Needing Help Dealing with School District

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I have a 4yr old child who has been diagnosed with Autism, Speech Delay, GDD, ADHD and Disruptive Behavior Disorder. He was diagnosed by a Doctor who specializes in Developmental Pediatrics and a Licensed Psychological associate also in the Developmental Pediatrics Department. At the recommendation of his Doctor we contacted our local school District to enroll him in PPCD (Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities). We met for a child evaluation and turned in his paper work for his diagnosis. The child Find Team let us know what services he would be receiving and that in their observations they did not find Autism. They let us know in the future if we wanted to have our child reevaluated that we could request so.

In the second observation we were told that our child may qualify for medical diagnosis of Autism but that he does not meet the educational Criteria. We still receive educational services for his other disabilities, but my problem is in the same district at another school they offer classes specially for children with Autism and would like for him to have the opportunity to attend those classes.
We are told that his educational services would be the same if they recognized him for educational Autism or not. I requested what the criteria is that he is not meeting and was told they would have to find something and let me know. If they don’t have something to go by how can they say whether or not he meets the criteria?

Has anyone else been in this situation and if so how did you handle it? Is there any advice you can give to what my next steps should be? I apologize for the long post, this is our first child and our first time dealing with the school system and we are a little lost.

Thank you in advance.

FWIW...

My state rolls that way. You can have a medical diagnosis for Autism (say from big deal university medical department), and can theoretically receive zip in educational services.

The medical diagnosis does not trump whatever team evaluated the child.

My state uses this

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... zNdGjhBEH6

Sorry the link is a mess. The file is a PDF, and I'm writing on a mobile.

This gives you an idea what that team is looking to refer the child for educational support.

It would be interesting to see what the evaluation found.

I have a feeling since your son was diagnosed with everything but the kitchen sink approach, the team can say his speech delay and behavioral issues are not because of autism. Autism is an automatic IEP here. All the other stuff gets kick to the 504 plan. Kids get called Otherwise Health Impaired/Behavioral Health Impaired and that has a whole different set of rights and criteria (usually less than an IEP)

I think the doctor thought he was doing you a favor with the other diagnosis. All he did was leave a king size loop hole the educational evaluators can drive a dump truck through. Autism never goes away. Anxiety, behavioral issues, speech issues etc can eventually go away, so the team is riding that pony before suggesting autism services.

It might be worth getting an educational advocate to review all what went down. Your biggest problem with be all those other diagnosis. OHI/BHI is in a totally different camp than Autistic Intervention.

If the services are truly "the same", all you can do is ride this out a bit and see what happens. I would get an advocate and dig through http://www.wrightslaw.com to see what else you can do.

The problem is, this nightmare varies from state to state. There is really no consistency in the US. Some states say a kid can be twice gifted. My state makes no distinction between non gifted or gifted kids.

Hunt information specifically for your state/county/district. I can't hurt to hook up with a local support group. Many parents have BTDT, so you won't be reinventing the wheel.

Good luck!