Final Progress Report for the School Year

We got Joseph's final progress report for the year yesterday. He did very well in some areas, mastering several new skills. The least progress was in the speech section though, which I consider the most important right now.

It's discouraging. Though when he started school, he barely spoke at all, he's not improved as much as was expected.

One good piece of news though: Dublin doesn't have "special ed" classrooms. Their special ed program is inclusive. So when Joseph goes into Kindergarten, he'll be in a typical classroom with whatever supports we (his parents and his IEP team) decide are necessary for him to be successful (probably an aide). This is a big departure from my own experiences 20 years ago, when I was basically warehoused in a special ed classroom except for "specials," gym, music and art, until half-way through middle school.

Not much to say about his IEP. It's stuff like "Will greet and close with prompting 4/5 times" and stuff like that.

We don't know when the EIBI program through Children's will get rolling. We're going to try to put together something for the interim, especially since summer break just started.

Two new things we're going to be trying this summer, Therapeutic Listening and ADHD meds. We're still trying to find the right meds for Maria and we were going to wait until we got it worked out with her first, but Joseph's lack of concentration really is holding him back so we're going to talk to the pediatrician about trying some different stuff and we'll see how it helps him. When more than half of his 30 minute speech therapy appointment is spent struggling with him, trying to coax him into cooperating, it's difficult to make progress.

I've been skeptical about Therapeutic Listening, but I've heard good things about it from other parents so we're going to give it a shot when Joseph starts his next OT session in a few weeks. One thing I'm pretty sure about though, I don't believe that it's necessary to use their "special" equipment. If another set of headphones can deliver the same frequency range, I don't see why they wouldn't work. Anyway, it won't cost anything to try it out initially so it's worth a shot. I expect that if it works, it will work fine on an iPod too.

So we charge optimistically into summer. We'll do what we can and see what progress we can make with Joseph at home to better prepare him for the next school year. I haven't been posting much because I haven't felt there was anything to post about. Hopefully, the new season and new efforts will bring new things for me to write about. Keep praying for us. :)