IEP triennial elligibility review

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So I had an IEP meeting yesterday for my son and they mentioned that his eligibility was up for review but that they were recommending that his status remain unchanged based on classroom observation alone. I was told I could challenge this and asked why I would want to, and they said that the current documentation shows that has a special ed status because of a mismatch between tested verbal ability and level of writing, as tested three years ago. If his writing has improved to be more commensurate with his general verbal level, then he would lose this status if he was retested, but then they would give him services under another category--something like "Other health issues" which in this case would be the ASD diagnosis.

I don't understand this? Why is it important what they call it, as long as he is getting what he needs? I feel like I am missing something that is supposed to be obvious. I just don't really understand this part of the process at all. Does anyone here understand this? Is there something I should be learning in order to do this in the best way for my son?

I feel a bit lost in the paperwork.

I am not sure I understand it either. Do you have the paperwork from 3 years ago to reference? It might help you.

Based on what was said (which does not sound right) his status is solely because of his writing? This does not make sense. I could understand if a specific service was conditional on his writing level (OT for handwriting, for example) but this I do not understand.

I do know that they do not necessarily want to spend money to test. So, I am guessing they are not wanting to contest that your son needs the label/services or mods he has now, so they do not see the sense in spending for testing.

The other problem is that you do have to make sure they do not sandbag you at the meeting with reductions in services or something else you are not prepared for. Before I agreed to anything (whether it is doing without testing or anything else, I would want to make it clear that you want to know everything they will be presenting beforehand and have it in your hands for review before the meeting.

Our district had this nasty tendency to just sandbag you with everything at the meeting, because I think they are either accustomed to people just signing anything they put in front of them, or hoping that demonstrating that this is what they expect, will produce it as the result.

Edited because I realized I may have been confused. Did you have an actual IEP meeting or was it a pre-IEP meeting? Either way I would want everything clarified before I agreed.

Thanks, ASDmommy/ASDkid!

I guess the context is that he just got the pediatric neurologist's evaluation and Asperger's/ASD diagnosis last year, but he got an IEP after seeing a child study team three years ago. So they are kind of saying it doesn't matter--he will get services one way or another this year (and in their view all the way through Middle School) because of the ASD diagnosis--so this thing seems like a technicality.

But they were asking me to think it over before signing and all this other stuff--and I just did not understand why. I am going to ask them to evaluate him for OT and PT because he needs both. We are prepared to provide reports from external evaluators if necessary on those points--but for the rest, we all seem to be in agreement, so I don't understand the approach. But that is usually the case in any area of life that involves paperwork, so there it is.

I am going to re-read all this stuff when I have time tonight or next week. Duty to my employer is calling!

I am still scratching my head over this.

It sounds like they are not contesting ASD status because they know what the tests will show and there is no need to test that.

If they test his writing then the current rationale will have to be dropped if the gap between verbal and written is not too great, so they will have to use another criteria. That is more work and expense, so they would rather not.

Then they will have to do the testing for OT and PT, to see what your son qualifies for in that regard.

I don't know if that is right, but that is my interpretation.

What I did, for good or ill, is if it cost them money for no real benefit to my son, I did not make them retest. As much as I love having test results to pore over, it was my act of goodwill in the quest of trying to get them to spend money on things that were more important to me. I felt like if they thought I was busting chops for no good reason, that they would be less flexible, themselves. Whether it was true or not, I don't know.

How old is your child? They wouldn't necessarily have to do testing for autism, since they could just base the category off the diagnosis in your independent report. Is the category currently "specific learning disability" or "speech or language impairment"? "Other health impaired" is usually used for ADHD (and other medical conditions like epilepsy), not AS.

Here is a link to a page that describes the categories: http://nichcy.org/disability/categories#ohi

The category may matter if you were to move to a different school district, or during the transition to middle school. I would probably ask for it to be changed to autism.

I can't provide any input on the categories, but I've always been like you, focused on the services and as long as my son was getting what was needed, I didn't pay much more attention.

But, there will be points in the future where what the documents actually say might matter, so it could be worth spending some time reviewing the prior assessments and making sure they provide a complete picture (as you have already planned on doing).

Be aware that the qualification standards are always changing, and you will want to have the broadest resources at your disposal as possible all the way through High School graduation. Perhaps you could contact your son's future high school to get a feel for how the different categories would be treated at that point.

Also, assuming you will now get OT for your son, be wary of stopping that just because he has learned a skill that lets him function in a classroom. My son's main issue was always writing, and while we questioned it when they dropped his OT at the start of 7th grade because he had learned to type, we went along with it, figuring typing really was his road (and it has been, but it is an imperfect one, as math really cannot be typed). But I've now had two professionals tell me they think this was a mistake, and have asked us to consider reengaging him in private OT (we recently had a new assessment done to get a typing accommodation on the SATs, and both the psychologist and his high school counselor brought it up). I was thrilled that my son crossed the giant hurdle of being able to commit his thoughts and ideas to paper, and still am (that was huge amounts of work for years), but there are things he really can't do, and he has just let that become part of his identity (not in a negative way, however; its odd). Now that the issues associated with dysgraphia are better understood, you can probably get farther.

Do you know if they identified hypotonia, hypermobility, or anything like that?

Anyway, good luck.

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I was under other health impaired despite my AS diagnoses and ADD was not even the correct diagnoses I had so who know why I was under it. I wasn't under the multiple disability category or under the learning disability category or under the speech problem category nor under autism.

It was probably because of the whole Aspergers vs Autism distinction. Now that the DSM-5 has changed the categories, people dx with Aspergers are grandfathered into the "autism spectrum disorder" category, most likely with "mild" as the severity level.

But the IEP autism category does include AS and PDD-NOS. It was that way too when I was in high school but I was under other health impaired.

Maybe the writing issue was considered a cognitive delay, and separate from the ASD.

Call me cynical, but I believe some school districts will do whatever benefits them that they can get away with. Perhaps your parents didn't push strongly for the autism category. My son's team, although agreeing to pay for a non-public placement, discussed changing his category to Other Health Impaired because he just didn't seem autistic enough to the speech therapist and neuropsychologist, and his ADHD symptoms were more prominent. When I pointed out he had an AS diagnosis, and the advocate argued there was enough reading gap to also consider Specific Learning Disability, they let it drop.