I am always such a defeatist when it comes to facing the school district people. I like them very much, they are nice people, but I'm not all that sure of what we'll be doing next year. Ideally I would like her in Montessori three times a week but I'm not even sure she's still on their list. We will be homeschooling her full-time whether or not through the Vision program, probably a little of both, otherwise. Or we can put her in kindergarten part-time and still have a paraprofessional. I am full of ideas. Thankfully we have options.
At her IEP meeting today I discussed a number of changes I want to happen for this semester.
- Use of Social Stories with pictures
- No more allowing her to perseverate
- Encourage more interactive play inside
- Take lots of pictures, I provide the camera and batteries
- More one on one with Para, less stepping back to see what happens
- Scripting, two different kinds
Scripting is new to us. One kind is a concept Rhetta's OT came to us with to help focus Rhetta on the language of interaction. It involves a notebook and a pen. The Para will be instructed to have it handy at all times during any social interactivity and for her to write down what is being said by the children and herself. Rhetta reads so it will be written and scripted according to her level. Her attention will be brought to the notebook during the scripting so she can see the words it requires to have a conversation and the order in which they occur, also focussing on punctuation. The second kind is one Rhetta's ST brought to us and has been using at the preschool and that involves cards with actual lines for her to say on them. So instead of just listening to or ignoring the person talking there are the actual words she can read while it's being stated.
Overall I felt really good about our meeting. We will meet again next week with the same special services people and her paraprofessional to discuss specific objectives.
It feels so great to finally have Rhetta integrated and so weird at the same time because technically we are homeschoolers. Thankfully we are in a state where we can still take advantage of all the services Special Services has to offer without totally compromising our plans for our children.
Anyway, I'm figuring some things out and I am happy with the direction we're taking Rhetta.
1 comment:
That's awesome. I think you really can do both. Homeschooling will give you the total freedom to choose R's curriculum to fit her needs and taking advantage of the school's services will only help with her social interaction skills. Best of both worlds :)
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