How to handle myself at the IEP ?

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The goals should be measurable. As such there should be data collected. Ask her to show you the data. How can they say he is or is not meeting a goal if they don't have any numbers? A quote I just read, "without data you are just a person with an opinion".

I don't see anything wrong with you asking about the toy at the meeting. She'll have to say something. If she lies, keep asking questions. If she is lying chances are that will become apparent to all.

Have you met with your advocate?

Depending on the laws in your state you could home school. The problem there is you would have to withdraw him and then they are not obligated to do anything for you (depending on where you live.) I do not know the logistics of doing a temporary withdrawal for home schooling pending IEP. That would be a good question for your advocate who would know the laws of your location.

The other matter is that if you do not trust them to take care of your non-verbal child, an IEP does not fix that. People commonly complain about IEPs not being followed. If you have a non-verbal (or even one with communication problems) it is relatively easy to ignore a lot of what you ask for other than things like logs and communication journals etc that you would involve physical evidence.

If you can prove (good luck) that the district cannot or won't take care of your child's need you can make the district pay for private assistance, but that is not so easy based on what I have read.

HisMom
I didn't realize your concerns about his welfare were so dire. Keep him home. Tell them that you are keeping him home until you have an IEP in place that you agree to. I know our district has a minimum number of hours that a child must attend to be considered a full-time student and for us that minimum number would allow quite a few absences (like 30+ days). I also found out that I could have a shortened day written in to his IEP which I plan to do. There are situations where a school district has determined that they cannot properly educate a child in any of the available settings and such a child ends up being at home but is not withdrawn from the school system. Kids in this situation continue to receive services from the school district. I believe there is a term for this but it is escaping me at the moment. Of course that is probably the least desirable outcome for the school district that you are working with because it costs them even more money than it would to provide him services at school.

I did not communicate well. Sometimes I am prone to this.

ABA is appropriate for a non-verbal child; definitely. The question is (as you discovered with the play goal) knowing for sure if they deliver it. If your child is non-verbal you will not know if they comply or not because your child cannot tell you.

For example, my son gets speech for pragmatics even though he is verbal. If they decided to discontinue it and not tell me, my child may (or may not) tell me they stopped delivering it. A non verbal child could not easily inform you if a service was not provided unless you had some PECS thing for it.

If your son is supposed to get ABA or play therapy etc. even if you get that in the IEP, given that you do not trust them, how would you know they are delivering it. You would need to write something into the IEP (ask your advocate how to do this--as I have not had to do this) for a sign up sheet or some physical proof that they were complying, to be confident they were doing what you asked. This does NOT mean you should not ask. it means you have to verify that what was promised is being delivered.

The reason I say this, is because if I am understanding you, you currently have things like play therapy in your IEP that are not being complied with. This tells me that even if they agree to add something else into the IEP, you could not be confident that they are complying. You would not be able to find out from your child, so you would want some proof for your peace of mind.

Your advocate will be a better source for info on trying to get $$$ from the district for private services---but I will say what I have learned here (I have also had not had this situation come up.) Based on what I heard, it is hard to prove to the court that a district cannot/is not providing for special needs and school districts will try to delay and delay so that if you do win in court it may be years after you already paid for private services. I am not a lawyer or an advocate (nor play one on TV )so if this is the route you choose you will need expert advice on this. My understanding though is it is not a straight forward as it sounds or should be.

I just returned from visiting a private, floor-time based preschool and I signed up for it.

ASDMommy, you are absolutely right. I have lost my trust and will never be comfortable with my son in his current program.

My question to you folks now is.- this preschool is two days a week for 2.5 hours a day. They have an open door policy and prior experience working with children on the spectrum. Both pluses. Even better, they WANT his therapist to come with him to help him along. I am sold.

However, I do understand that he may still need DTT, so I am planning to ask for a mixed placement in his IEP - non-cat classroom 3 days a week for 3 hours a week with an aide, and 2 days of private, floor-time preschool the other 2 days with his ABA therapist.

I am positive that I am the first parent to ask for this from the district. I know the non-cat teacher and trust her more than his current one. Does this sound good to you ? Has anyone heard of a combination of special ed placement and private placement before ? It is not as good as homeschooling exclusivety, but it comes really close.

Your thoughts ?

It will depend on the rules of your state. To the best of my knowledge, my state allows for dual private/public enrollment at the preschool level but they will not pay for the private school or private services. Presumably the district could if they wanted to(Unlikely in most cases, I think,) but the state does not provide funding for this.

So depending on your state, you may be able to do this, but you will probably have to pay for the private school yourself. Your advocate will know the rules of your state.

Friends,

I fully expect the district to claim at the IEP that my son's insurance company recommending several hours of ABA per week for him is a MEDICAL recommendation, not an educational recommendation. I would like to know how to counter this. My immediate reaction is to tell them that since his stimming and non-compliance interferes with his learning, he has an educational need for ABA, not just a medical need. Other than this, I have no other counters and I am sure they would have plenty up their own sleeves. I am not the first person they have encountered with demands for ABA and I won't be the last.

So, any advise from you on how to counter their refusals to provide ABA would help me. They also claimed that my son has an intellectual disability, and, would therefore NOT benefit from the ABA. Is this an acceptable argument ? I am trying to look for links to any studies that have proved that ABA is an effective treatment for autism, regardless of whether mental retardation is a co-morbid condition with the autism or not..

Please, please help me, people.

TIA.