IEP/Services

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Has anyone run in to this? My 3 year old was diagnosed just prior to his 3rd birthday. Any specialist we see..."I've never encountered anyone this young with this diagnosis.". The IU that provides his EI services planned to d/c him. I stated "With his diagnosis I wanted to hit him hard with early intervention.". Her reply "What diagnosis?". How can you work with a child and not know what you're working with???? My jaw hit the floor. I called and told them to pull his services.

I've not encountered any other families with a preschooler and this diagnosis. PDD, all I have to do is turn the corner. I feel like I've been thrown out to sea...and I've started to drown.

Thanks fo the vent.

S.

Ha ha. I was just talking about the same issue in a school psych meeting today. One person didn't believe that a lot of people working with children in EI didn't know what the dx was for a lot of the children they were working with.
We were talking about how strange it was that a lot of the children in EI didn't even have dx. We are currently looking into that issue as further proof. Your posting just confirmed that issue.

My child was dx with Autism at 2 years, 3 months. With children who are obviously on the spectrum it isn't that hard. I was surprised when he received a separate evaluation from EI and there was no mention of his official dx. Instead they acted like their more simple testing and dx was more official. Not once did they mention his dx.

I think it's because they try to focus on the plan and not the dx. It doesn't matter. For me, I will still taken back when they didn't put it in and when no one who was working with him knew about his dx.

I am right there with you.

You can still get services from the school or at least try.

The IU tends to provide services based on specific skill deficits rather than diagnoses. It's (obviously) far from an ideal way of providing services, but they test specific areas, like speech, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and provide services according to the outcomes of each test.

natapoose, if the diagnosis you're talking about is Asperger's, it is rare that kids that young are diagnosed with it; many of the "issues" that come up are hard to distinguish from typical or just somewhat quirky early childhood behavior, and there is no speech delay, so there is often nothing that would bring a young child to a specialist's attention. When my now-15 year old was diagnosed, the average age for diagnosis was 8 y.o. - and that's the age he was at diagnosis! It has gotten younger, but not by a lot.