I am so thankful for the school district where we live. Yesterday we had Sadie's IEP meeting, and even though she won't be attending school in the school district, they have been nothing but helpful in evaluating her and writing appropriate goals for her IEP.
For those who are not familiar with special education, and IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan, and basically maps out what a child needs in order to be successful in school. As you can imagine, each one looks very different, because they are based on the child's strengths, weaknesses, and specific needs. Since Sadie is very weak in all areas, she has goals written for communication/language, motor skills (PT and OT), vision, and adaptive.
Some of Sadie's goals include using a switch to participate in a group activity or to make a choice, to sit unsupported, roll in either direction (toward something she wants), and bring a spoon with food on it to her mouth. All of these are pre-academic, but are stepping stones toward big, life goals that I have for her. We also incorporated a toileting routine into her IEP to make sure that that gets followed.
The meeting went really well. The team had sent me a draft ahead of time, so I was able to look at it and make some notes before the meeting. They listened to what I had to say and I felt like my word was just as valuable as anybody else's in that room. And now that she has this document in place, she is able to start school!!
Monday morning I get to drop her off for her first day of preschool!!
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