracking (visual pursuit)  issue is resolved and she tested at an age appropriate level for visual-motor skills where she was previously over a year delayed.  She is still catching up on some areas that were behind due to her previous vision  problems (visual memory, visual attention, spatial skills).  These skills are falling into place rapidly now that she has a solid foundation to work from.   L will have a follow up appointment in 3 months, but the doctor seems to believe she is totally done with vision therapy.  That was $2,000 well-spent.

Because we are obviously not spending enough of our income on Occupational Therapy and Vision Therapy, there is one other area we are going to explore to see if it will help L: Play Therapy.   I have a nagging concern that L still suffers from some residual effects of early trauma (either from when she was placed with us or possibly from something that happened in the orphanage).    I don’t know if trauma is why L shuts down when she is stressed or not, but we are going to get an expert to poke around in her head to see.  The therapist hasn’t met L yet, so he can’t say whether or not she will benefit from therapy, but once school is out we will give it a try.  Ironically, we are going to see the shrink we saw during our homestudy debacle.  I feel comfortable with him and I am confident he will be able to tell us if we need to worry or not.

This is a rather abbreviated post because I am running out the door to M’s Super!! Fun!! Day!! at school, but I didn’t want to leave that IEP post hanging like that.  We are still working through our options.  Most of the time, L is happy and healthy. I just want to do everything I can to make sure she is getting all the help she needs.

Last Friday, I had the goalsetting IEP meeting at L’s school.  Up until this point, we had only had good experiences with the school.  By that, I mean that they agreed that there were concerns, even though it took nearly 5 months for them to complete the evaluations to determine whether or not L needed an IEP at all.

In her speech/hearing, gross motor, and pre-academic skills evaluations, L passed with flying colors.  Not surprisingly, she qualified for services based on a sensory profile I filled out.

(Bear with me as I go over her results, even though it is boring.)

We knew she has sensory issues, but she bombed sensory issues HARD.  She was found to have a “definite difference” in vestibular processing, touch processing, behavioral outcomes of sensory processing, sensory seeking, and perceptual /fine motor.  She also had a “probable difference” in visual processing (duh!), multisensory processing, modulation due to body position & movement, modulation of sensory input affecting emotional responses, emotional/social responses.

In her psychological evaluation, the shrink determined that L “does not consistently initiate peer interactions, does not play with other children in back and forth play and sometimes avoids socializing or interacting with others if there are more than two children in a group. “  Basically, L avoids participating in large groups.  She also tends to do more parallel play instead of reciprocal play.  They also found she has “moderately elevated anxiety and withdrawal” at school.  So she qualifies for services for “social-emotional” delays.

How does this all play out at school?  The biggest issue is that L hangs out on the periphery during group activities and she sucks at circle time.  Actually, the part of circle time she regularly fails is the singing songs with hand motions portion.  She CAN NOT do it at school, despite the fact that she can sing songs and do hand motions at home no problem…WTF??

We had a meeting to discuss the evaluation results and we all agreed:  L is struggling a little and could benefit from some intervention in the classroom. We talked a little about sensory issues and her anxiety/withdrawal and talked a bit about what kind of interventions might work.  I left that meeting feeling like we were all on the same page.

Two weeks later, we had the IEP meeting.  My biggest mistake was scheduling it when Mr. A couldn’t attend.  The other meeting had gone so well, I didn’t think I would need backup.

HA HA HA.  I laughretrospectively at my naivete!

The day before the meeting, they sent home a rough draft of their proposed interventions and I was not impressed. To resolve her “social-emotional” issues, their plan was to spend five minutes a day encouraging her to invite other kids to play.  (I am not actually so concerned about her playing skills because I think she is just on the slower end of normal developing them…she is learning to pretend and play with kids and can do it outside of school. It is the school environment that is the problem).

For sensory issues, their goal was  for her to be able to draw things (3 part person, square) and complete fine motor tasks (imitate movements and button buttons).

There was no mention of helping her learn to modulate sensory input in the classroom environment.  I really believe that is the source of her withdrawal, anxiety and circle time problems.  I think there is too much noise and chaos and she can’t focus so she shuts down.

At the IEP meeting, I pointed out the lack of addressing her modulation issues and the school people would not budge.  They backed off their earlier statement that she would be receiving OT with swings and ball pits etc., and instead they said she will get OT instruction in the classroom to improve her DRAWING and BUTTONING and by doing “hand over hand” for circle time songs.  Can I just point out they have been doing hand over hand during songs since September and SHE STILL CAN’T (or won’t) do the flipping SONGS!

We kept going around and around about it.  They claim she doesn’t demonstrate sensory issues at school.  I stated that she doesn’t melt down or cry or draw attention to herself  when she is experiencing sensory overload, she JUST SHUTS DOWN and WITHDRAWS. (I.E. no fight or flight, she just freezes.)  In a crazy, noisy classroom, it is hard to notice one kid withdrawing, stepping back from the activity, shutting down.

I also pointed out that L (confirmed by other professionals in the classroom) regularly talks about one kid who screams.  Other kids’ screaming has always been a trigger for L.  I suspect it is a remnant of the trauma she had in the orphanage, but whatever it is it makes her really panic.  The teacher said “Well, it is a special needs classroom.  There is always a possibility of other kids having behavior issues.”  To that, I replied “While that may be true, we are here to talk about *L’s* special needs and screaming is a very upsetting trigger for her.”

I have known L for 3.5 years and I guarantee you the casual observer would not notice her distress, but *I* do.  She makes a specific slack-jawed face and totally disengages.  I saw it during the visits I made to the classroom (particularly during circle time), I saw it at her OT evaluation,  and I see it when she is overwhelmed by sensory stuff and doesn’t feel comfortable removing herself from the situation. She also doesn’t cry in front of other adults when Mr. A and I are not present.

I tried to point out that the IEP was not addressing L’s underlying issues, it was just addressing the symptoms (poor drawing, failing circle time), but they refused to get it.   Then I started to CRY.  Eventually, they agreed to change a few of the measurable goals (participation in circle time songs / working more on her midline and hand dominance issues), but for the most part it was a huge failure.

I ended up signing their dumb IEP form just to get the heck out of there.  I didn’t want to have another meeting with people who clearly were not invested in working on the real problem.  I know now that the school isn’t going to be much of a resource in helping us sort all this stuff out. I also know I will never go to one of those meetings without back up again.

It makes me angry.  I am not angry for L, because we have the time, money and resources to make sure she gets the intervention she needs outside of school.  It makes me angry for all the kids whose are forced to depend entirely on the school to help address their issues.