IFSP - Transition Meeting Edition

I was pleasantly surprised by the transition meeting. Of course, my expectations were low, so I had lots of room to be pleasantly surprised.

So here's the summary of how the transition process works (here in my area, at least). Approximately six months before your child turns three a transition meeting is scheduled. You meet with your Early Childhood Service Coordinator and a representative from your local school district's special education program. (In our case our Parents as Teachers teacher was also there to give information about our specific school.) The purpose of the meeting is to familiarize you with the steps involved in transitioning from Early Childhood Services to School-Age services and to get your signature on a bunch of forms that allows the school district to talk to a variety of people (your early childhood SLP, OT, any preschool teachers you might have, any doctors that might have pertinent information, etc.).

The process, as I understand it, will go like this: About three months before Ava's third birthday I will take her to be evaluated. I will find out on that day if she will qualify for services. If she does not qualify, she will continue to get services through Early Intervention until the day before her third birthday and then it will be my responsibility to arrange (and pay for) any services I feel she might still need at that time. If she does qualify, we will hold an IEP meeting within 30 days of the evaluation to decide what services she will receive once she turns three. Then, when she turns three she will begin to receive those services.

Potential service options will be individual speech or OT sessions, a special preschool program, or both. If we get individual therapy sessions, instead of coming to our home we would bring her to our local school for those appointments. If the IEP team decides the preschool program is appropriate we would bring her to school either two or four days a week. If she gets both, the SLP and or OT would see her in the preschool classroom or possibly pull her out of class for therapy.

Because Ava's birthday is in March, there is a final twist. The IEP team might decide that it is too close to the end of the school year to transition her at that time. If so, the schools would contract with her current early childhood therapists and pay them to continue to see her until the fall.

Everyone at the meeting was very professional and extremely nice. They seemed genuinely interested in Ava and her best interests. They seemed to understand her specific issues (speech and sensory) and how they interact and effect her life. They seemed to want to help. Now we just have to wait and see how the evaluation goes and if she will qualify.

So, in summary, the transition process looks like this:

1. Hold transition meeting (6 months before 3rd birthday).
2. Have child evaluated by school district (3 months before 3rd birthday).
3. If child qualifies, hold IEP meeting (2 months before 3rd birthday).
4. Transition from getting services from early childhood to getting services from school district (on 3rd birthday).

The Weekly Review: Week 22

Blog Post that Made Me Laugh

It takes talent to take a routine experience (trying on a shirt at a store) and turn it into a hilarious story. Linda at All & Sundry manages it though. Ironically, I actually didn't think the shirt looked all that bad.

Weekly Article that Puts Things In Perspective

I read an article about a family with 11 children between the ages of twelve and one. None of her pregnancies were twins. It makes me rethink complaining about having handled two under two.

The Weekly Michael

This was Michael's last week at daycare. Next week he starts preschool. He knows he's going to "big kid" school starting next week. So far, he is taking this news with complete calm and mild interest. I am so hoping that next week goes beautifully for him. I hope it will be the beginning of a wonderful relationship between Michael and school. Our district is small. There is only one grade school, one middle school, and one high school and they are all together on a single campus. The buildings have all been recently renovated and the campus is beautiful. We have no plans to relocate, so Michael may well spend the vast majority of his waking days in this spot from the time he is three till the time he is eighteen. That is a pretty amazing thought and I want it to go well.

Ava this Week:

There are transitions everywhere. As Michael transitions from daycare to preschool, we are having Ava's transition meeting to begin planning her transition (if she qualifies) from early intervention to school district services. We had Ava's transition meeting yesterday. I'll write more about how that meeting went tomorrow.

Weekly Lesson: Buying Store Brand Doesn't Always Pay

As part of my attempt to eat better, I've been making lunches from steamed veggies. I usually get a name brand mix of broccoli and cauliflower in a microwave steamer bag, but they are a little pricey so I decided to try the store brand in a non-steamer bag. Well, steaming it was definitely a pain (compared to the steamer bag). It took longer, didn't come out as well, and dirtied more dishes. But the real problem was the quality. Almost half of the bag was broccoli stems. Just chunks of the stems. I actually threw them out because I find them tough to chew and not very tasty. Guess it wasn't such a great value after all.

Snapshots From a Day

Yesterday I got a little creative. Just a little. I printed out some worksheets from some teacher ebooks I've had on the computer for a while. I colored them to make them a little more eye catching. Then I slid them under some glass on a low coffee table we've been using as an art table for the kids.

Re-reading my last sentence, I realized that I made that last part sound easy. It's a long table and a heavy piece of glass that sits in the table top so that you can't get your fingers under it. I had the brilliant idea that I'd just tip the table over a bit so the glass would lean out and then I'd grab it. Let's just say I'm lucky the floor was carpeted. I then laid the pictures on the wood and sat and stared at the piece of glass for a good ten minutes trying to decide if I wanted to try to get that thing back on the table by myself. It's almost as tall as I am. Well, I did eventually get it back in there, but I'm hoping that the crack was there before I started the project and I just hadn't noticed it before...

Anyway, I gave the kids some washable dry erase crayons and let them color directly on the glass. They get to color and do the worksheets and then use a wet washcloth to clean it off and start all over again. They love it. They spent at least 30 minutes straight playing with it the first time and went back to it several more times during the day.

We also had a playdate yesterday. A friend of mine came over for the morning with her four year old daughter. The children were wonderful and played fairly independently with few conflicts all morning. That's pretty good for a two, three, and four year old. At one point I walked into the playroom and saw this:

The children were having an elaborate tea party. I'm guessing the idea was our guest's because my two had never played tea party on their own before. All three children were involved. They spread out a blanket, set everyone up with a teacup and saucer, and emptied the contents of the play kitchen so they would have food to "eat". I even filled the teapot with milk and let them pour and drink "tea". It was adorable and I thoroughly enjoyed spying on them a bit from around the corner.

All in all, yesterday was a good day.